Ram-Leela

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali returns with a bang with this highly commercial venture based adaptation of William Shakespeare's romantic classic "Romeo and Juliet", showcasing excellence with great technical and lead work. The director brings the Desi adaptation on screen with high gloss and great moments 25 years after what the 1988 Hindi classic "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak" (Dir: Mansoor Khan) had brought. This film lies among his best works "Khamoshi" (1996), "Black" (2005) and "Guzaarish" (2010) with some nice twists and moments. The flaws in the film lies with the over melodrama and even over romantic factor in the film as well as its length which could have been cut down by editor Rajesh Pandey who also succeeds in bringing some great moments in a slick yet stronger form. The film's cinematography by Ravi Varman is excellent where every frame is painted well with sheer excellence and the execution of the shots by Ken Metzker in his DI work has been put up well. Production Design by Wasiq Khan, reminds of the brilliance of Bhansali's previous genius Nitin Desai in the director's previous works. The choreography is brilliant too and the music score by Bhansali and Monty Sharma is colourful, foot tapping and beautiful. The dialogues (Siddharth and Garima) are good and are also loaded with some nice punchlines worth of Taalis and Seetis. The screenplay by Bhansali and his team is good with its nice structure. In performances, Shruti Mahajan: Take A Bow for her selecting a brilliant supporting cast with Sharad Kelkar, Richa Chaddha, Abhimanyu Singh, Jameel Khan and Barkha Bisht who fit well in their respective roles. Supriya Pathak Kapur is excellent and is worth to look out for. In the lead, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone come up with a sizzling chemistry as well as great performances, with the latter showcasing more excellence. Overall, this film is worth your ticket. Just sit back and enjoy the celluloid based vibrant splendor.

I watched this film with mixed expectations. On one hand, I had seen the Nagada Sang Dhol and Lahu Muhn Lag Gaya clips on you-tube - exactly what caught my eye and made me want to watch it. On the other hand, a- not-so-good rating and most reviewers claiming it was very bad were lowering my expectations. I did, however, watch it, and I loved it.

The film is intense, wonderfully directed and benefits from great acting. I am not familiar with any of the actors; nor with Bollywood films in general, which I do not find appealing because of their over- dramatisation of... pretty much everything. And mostly, poor acting. This is where Ram-Leela stands out. Apart for a few scenes, the director made use of the actor's skills, and pushed them to the point they save the sometimes-poor script. There's great chemistry in there, as well as some more than convincing acting, all in wonderful colours and costumes.

I had a hard time understanding why it's got such harsh reviews, given how good it is, but reading them I realized what the problem is (and probably why I liked it): Ram-Leela is not a film for puritans. While it seemed quite tame to me, certain watchers found it "vulgar", or too sexual. From my point of view, it's aligned with European films. What it lacks in plot-line (although decent), makes up with daring performances and honest acting. As for those claiming it's not a love story, I agree: it's a battle of egos, and most important, a battle with the self for each of the characters. This could have been emphasized more, but you can't have everything.

Ram Leela: Film opens up with colors, guns and a mahool was tried to be created but it was simply studio environ and thus provided a fake feeling. But Bhansali has also shown tremendous potential as a director when you consider certain aspects. Credit to him to get out some exceptional performances from his cast, Deepika is definitely improving with every outing but he deserves applaud to get some real stuff out of Ranveer Singh. That's where Motwani was found wanting in Lootera. Ranveer's hot bod is flaunted with precision and no one will complain about it. Supriya Pathak as Deepika's mother deserves special mention here for her performance. Priyanka was simply mind blowing in her class title track, as well as Deepika in her red ghagra 'Dhol' song....both of them have some exceptional choreography with equally fantastic dance. Deepika also looked like a queen seductress in her act on bed while 'Ang laga De' was playing, in fact she played that role uninhibitedly in whole movie. Songs are pretty good except 'Ishqyaun' that reminds you of Govinda-Raveena of 90s, simply bogus. Chemistry is intense between the lead pair, it becomes hard to take your attention off.....you tend to drown in their acts, where their electric smooches are icing on the cake. Only worry is that it started too spontaneously. Cinematography is great, but there are places where you feel this should have been real instead of studio and animation. Bhansali saab please understand movie is supposed to be real and theater is drama unless you don't want it to be otherwise. Editing is done beautifully, you hardly get to cry about length or unwanted stuff. Screenplay is the weakest link of the movie, transition of Ranveer from lover to don and an unconvincing end without much weight will leave you dissatisfied. If you want to watch a fitting end, go for Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo and Claire Danes (1996). All in all film has Bhansali's stamp-theatrical, lots of perfect scenes and moments.....but it fails when you talk of the whole package. Definitely a watch, but don't expect it to deliver as a movie. This is a classical example of how you can fail to deliver even when you succeed- 3.3/5

Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, one of the most anticipated movies of the year releases with all its bang and reveals itself as least related to stuff for which it had been declared controversial.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's take on Romeo-Juliet, despite a known script, seems quite refreshing. The visuals, nobody questions, is by far Bhansali's best. Utterly flawless. You might want to compare the flawed VFX effects of movies like Krrish 3 and Ra. One and find Ram-Leela's visuals standing far ahead of them. The symmetry he puts in, the pattern he develops in every visual is like the best artist would.

SLB's poetry, dialogs and expression are so well that you might want other directors to get training from him. The professionalism is of Hollywood standard.

The songs are already chart-topping (Nagade Sang Dhol was No.1 on i Tunes for 7 consequent weeks), and when you watch them in the movie you feel mesmerized. So well choreographed are these dances that you couldn't stop yourself from thinking of performing them on some occasion. Though a bit raunchy, Ishkiyaon Dhishkyon seems more funny than vulgar. Priyanka's item number gives mph effect.

The strongest part of Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela is the star performances. We do not doubt that Deepika Padukone, who has established herself as an equal of the Vidya Balan and Shaban Azmi only betters herself with this movie, giving her critics a yet bigger challenge. She, as Leela, is flawless. You wouldn't be watching Deepika Padukone, but Leela in the movie. Though in Cocktail, Ye Jawaani ha Deewani and Chennai Express, Deepika was the soul of the movie, here she has to share it with Ranveer Singh who acts equally well. This is his best performance so far. In fact, this is the best performance of the year by a male actor. Richa Chada is shockingly real as Leela's sister-in-law and Supriya Pathak, though sounds a bit like Hansa, is exhilarating and fear-inducing. Every dialog she delivers is pitch perfect.

The perfection that Bhansali has expressed in all the aforementioned topics gets polluted by the flawed script. Though in the first half you do not notice how time passes with the songs, acting and the chemistry setting fire to the screen, the second half takes a U-turn. The second half begins with impracticality, which moves on to deal with various serious topics, which is exceptional to a love story. What becomes a problem here is the absence of effective execution of these scenes. The sub-plots are in abundance but all last for so less time that the tears of Leela and Ram do not reflect on the audience's eyes. Before the audience could feel the pain, the scene changes. The ending becomes more like a fairy tale which ruins all the realistic happenings of the movie.

Despite its flaw, Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela stands as WORTH WATCHING. One must definitely watch this class-and-mass movie for entertainment, visuals, star performances, songs, and by far the best adaptation of Romeo and Juliet by Bollywood. Go fall in love with Ram-Leela!

To begin with RAM-LEELA remains another self-obsessed, colourful but over-stuffed painting on the celluloid with some exceptional brush strokes failing to generate any huge impact on the viewer in totality. The film does have its worth watching moments which are mostly to be found in its first half watching the lead pair together doing their lusty sexual acts (questionably) portrayed as Eternal LOVE. But post intermission it all fizzles out drastically and the director tries to add too many unconvincing twists and turns taking it to an unnerving end sadly. No doubt few magical moments do come in at various intervals, consolidating the director's famous status in the industry. But regrettably they are not something fresh or path-breaking, since either they remind you of a song sequence of his mega hit "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" or of a powerful scene of "Devdas" giving you a seen before kind of feel, repeatedly. The soundtrack too is able to impress only partially with a few good tracks in the initial reels and as the film progresses their excessive use starts becoming annoying, particularly in the second half.

To say the truth, being a powerful love story as per its theme, I found the famous "Bhansali Feel of Love" also missing in the film replaced by lust, sex and double meaning dialogues quite surprisingly. For instance, I may sound to be an 'old timer' but I don't think a girl can easily come forward and give a straight smooch to a boy if he looks good and of her own type just in the first meeting itself in a public place. Moreover the way both the boy and girl start rolling over each other on the bed with several kisses one after another in their second meeting only…………, for me it wasn't anything close to 'Pure Love' but only lust, sex or body hunger and nothing else.

Interestingly such depiction of love was not there in any of Bhansali's earlier films. The director never showed his love birds in this kind of sexy, lusty avatars ever before. Hence undoubtedly this time Bhansali is more interested in reaching the masses with cheap insertions of a blue film parlour, David Dhawan like rhyming dialogues, guns, bullets, murders, rape attempts and bloodbath, may be in a state of desperation. Yes, he begins well with an exceptional sequence of rivalry between two groups in the first scene and then handles another sequence depicting the same with a superb camera-work & vision. But actually this isn't a Bhansali genre at all and once the love birds get separated, going into the violent mood, the film falls flat with everyone behaving in a confusing manner not suiting their actual character as defined in the first hour.

In the performance section, the actors simply surrender themselves to the vision of their director and the three winners coming out of entire cast are Deepika, Supriya Pathak, and Richa Chadda unarguably. Following the above are Abhimanyu Singh, Gulshan Devaiah, Sharad Kelkarand Barkha Bisht who play their parts well but the director should have given more mileage to Richa Chadda alone. Along with these good performances there are some pretty ordinary ones too including Raza Murad, Homi Wadia and the deliberately added poor item number of Priyanka Chopra. Talking about the lead pair, Deepika once again scores over her hero and she even goes shockingly bold this time as instructed by the so called love-guru i.e. SLB. Ranveer on the other hand, doesn't offer something new, as he plays the same old flirty lover boy with the only difference of his Rajasthani attire and nothing else through a great script too with something novel to share.

Revealing the controversy, SLB's film has nothing to do with either Lord Ram or his sacred Leela at all. So the director had a clear intention of using the phrase "RAM-LEELA" for his film's instant publicity alone and all this controversy could have been easily avoided by using any other name with a regional touch.

Regarding its subject based on Shakespeare's "Romeo-Juliet", I remember watching QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK when I was in school and then few other films too with the same theme. Plus just recently there was not one but two films made on the same subject namely ISHAQZAADE & ISSAQ, which forces me to think that perhaps except Vishal Bhardwaj, very few have read the other classics of William Shakespeare in reality in our own Bollywood. And that might be the reason why they repeatedly pick the same old, over-used Romeo-Juliet again & again to bore the innocent audience quite arrogantly. However there is one more reason which comes to my mind regarding the use of this same theme again and that is the 'Fear of Rejection'.

Anyway, for me CINEMA means "The Art of Storytelling" and if a film hasn't got a new or interestingly fresh story to tell then it is quite a waste of time despite all the great visuals, drama, music, performances and execution. To elaborate on the same, we have a small life here to live on this planet with a limited capability to read or know all the worth studying literature of the world. So we need the medium of cinema to introduce us to many unknown and unexplored gems written within as well as out of the country following a wider vision. And that is exactly what I search for while watching every new film coming my way in any form.

So with a hope that these reputed film-makers of our industry would soon find their old courage back, I can only recommend RAM-LEELA to the viewers who are more interested in just the bodies and not their souls.