Its painful to witness a disappointing film of this magnitude from a director who has three must watch gems of Hindi cinema to his credit as LAGAAN, SWADES and JODHA AKBAR (all included in the ‘Movies To See Before You Die List’ at BTC). And it’s even more painful to ridicule one of the year’s biggest film that has been made on such a scale with a huge investment and collective efforts of hundreds of people working behind the screen in its various departments.
So instead of getting into the obvious sarcasm, I would simply like to give you an overall feel of MOHENJO DARO painting a much clearer picture.
First of all there is no use mentioning, discussing and pointing out the historical flaws and misinterpretations in the film about the Indus Valley Civilization, as neither this forms the main focus of the director nor it has anything to do with the rotten and so clichéd storyline of the film quite strangely. In fact they don't even care to give any reasoning behind this specific name. So then why writer-director Ashutosh Gowariker was so eager and excited to use this exact backdrop of the ancient city in his project, is the first question that strikes you while walking out of the theatre.
In other words, in case you are only interested in watching a period drama with some kind of enlightening revelations made about our lesser known past. Then just forget about it completely, as MOHENJO DARO is not even interested in the same and goes on repeating the ages old Hindi film theme of regaining a lost kingdom, irresponsibly & cunningly exploiting this appealing title.
Commencing with a BAHUBALI kind of sequence where the hero is willing to visit a mysterious city, the film opens in 2016 BC, but never makes you feel like visiting the ages old era mainly due to all familiar visuals, houses, clothes, pagdis (headgears), animals and a lot more just like a few centuries old ancestral village of the one seen in LAGAAN. So the expected unique feel of the Indus Valley civilization never makes an impact whatsoever in the entire duration of this supposedly period drama to be straight.
Further the way Ashutosh and his VFX agency visualizes the collapsing dam and flood sequences in the climax strongly makes you wonder that did they really approve this in the age of JURRASIC PARKS, AVENGERS and more? In fact its these tacky graphical representations in the end only that make you forget all the marginally good things in the film creating a strong negative impact.
But are there really some good or worth watching sequences in MOHENJO DARO?
To some extent there are; which might appeal to the kids much more than the young and mature viewers, coming at long intervals. For instance, the very first sequence winning over a huge crocodile, the post interval long fight with the two ‘man-eater’ devils (reminding you of games such as ‘Prince of Persia’) and may be the weird dance movements and getup of Hrithik in a catchy song.
However among the adults, the two things which constantly hold the attention include the grand scale (minus the climax) and the beautiful Pooja Hegde (just there to look glamorous) with her always exposed cleavage, who is supposed to be the blessed child of Maa Sindhu!!!! Apart from these, neither Hrithik as the leading man, nor Kabir Bedi & Arunoday Singh as the evil figures or anyone else in the supporting cast is able to make any kind of impact playing all typical filmy characters.
In fact, surprisingly written by Ashutosh himself, MOHENJO DARO has no well written characterizations, no fresh or engaging plotline, no interesting historical references and no emphasis on the culture or traditions of that time resulting in a quite poor and unimpressive script proving the entire speculations made on the social networks before the release true to the core.
Besides, though the film does have an eye-catching cinematography and a decent background score too. But the other maestro who repeatedly fails to live up to his own set standards and the gigantic image is A. R. Rahman, who yet again delivers a mediocre soundtrack with only a few catchy songs and nothing exceptional matching the film’s distinctive theme.
In short, MOHENJO DARO has so less to offer in terms of content or entertainment that it becomes extremely disturbing to accept that such a poor and amateurish script was chosen and approved by both the production house and the reputed performers together without raising any obvious doubts? Or was there any other ‘undisclosed’ purpose of making this mega project fooling the general audience?
Anyway summing up with the mention of ‘The Best Scene’ of the film as I personally felt, it’s the brilliant manner in which Ashutosh indicates that I am now converting the language for the viewer’s sake by zooming into the face of the speaker (his mouth) and then zooming out with language changing from Gibberish to a normal Hindi. That was truly a masterstroke representing ‘the once maestro director’ reminding you of the recent cases of Ram Gopal Varma and Subhash Ghai.
Having said that, I still cannot figure out what exactly is the meaning of “Halaamkhor” and why a few words sounded like Punjabi in pronunciation like “Satt” (meaning 7) and “Lakh” (Lac). Maybe there is some connection with Sanskrit or any other ancient language Ashutosh and his team had researched upon.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
Note: Addressing the repetitive issue of ‘Unfair increase in ticket price by the Multiplexes’.
Though my site and write-ups might be too small in front of the big runners and my voice raised against this MULTIPLEX MAFIA also might not get heard or reach anywhere.
But what nobody can stop me from is deducting ONE STAR from every such film that takes ‘we the viewers’ for granted (in revolt). So a star goes from the rating of MOHENJO DARO too since every big actor, director, production house and exhibitor is equally contributing in this sheer exploitation and willfully ignoring the issue over the last couple of years.
FINAL RATING : 1.5 – 1 = 0.5 / 5
