बेग़म जान

Murder, rape and shattered families: 1947 Partition. The horror and the magnitude of suffering was unimaginable. Religious riots along with acts of oppression and cruelty marked this huge event as a dark blot on the history of the World.

Vidya Balan dives into her character with the fierceness and aggression, She is just amazing. Srijit Mukherji's direction appears to be colorless and purposeless at times. Background Music is not much good.

While the story is unique and interesting (written by Srijit Mukherjee, the director of the film), the movie has a bunch of good actors, it is the direction that falters at several points. This Story is so vast and heart-rendering, if they had made this movie so brilliantly then this movie was going to get an Oscar, Unfortunately missed! After all the faults you should watch this movie and feel the painful times during 1947.

Why the rating is so poor when "sex" is a positive religion. No mind thinks twice while sex, what is caste, religion, rich and poor. In my guess, all the reviews were based on Pakistan, these days India has hostile relation with Pakistan. The movie reflects the present situation of women in society, they face sexual harassment in every step. One scene makes my sight so cruel when the old woman and young girl stripped her dress.

A strongly written and well-thought script that shows partition vows with a very different and unique angle. Barring the irrelevant noisiness of some characters, it's a well directed and acted movie. Vidya Balan along with other characters like Gauhar Khan, Chunky Pandey, Sumit Nijhawan and Ila Arun were brilliant.

Storyline Rating: 4

Acting Rating: 3 Vidya Balan: 3 Gauhar Khan: 3 Chunky Pandey: 4 Sumit Nijhawan: 4 Ila Arun: 3 Naseeruddin Shah: 3 Pallavi Sharda: 2 Ashish Vidyarthi: 3 Vivek Mushran: 2 Rajit Kapoor: 3

Direction Rating: 3

Music Rating: 3

Cinematography: 3

Editing: 3

India Pakistan partition is back drop of this film. A brothel comes between the border line and then government officers from both side and brothel women stands against each other. It starts with conflict, ends with battle. Characterization is major problem of this film. As writer director had clear cut vision that every person outside the brothel should have been grey or dark. Due to his this point of view most of the characters behave abruptly or turn grey without much logic. When local Inspector fails to evict them, two powerful government officers, rather than seeking help from higher authorities, they jointly decide to take help of a brutal goon, as if they had some personal grievances against the brothel, which is not clear and if they did it, just for their ego satisfaction then they are stone hearted but then they get highly emotionally affected in climax!! Why it was so necessary to demolish the brothel, is not established. Brothel or border fence could have been shifted or at least tried for the same. How and why, brothel care taker Salim had collected so much guns and ammunition is not clear, yes he was dismissed Inspector. Just because of makers had thought to use all this in climax! Director is so desperate to prove himself that he used new way of taking shots and even repeated them many times without thinking of its effect like, India and Pakistan partition offices only half face in frame most of the time when they converse emotional. It could have been bearable just for once but this type of frame has been repeated. Dialogues are very good, especially the line at interval 'Maheena giinne toh hamen khoob aata hai saab......'. Climax is very heavy. Performance wise Vidya Balan as Begum Jaan is first rate. Good performance is the main strength of this film. Gauher Khan as Rubina shines in the scene when she speaks with Surjit at the stone of river. Her performance is very layered. Pallavi Shrada as Gulaboo is fine. Chunkey Pandey as Kabir is brilliant. His looks and expressions, both are terrific which create the much needed terror. Flora Saini as Maina is fine. Pitobash Tripathi as Surjit is impressive.

This movie is a almost shot by shot remake of the Bengali film Rajkahini by same director and writer.

The Bengali movie has many problems as it doesn't holds up to the level as the story wants. This movie was way better than the the original. The director seems to be corrected all the mistakes and gaps and made it a good movie.

The acting is very good by every one specially Vidya Balan and all the girls are good. The main problem with the original is that it was not well acted by some of the supporting casts. But this one is and it gives every scene more gravitas.

The contract killer character portrayal of Chunky Pandey is not as good as the character portrayal in the original movie by Jisshu Sengupta.

This movie is bold as it can be on the screen. It has heavy dialogues. It is more suspenseful and more gory. The acting is good. Story is fantastic as it is known. Allover it is a very good and corrected remake of an average movie.........7/10...........