Mohenjo Daro

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.

Historical drama is not Bollywood's forte and it has never been treated seriously. Making a captivating historical drama, despite being fully factually correct, requires a great deal of unlearning and relearning, which Ashutosh Gowariker could not dare to do much for 'Mohenjo Daro'.

Making a film on 5000 years old Indus Valley Civilization, with scantly available research data, is a herculean task and it requires great labor and vision to make a compelling story out of it. Gowariker tried its best to deliver in every aspect of the film, but, unfortunately, he could not create a story as big as its characters and setting. He also did not shy away from falling in the trap of traditional Bollywood winning formulas i.e. run-of-the-mill romance.

The film is not a failure but the disappointments are too colossal to handle, especially when these come from the maker of films as great as 'Lagaan' and 'Swades'.

Hirithik Roshan, however, shines in 'Mohenjo Daro'. He has given one of the memorable performances of his entire career and has single-handily saved the ship from sinking. On the other hand Poja Hedge, the pretty girl with cute smiles, does not have much to deliver. Kabir Bedy, a very big name, could have done better if his character was not written in haste or without giving it shades and depth.

The background score of the movie, done by maestro A. R. Rehman, is breathtaking and epic in all senses. But the songs are ridiculously too modern to believe these could have been popular in 2016 BC.

The language is hard to understand fully, especially by Urdu speakers, but it sounds very powerful and great. Sindhu Ma (Indus river) takes center stage in the story and a huge thumbs-up for that, as this was one most satisfying experience in the whole film especially for the history lovers.

'Mohenjo Daro' is the first of its kind effort of making a film of this scale on the mysterious and very less known part of the human history. Either it succeeds or fails in impressing the audiences, it will be remembered as an effort of taking the road less traveled and telling less known stories.

Just finished watching a pirated copy of this anal travesty. Slumdogs cannot create art. They just can't. My blood is boiling, I can imagine someone paying a 150 odd bucks to sit through it. God where does one even begin.

Hrithak can't act for *beep* Like he has that one "aura" in every film I've seen of his. The brooding angry man about to burst like a bubble, or the doey eyed love struck dancing moron. Nothing else. This guy should be blacklisted from showing his face to me. But of course an actor can only do what-I-or us directors want them to do.

Ashu-tosh "Sir" seems to be aping Star Wars A new hope what with Cambell's Hero Journey template but like 95% of Indians(myself and a few on here I feel excluded) he simply copy pastes the process and commits the cardinal sin of "Indianizing" it. Which means they could've have shot this in the backdrop of 2016 Dharavi and it wouldn't matter. Boy sees girl, falls for her, stuff happens around them, the end. Except it takes 9 Godawful hours(or so it felt) to get to it.

Opening scene pretty much sums up the ordeal. Our immortal lad fights the fakest looking alligator ever put on cinema. Seriously folks, right then and there I looked t my friend and we both had to go buy 3 quarters of Old monk. I mean Lake Placid had a better croc and when was that-1997?, heck, Khoon Bhari Maang had a better animal. Couldn't they like work on the CGI one bit? What the hell goes on in India? I mean at the rolling credits of most Hollywood films I see the Indian drones names fly by....They have all the animation studio here and this is what you get? Same thing with Baahubali....terrible, terrible CGI(as opposed to the gorgeous real locations and sets). Don't they have a rough *beep* screening in this town? More IMPORTANTLY don't these c**k sandwiches realize that showing less is more. Nothing inspired from John Carpenter's innumerable films or Jaws. They could have just shown the tip of the alligator, as they usually appear in real life- and made a great scene out of it. The Alli jumped a few metres😥

Anyho, after killing the reptile he returns home to his village....I'll give them this the practical locations are good. It looks and feels good. There they indulge in the most boring putrid diatribe ever put on screen. Heck, I don't even remember anything of it it was that bad. We meet his obligatory sidekick whose there to explain things and follow Hercules around like a *beep* fat drone. The fat *beep* Hercules has a dream where he seems a Unicorn, but wait....it doesn't look like a horse, more like a pony or sheep(seriously look it up), so its a sheepricorn. It looks at Hercules and now he wants to go to the Holy fable land of Mohen-Jo- Daro. Luke Skywalke, err, I mean Saram(or something similar) decides to go on his Hero's Journey and after some *beep* CGI(really guys the CGI here is terrible, its not even so bad its good). they reach the promised land. What happens next is a daze because I became too drunk. But there's literally nothing happening. Nothing at all. The chick is cute but she cannot act. There is a CGI panning shot from a window to the whole panorama of the city and even on a small screan we couldn't help but cringe, image the terror from the audience POV.

There is a arena battle scene lifted(well sort of, if you can even call it an effort) from the Star Wars prequel and Gladiator except in this case our Hero is victorious when it really doesn't seem like it can happen. Not in this Universe or any other.

The end is again a cheesefest where some river floods the city(I haven't done a lot of reading but is this true or they just made it up) and it is the fakest sickest bunch of scenes put together. Seriously amateur stuff guys. There are exactly 7 cows(guess they couldn't afford after paying Krish his 40 crore) which are repeated in every scene. One scene where Hercules/Mind reader actually tames 3 horses. They're never seen again. These are just minor quibbles and there are a lot of these. Is this the same guy who directed that legendary masterpiece "What's your rashi" with Hercules clone? That film is a masterpiece compared to this travesty.

Don't these guys have script readers, some people who question the product except just Hero worshiping the actor and the director? I hope the film sinks faster than the city did.

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.

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