I started watching this knowing nothing about it, I didn’t have a clue what to expect. I knew Shahrukh Khan was in it and I thought Kajol was in it too, my bad. I guessed that it had a serious tone from the way people spoke of it on forums but didn’t know the theme… Of course I was in for quite a surprise!
Pros
-The first pleasant surprise came when I saw Mani Ratnam was the director, that is always a sign of a good movie. Although I’m not a huge fan of Ram Gopal Verma’s work, I love his sarcastic blogging, the kind of attitude you can only have if you’re famous.
-The plot, not the kind that will lose you if you’re paying attention but it can if you leave your brain at the door.
-The acting, especially by Manisha Koirala, was top notch for most parts. I felt there was a little hamming coming from Shahrukh but overall he shone in the emotionally charged bits. Manisha is like a supernova, an amazing star while she was around but had to die out soon, I thought she was superb in this.
-When AR Rahman and Gulzar are combined the music has to be good, and it didn’t disappoint. I found myself singing along to Chaiyyan Chaiyyan, but one question, who was the girl dancing in it meant to be? Was it Manisha? I couldn’t tell.
Cons
-The major plothole I could find… why did the Indian soldiers do what they did? I don’t want to say anymore and give the game away but anyone who’s seen i knows what I mean. The thing is, none of those questions near the end would arouse if it hadn't happened. At the beginning the locals were complaining about how they had been ignored because of how powerless they are, but they never mentioned the shootings did they? So why did it happen? No country shoots its own innocent civilians unless some psycho like Hitler is in charge and that wasn’t the case in India.
- Manisha seems to constantly have too much make up on in the first half which was annoying the hell out of me.
-Preity lookd pretty bad compared to what she looks like now, her teeth looked liked she had been chewing paan for the last five days and in general, her chracter hit me more as annoying than bubbly
-I liked the songs but hated the cinematography in some of them, I can understand and appreciate they were trying to try out something new but it looked ok at first but more and more cheesy as time went on.
Overall: I’d say the pros outnumber the cons and so its definitely a good film
Rating: 4/5
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