Mausam

The positives: Shahid Kapoor - one of his best performances; Sonam Kapoor: definitely her best performance; Cinematography: remarkable visuals; Music: some beautiful melodies; Dialogues: some wonderful lines, especially between Shahid & Sonam

The negatives: Editing: especially, in the second half - the film could have easily been cut by 30-40mins; The captions of each place really distracted from the movie & made it feel disjointed; Writing: could have been much tighter

I'd recommend it if you're a true blue romantic, who would want to invest time & emotions in a film.

The allure of the first half of Mausam lies in the vintage love story which proceeds through unsaid words, unexpressed feelings, stolen glances and lots of melody (Pritam Singh). The affair which begins in 1992, before the demolition of the Babri mosque has an oriental charm to it and makes for some moments of great viewing. Mausam has lots to offer to the viewer who doesn't mind his cinema languorous, laid back and moody, with loads of beauty. The film tries to strike a balance between art and mainstream cinema and succeeds.

After a long time I watched a movie with calming effect. With all power fight movies in the cinemas, Mausam gives a shade of love and feelings.

Let's just cut to the chase here (something I WISH the movie had done): Mausam is a never-ending borefest. I will never be able to recover the 3 hours I spent on this movie, but I will use the next 5 minutes to help you save yours.

The movie tried too hard to be an epic. Other movies that tie together themes of romance and religious / political conflict (Bombay for example) do so with force and passion -- Mausam tries to be subtle, which is all well and good, but when you repeat the subtle message for THREE HOURS it begins to be less subtle, and terribly boring.

Mausam is an epic case of boredom. If I wrote that sentence 2000 times, and forced you to read it, you will get an idea of what this movie is like. Please save your loved ones from this gigantic wastebasket of a movie.

The only redeeming factor in this movie was Sonam Kapoor, who is quite beautiful and does her best to look good while playing an insanely boring character. Shahid Kapoor remains an average actor, but my wife tells me he's very good looking too.

I have said everything in above line, still i need to write 10 lines to qualified it as a valid review. Most importantly initial 40-45 minutes are awesome, movie is worth watching just because of this part. It clearly shows how a simple straight story can be so entertaining and heart touching, it was pure delight to watch that. Actually I was under the impression that it is going to be my best Hindi movie but then comes the real Bollywood in action: meaningless struggle, irrelevant side stories and all that crap you find in most of Hindi movies. But one again, I would suggest to give it a try, specially because initial part is better so you can leave the cinema anytime you want after that.

Pankaj Kapur is a really talented actor. Even though direction is not his forte, its not unreasonable to have high expectations from an artist of such caliber. The movie starts really well making you feel its a winner. Then comes the feeling that plot is moving bit slowly. You brush it aside as minor flaw and look forward. Finally, after long wait, you expect and want the movie to wrap up soon and you see an intermission flashed on screen. What???? And then follows strings of impossible coincidences. Not once but again and again and again. Topped by desire to have Shahid in every frame of movie and including all depressing religious flashpoints from Kashmir to 9/11 to Gujarat, into a love story finally killed it completely. I felt sad not from the movie but from the fact that it could have been such a good movie. The idea of showing important world evens in the backdrop of a love story is not new. I have seen it executed well in many movies. Can't recall which one was the first and best. But this is the worst. You got to know when to stop. Also, the idea is to write love story and then fit world events that could be plausible. This script decided on sort of unconnected events scattered around the world and then tried to fit the love story around it throwing logic and common sense out of window!!! You got to know that you are losing the grip over logic. Well, lack of common sense is indeed common. In the end despite all the money and technology the Bollywood is really short of basic ingredients of art and originality. There is kin promotion everywhere including Hollywood. However, if kins are only ones everywhere around in almost every Bollywood movie, you know it has really gone too far.....