Movie Review: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Genre: Biography, Sport
Overall Rating: 4.1 out of 5
'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' is a biopic on Milkha Singh - the Flying Sikh. Apart from being a biopic, it is also a sports film and a period film. It makes you feel each run, each obstacle, each segment in his life. It makes you cheer and applaud for the underdog. It makes your heart soar with the patriotic vigor.
Quite obviously, this is Farhan Akhtar’s finest hour. You can see the effort in each scene. While we have actors like Ranbir Kapoor who sleepwalk through any role with ease and blow our minds doing so. We will always need actors who put in passion into their work so much so that it shows.
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Genre: Biography, Sport
Overall Rating: 4.1 out of 5
'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' is a biopic on Milkha Singh - the Flying Sikh. Apart from being a biopic, it is also a sports film and a period film. It makes you feel each run, each obstacle, each segment in his life. It makes you cheer and applaud for the underdog. It makes your heart soar with the patriotic vigor.
Quite obviously, this is Farhan Akhtar’s finest hour. You can see the effort in each scene. While we have actors like Ranbir Kapoor who sleepwalk through any role with ease and blow our minds doing so. We will always need actors who put in passion into their work so much so that it shows.
Akhtar embodies Milkha to the point where you feel this
Sardarji has been a Punjabi all his life. During this entire acting
tour-de-force, he also does a shimmy. Maikya chha gaye tussi, Akhtar saab.
The supporting performances form the heart of the film.
Divya Dutta plays the sister and Pavan Malhotra plays the coach. Every time
they address him as “Milkhu, Milkhe or Milkhya”, it just feels right. Sonam
Kapoor doesn’t ham and keeps it simple. But there’s one casting choice that
just baffles me - Dalip Tahil as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. You can’t ever take
that seriously, can you? But when a film makes you do just that, you know
you’re watching damn good one.
The Punjabi spoken in the film is also note-worthy. The
Punjab shown here isn’t the Punjab we’ve seen in movies before, especially not
the Yash Raj kind. The specifics make this film more Indian instead of
restricting it to a certain section of our secular society.
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy crowns the film with songs that are
inspiring and heart-wrenching. The title track and Zinda will be huge hits with
the youth. Arif Lohar and Daler Mehndi scream-singing on the soundtrack aches
out each yell that Milkha lets out on the running track.
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra wowed the nation with Rang De
Basanti (2006). The anti-Pakistan sentiment will always be seeped into our
country’s consciousness. It captures those moments of our history that we must
never forget and gives a solemn catharsis in the end.
The film clocks in at above 3 hours but I wouldn’t cut out a
single minute of it. You don’t need patience to watch it; you just need a bit
of spirit. Probably that's why it's called life. I’m sure it would be cliched
to end this review by requesting you to run to theater. But what the hell! Just
run to that theater and watch the story of one of the greatest Indians fly its
way across the screen!
