Mohenjo Daro

How much we knew about Mohenjo Daro before watching this movie? now I analyze how much do I know about Mohenjo Daro? As we all know from our text books that nothing much is available about this civilization but only the ruins which were discovered around 1920.

So it is safe to say that we see an outright fictionalized account of Mohenjo Daro, it is centered in 2016 BC, where farmers from a small village grow indigo and sell it in Mohenjo Daro. Sarman (Hrithik Roshan), a young man, who sees visions of one-horned animal, vows to go to Mohenjo Daro as he ruminates and thinks he has a connection with Mohenjo Daro. His father Durjan (Nithish Bhardwaj) sends him reluctantly, giving an amulet and warns to open it only when in extreme jeopardy. He comes to Mohenjo Daro, got besotted by Chaani (Pooja Hegde) and engulfs himself in the malevolent and evil practices of the king Maham (Kabir Bedi) and his son Moonja (Arunoday Singh).

We see large set depicting the old era, where Sarman fights with an artificial Crocodile and it looked atrocious, we are living in the period where we have seen an immaculate versions of CGI technology, people cannot distinguish real or fake. Why can the filmmakers not make use of it? And why are they presenting these stale graphics to the people who have seen Bahubali and some of them just seen The Jungle Book?

The screenplay is filled with clichés because once it is a loud love story then a revenge saga then a rescue operation of mankind against a goddamn dam.

The characterization is hackneyed as characters were introduced by characters. Here we again loose the leading lady, she has only one expression and could not even do justice to a scene where her father dies. Other actors play their parts flawlessly as everyone were seasoned. However, a sloppy script has never been saved by an ensemble cast.

The costume design is appalling; it could have been better because we can see the amount of money thrown into every frame. A.R. Rahmans's music is ordinary and it does not have the melody which we have heard before.

Overall, a boredom with cheesy script and clichéd characters. If you are a hardcore Hrithik Roshan fan and want to see one or two good fight sequences, watch it or wait till it airs on one the TV channels.

5/10.

It's not really bad. But not very good neither. The crocodile is playing really good, very good actor! The unicorn also he plays well. The horses are OK too. I do not want to hurt the humans so... Kabir Bedi was much better when he was younger and even more beautiful in "The Black Corsair"Il corsaro nero(original title)(1976) and "La tigre è ancora viva: Sandokan alla riscossa!"(1977). Pooja Hegde is pretty. The girls dancing on her side are even sexier. Hrithik Roshan he does what he can do. The music and dances are beautiful. If you got nothing else better to do or you are like me and you want to watch all the movies in the world... Seriously now, watch any film by Fellini, Sergio Leone, Antonioni, Bertolucci, De Sica, Monicelli, Risi, Pasolini, Elio Petri, etc.

Ashutosh Gowariker has again come up with an interesting theme, but too bad, the execution falls through.

Sarman (Roshan) is an inquisitive farmer-cum-merchant who travels to the city of Mohenjo Daro to sell his yields against the wishes of his well-wishers. He is an outspoken and courageous fellow who enters the city, sells his first batch, and immediately falls in love with Chaani (Hegde), a princess of some kind who is widely known in the city to be a ray of hope for the citizens. Chaani reciprocates and Sarman pledges his alliance of love. However, Chaani's hand in marriage has already been given to Moonja (Singh), heir of the crown which is currently held by the dark-eyed, evil Maham (Bedi). Soon Sarman gets embroiled in the city's merchant market and becomes the voice of the poor against Maham and Moonja, the evidently autocratic rulers. His love for Chaani gives him power and helps him avenge a hidden truth and save the entire civilization from an inevitable flood.

The story is clichéd, no doubt about it. But, even the arcs that take the running time to about 150 minutes, are muddled with clichés and usualness. What an average viewer would expect from a theme like this is some novel insights into how the civilization worked, its market, its people, its culture. But, all we see is mockery of the civilization; introducing a unicorn and basing your cultural dance on it is not the way to go for a historical film. I personally do not know much about the city other than what my grade X history books taught me, but I was expecting something else - not 21st century AD in the disguise of 21st century BC.

The reason I rate this a 5 is because of the action sequences, the production setup, and an average execution. It's very clear that the writers did less-to-no research for this film, or they purposely tried to mix fictional romance into a topic held sacred by so many. Otherwise, it would have been a much interesting watch.

Roshan and Bedi perform well among the cast. Hegde should take more acting lessons. Music is not exhilarating and neither is the CGI. That's it; not much to talk about.

BOTTOM LINE: Ashutosh Gowariker's Mohenjo Daro is a disappointment; but we were warned, weren't we? Wait for TV premiere.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

If you had to recreate an ancient civilisation, what would you do? If you are Ashutosh Gowariker, and have had lots of experience in excavating the past (Lagaan, Jodhaa Akbar), you would scale it up. Instead of a few hundred years, you would go back a couple of thousands, ditching the merely old for the seriously antique.

Mohenjo Daro, set in Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley civilisation, is bigger but certainly not better than these two Gowariker's earlier outings. The sepia tone of the earth and the dwellings is balanced by an array of costumery: everyone looks like they have been handed out unstructured earth-toned garments, which follow the latest fashion du jour. And lest you thought they were not accessorised to the hilt in 2016 BC, perish it: the villainous chief wears a headgear of horns (the happily hamming Kabir Bedi, who carries it off with a raffish air) to an alarmingly tall crown of what looks like feathers, coins and shells sported by the leading lady (the debutant Pooja Hegde, who looks much better without, and may fare better in her next).In between is leading man Hrithik Roshan as poor indigo farmer Sarman, a resident of village Samri of the Sindh province, who has set his heart on going to neighbouring big town Mohenjo-daro. That is where, he is convinced, lie his fate and fortune, and an animal with one horn.Right from the build-up, featuring what is meant to be a thrilling boat ride and a fight with a fake-looking crocodile, all the better to show off Hrithik's rippling chest and ripping valour, Mohenjo Daro is a plod, and a heavily borrowed one to boot: the entry into a forbidden town (which strongly reminds us of Baahubali), the romance with a pretty stranger, the rivalry with a muscle-bound fellow, the unravelling of dark secrets, the saving of a town from a beastly ruler—we've seen so many versions of it before.It beats me how so much time and effort can be spent on creating something meant to be jaw-dropping, but which leaves you sighing at the sheer waste of it all. Just when you think the plot is shifting just a fraction, out pops yet another item number, complete with whirling dervishes (remember Jodhaa Akbar?) and belly dancers: how can you have a Hrithik film without getting him on the floor, even if it is daubed in mud?In Lagaan, there were the evil Brits who wanted more tax from the poor 'gaon-waalon'. In Mohenjo Daro too, along comes the demand for more 'kar-vasooli'. Gowariker also filches from the many Hollywood epics which dump their heroes into an arena and have them fight for their lives: Hrithik faces off with two iron-chested cannibals (Bedi terms them, helpfully, 'narbhakshi') who grunt and growl.

And just in case we were missing something, Sarman does a Noah, launches a massive rescue op, and saves scores of humans and animals, to swelling background music. By then, we're so exhausted that we let the waters of Sindhu Ma float over us, and wait for things to get over.

Mohenjo Daro was one of my most anticipated movies of 2016, and well, it wasn't good. This is probably the most disappointing movie I've seen all year unfortunately. Even though it's directed by the great Ashutosh Gowariker, it has so many problems that make it a very disappointing movie.

As always, I'll start with the positives. Hrithik Roshan is great in this role and by far the best part of the movie. Pooja Hegde is good as the female lead and I can see her as a future Bollywood star. A. R. Rahman's music is phenomenal and certain action scenes were done well. That's about it.

My biggest problem with the film is that it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. There's so many story-lines that are left hanging by the end of the film. The plot is so muddled and somewhere in there is a good movie with a good story. Kabir Bedi as the villain is pretty disposable but his character's son is even worse. The last 30 minutes of the movie are a complete awful shoehorned in subplot trying to make Hrithik's character looking like Noah and Moses.

Overall, Mohenjo Daro is an extremely disappointing movie and wasted potential. This could have been another masterpiece for Gowariker but it is a mess of a movie.

Mohenjo Daro gets a D.