madanmarwah

The story of a Hungarian-born Jew who lands on the shores of America to build his future. A sufficiently interesting storyline done well but not without its positives and negatives. A must watch in any case since it was much hyped and earned multiple award nominations.

The negatives first.

1. A long runtime of 215 minutes. No one can sit through for so long without losing interest at places. Could it have been reduced? Definitely by around 30 minutes at least. Could have been possible if the director had also edited the movie.

2. Too much of dialogue with quite a few monologues in place of one to one discussion. This has made it boring at a number of places mainly because of the way it is picturised.

Now the positives.

1. Director Brody Corbet has done a good job in unraveling the narrative and in creating the atmosphere of that time.

2. A superb performance by Adrien Brody for which he has deservedly got the Oscar. A kind of a character for which actors would go out of the way to grab the assignment. Also some equally good acting from Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce.

3. Excellent cinematography which does more than justice to the depiction of American rural landscapes and the awesome brutalistic architecture ( Huge square sectioned concrete pillars and iron structures with minimal finery.)

A single mother Janiyah with an eight year old daughter has acute financial problems and even finds it difficult to meet the school expenses of her sick daughter. One day her visit to the bank to encash her salary cheque goes wrong when she pulls a gun on the cashier who insists on an id which she doesn't have. This is reported as a hostage situation to the police who surround the bank and ask her to surrender. Others holed up in the bank are two bank executives, the bank manager and an old couple who are customers. The cops outside the bank carry out a long drawn, slow paced and a dreary negotiation withJaniyah almost cajoling her to give herself up.

In more talented and competent hands this could have turned out into a taut suspenseful thriller. Presently it presents a weepy, schmaltzy and over sentimental sob story which is overdone and refuses to either reduce or die down. Similar plots have been done in the past with the protagonist driven to the wall after facing cascading misfortunes and invariably resulting in a hostage situation. This movie falls into a similar pattern but the extremely slow pace makes it a difficult watch. A few sequences definitely appear contrived and most of the time the direction, acting and dialogues struggle at mediocre level.

A simple and emotional storyline set against a rural background by itself is not enough to make an absorbing movie. The directorial treatment, the dialogue, the flow and presentation of the narrative matters to a great extent. That is why this movie is notches below a similar " Laapata ladies" in all aspects.

Abhishek Bachchan plays the title role Kaalidhar with conviction and holds the plotline together getting good support from Daivik Baghela who plays 8 year old Ballu in a lovable way. The movie does drag at a number of places and the pace gets slow. Audiences used to the present day mainstream cinema will find it difficult to sit through. The narrative is too simplistic and straightforward which is no demerit but with lacklustre dialogue and no conventional entertainment to go along, it becomes a monotonous drag after some time. Abhishek Bachchan may land up with a couple of well deserved awards. Young Daivik Baghela has performed well for his age. Zeeshan Ayyub and Nimrat Kaur do not make much of an impression in their mundane roles which clearly lack depth.

The movie proves that it is easy to make a simple movie for the limited segment of discriminating audiences but difficult to make one for mainstream audiences.