Bhaag Milkha Bhaag- Review

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag- 4.5/ 5

Not only was this movie my most awaited movie, but I think we gotta admit Bollywood makes great movies on sports...well the ones where sports plays a supporting role to the main hero.

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is a grand biopic on India's post independence sports superstar MIlkha Singh, The Flying Sikh. 

What I like about the movie is the honesty of telling a story. Its not based on his achievements but what makes the man who he is in spite of the so called "lemon" that life hands you. I love when the director fools me by leading me into thoughts and emotions I didn't know or care existed. The movie begins with Milkha losing by a photo finish in Rome and then the rest is flashback. India hopes lost at winning a medal ( Rome 1960 Olympics) and thats what pretty much all of us remember of "milkha singh" ( that how we wired, we remember failures more easily, 1996 world cup was all about kambli's tears) and thats what the director does, he starts of the movie with that bitter truth and then gets into the story of what leads you to that moment. At this point you think you know how the movie ends. (all about so close, yet so far). and then 3 hours later, it hits you. Bammm!!! ...screw that loss its not about the race!!!

Full marks to Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, I will always believe that there could have never been a better ending to "rang de basanti", and this guy knew his sh*p. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was no different. A great technical director and superb editing ( Using the word "superb" for the 1st time since the 90s) .Farhan Aktar is a talent factory and Should/Could win an award for this. The connect with punjab and partition is spot on. reminded me of stories my Granddad told me about times back then. And the honor of doing push ups in front of the village to win bets. ( so that ghee scene...kinda legit... blame the punjabis)..(also for the white chick scene....blame the punjabis)...milkha riding through pakistan reminds me of the scene where Will Smith (ALI) jogs the lanes of Africa and connect with who he really is. And before you know it, the movie has gone beyond the flashback and through the present scenario (1960 olympic fail) and now everyones moving forward. Technically...Superb ( 2nd for the millennium). Flashback shifts amazingly from 3rd person perspective on situations to 1st person perspective on emotions.

Two things I didnt like about the movie, was the whole sonam kapoor part, cut that whole scene out (with her 4 lines and a random song), reduce it below 3 hours. and I wish...so badly wish, the song "Zinda" was the anthem for the movie and played more often than the other "bhaag milkha bhaag song"...(technically thats the line that scars him..why should that be the main song?)

Good time cinematically and entertaining too. Special shout-out to that character artist in the army...where do you find someone like that??...needs a mention for sure..

My Romanchick Flick

people..

Well, it always seems like a massive beginning and a brain cracking, hair grabbing idea that would want to make someone start a blog. Or you could be like me, have non of that and just write a bad one in memory of your nerdy English teacher who read your essays out in class just so she could get the snotty chicks to laugh at you. This, my friends is no different. To you Mrs. Sweat patch

Books taught me very little anyway, clearly they were meant for a time when television didn’t exist. What was impactful was Bollywood. Man!! Bollywood is a dream best seen awake.

So lets begin. Bollywood, the reason this country buys stale samosa’s

I had the opportunity to go and catch “one” movie on my last trip to Bombay. I went to Inox (I love) in town with my lady love( I love too) to watch mausam (Hindi for Season/Seasons). Now mausam was somewhat the most awaited Romantic, majestic, enticing, emotional movie of the year. And it did non of that. it fell short on many grounds. Now I aint critiquing the movie.

But I did realize, left alone Bollywood, the whole world is familiar with the emotion of love. Meeting someone falling in love. Love overcomes all. Soul mates!!, its everywhere and its bloody contagious. However….however it exist in such perfection. Il tell you, lets go back to Bollywood.

Now if you have had the opportunity to know the pulp behind the Hindi movie industry, you would know people live and die for a hit formula. 

They actually believe a movie has 4 to 5 sure success elements and that sails the movie through. 

Item songs is the latest addition to this. Item songs is what “foreign locations” was in the 90’s and what “song and dance” was in the 50s, 60s and pretty much till last nights show. Genres of movies are universally the same. Action, Comedy, Horror and Romance. Now India is a county where superstition sells as much as sex. And that’s where most movies fall short. Try to add everything in 3 hours of a viewers life, whose average memory span is not more than last 2 hours. Mausam is no different. See in Bollywood you can get away with a few good action scenes using CGI and cables, add few spooks and showering women and you have a good horror movie. Comedy always finds its own audience. But romantic movies, ai ai ai!!! That’s a tough one. 

They need to be as illustrative as a comic book square and as tight as the holy scriptures. No margin of error. A romantic movie has to be bullshit proof. It has to hit the right spot from the right angle and your golden. A little to the right and there’s nothing left. Flipside you ask?

Epic DDLJ, Love story between 3 eyebrows 

If you do manage to do that, you will have a citizen kane of that decade. People never forget a good romantic movie. Goes down as a mark in history. Generations in your family will talk about it like, it is what gave you your family name. which is why we have one good romantic epic which happens every decade or a dozen years. 

It is bloody hard to get that right. I mean as a director you literally need to make the audience miss someone they have been with or are with or imaginatively would wanna be with. Make the viewer look at the person he or she is with and say "I love you" or better “im sorry darling I think I love someone else ” (during mausam I noticed oil bubbles on my samosa. they were made in another mausam). it just doesn’t seem fair and doesn’t make sense. An emotion which is most known to everyone yet seems distant if not done exceptionally well. Does loves existence lie in perfection?

As I walked back home holding her hand. we walked under the night sky and the city lights and I realized, the "date movie” moment had passed, and we were here living another one. And this would soon change into another one. Its these small moments that make our story. It’s the unsaid things that speak the most and “look” that makes the 3^rd person want to be one of us. I cant explain it, but Id share that samosa any day.

There are no formulas to making a romantic movie. I guess all it takes is someone like me and someone like you.

Marine Drive, best place of Bombay

Note- Since I have your attention, having the right kind of food in a cinema hall is very important. Come in a little early, and chose your weapon of munch carefully. Try an avoid company that may wanna share the loot. There is no redemption to that.

Much Love...