Release date:
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May 13, 2016
|
Director:
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Tony D’Souza
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Cast:
Language: |
Emraan Hashmi, Prachi
Desai, Nargis Fakhri, Lara Dutta, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Rajesh Sharma, Manjot
Singh, Gautam Gulati, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Hindi
|
For an industry that has avoided biopics through most of its existence – fearing lawsuits, thin-skinned fans, a national penchant for idolatry, violent reactions to political hot potatoes and also, perhaps, its own limited investment in research – Bollywood has certainly taken to the genre with a vengeance in recent years. After the money-spinners Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) and Mary Kom (2014), comes Azhar just months before the celluloid biography of M.S. Dhoni.
Tony D’Souza’s film takes on the
story of arguably the most controversial sportsperson of 20th
century India, a figure first revered and later reviled, former Indian cricket
captain and batsman Mohammad Azharuddin. An opening disclaimer tells us that
this is “not meant to be a biopic” of Azharuddin but a “fictionalized dramatic
representation of incident(s)…for entertainment purposes only” (for full text of disclaimer, see footnote).
The claim is amusing – as is the use of
incomplete names throughout, probably on the advice of the producers’ lawyers –
since the film is about a Hyderabad-born Indian batsman jiske “naam mein hi Mohammad
hai” but who is popularly addressed
as Azhar, who came from humble beginnings, made his international cricket debut
in the 1980s, hit a century in each of his first three Tests, was married young
to a woman called Naureen, captained India, hit headlines not just for his
on-field achievements
but also for his affair and subsequent marriage to an actress called Sangeeta
and was banned for life by the country’s top cricket body on charges of match
fixing, with the ban being set aside by a court nearly a decade
later.
Not a biopic? Okay.
The shy boy who fumbled his way
through interviews, who still swallows more words than he lets out of his
mouth, yet managed to charm a high-profile, glamorous star from 1980-90s
Bollywood (Salman Khan’s ex-girlfriend Sangeeta Bijlani, no less), is without
doubt fascinating even to a non-cricket fan. That he had a scintillating career
before he was disgraced makes him a troubled icon even now for cricket maniacs.
Azharuddin had once famously said he was victimised by the cricketing
establishment because he is a minority community member, which makes him highly
relevant in the current socially and politically volatile atmosphere (note: he later apologised for the remark).
The film fails in its treatment
of all three aspects of Azhar’s life.
While his initially hesitant and
then comfortably boring relationship with his first wife is well established,
it skims over his liaison with his second wife. In fact, Sangeeta remains a
distant creature throughout, a woman he seems to have fallen for primarily out
of sympathy when he realises that glamour dolls have feelings.
More disappointingly, Azhar does not even touch upon the
potential communal angle, an element that was handled with such delicacy and
beauty in Shimit Amin’s Chak De! India
(2007) starring Shah Rukh Khan.
The film truly does itself in
though by inexplicably serving up very little cricket. Even the worst
screenplay might have been lifted by some suspenseful on-screen matches, but Azhar remains a sports film sans the
sport.
What we get instead is a
half-baked, half-hearted attempt to declare Azharuddin innocent of match-fixing
charges. Even if the job of discussing the nitty-gritty of the case is left to
cricket experts, this question is bound to strike even a layperson: if indeed
the BCCI (not mentioned by name) had framed Azhar back then, what were its
motivations?
By not even bothering to address
that point, the film lets down the man whose reputation it appears to be
trying to redeem in the public eye.
Azhar’s tepid pace and cursory writing
are not its only follies. Nargis Fakhri bobbed her
head through her debut Bollywood film Rockstar
in 2011. Five years later, her performance as Sangeeta relies entirely on
her hotness to tide over her awkward dialogue
delivery and inability to handle serious emotions.
A further let-down
comes in the ordinary execution of her big moment in the film: the
resurrection of the hit song Oye Oye (Gajar ne kiya hai ishara) from the 1989 blockbuster Tridev
which starred Bijlani. The success of that number is the only memorable element
in the former actress’ indifferent filmography, yet the choreography and remix
are so lukewarm that you have to wonder why the filmmaker even bothered with
it.
Though Fakhri is a poor choice,
there are others in the cast who are not.
It is easy to take Emraan Hashmi
lightly considering that through most of his career he has played pretty much
the same character – the romantic rascal – with varying storylines. He revealed
his acting chops though in Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai (2012). Here, he does
not manage Azhar’s bumbling speech but nails the walk and, more important,
gives the cricketer a certain vulnerability that is hard to resist even when
all else around him in the film collapses.
Prachi Desai too
has played more or less the same character through her short career: a simple,
innocent, pretty young thing. There’s more to her
character and her performance in this film though. Her Naureen is controlled, her heartbreak believable.
In a small role as
Azhar’s Naanujaan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda is a loveable presence as always.
Rajesh Sharma delivers a chameleon-like performance as the slimy bookie M.K. Sharma. Manjot Singh too makes a mark in a brief role as a
turbanned batsman-turned-commentator modelled on Navjot Singh Sidhu. Without
making a laboured over-the-top effort, he does a good Sidhu impression.
Lara Dutta and
Kunaal Roy Kapur get to play lawyers in some of the most boring, poorly written
court scenes seen in a Hindi film in a while. Despite flashes of effective
humour in Kapur’s equation with the presiding judge, it is impossible to get
past the dreariness of the overall treatment, the lack of content in most of
their arguments, the fakeness of the set and Dutta’s excessive makeup. After
the depth of the Arshad Warsi-starring legal drama Jolly LLB (2013) such courtroom mediocrity is hard to bear.
A scene in the
latter half of Azhar indicates the promise of Azharuddin’s
story. Now hated by the fans who once adored him, Azhar is forced by his lawyer to inaugurate a gym to
keep up the appearance that life is going on as usual. The owner of the gym
though turns out to be an obnoxious fellow who thinks he owns Azhar since he
has paid for his time.
This moment harks
back to one of the nicest scenes in the recent SRK-starrer Fan in which we saw the boorishness of an industrialist towards a
major movie star. Away from the spotlight, the rich and the famous often deal
with heartburn, heartbreak and humiliation to get to where they are and stay
there. Mohammad Azharuddin’s rise and subsequent fall
from grace were as public as it can get. What the film should have given us, but does not, is a detailed, insightful view of what went on behind the scenes and why.
Azhar is a superficial look at the life of one of the
most enigmatic and intriguing sporting stars this country has ever seen. It is
an opportunity lost.
Rating
(out of five): **
CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
|
Running time:
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131 minutes
|
A version of this review has been published on Firstpost:
Footnote:
Disclaimer:
This Film is inspired from
various stories/incident(s) based on life and times of Mr.Mohammed Azharuddin
and is not meant to be a biopic. It is neither a documentary nor a biography of
any character depicted in the Film.
The story, timelines, events and
the characters depicted in this Film have been fictionalized and no scenes are
meant to be construed to represent a true or accurate recreation of the actual
incident(s) that may have transpired.
This Film attempts to present a
fictionalized dramatic representation of incident(s) pertaining to the life and
times of Mr. Mohammed Azharuddin mostly published and available in public
domain, for entertainment purposes only. Any event shown in the Film
should not impute any innocence or guilt on the part of any of the
persons/characters represented in the Film.
This Film does not intend to hurt
the sentiments and/or malign the image, reputation of any person, body and/or
corporate in any manner. Any resemblance or similarity to any entity(ies),
incident(s), and/or person(s), whether living or dead, is purely coincidental
and unintentional.
