Maazii
Starring: Sumeet Nijhawan, Mona Wasu, Manish Choudhary, Pankaj Tripathi, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub
Rated: 5.5/10
W e all know the pitfalls of not telling the truth. We also know that the past has a way of coming back and nipping in the ankle when least accepted. So, in that sense a movie of the issue, set in present times, was waiting to happen. Also, as far as giving a moral lesson — that one should never lie or hide things — this one couldn’t have been a better time to make a film on these lines. Our youth definitely, needs a lesson on the subject. And that is probably, the only saving grace of Maazii, meaning past in Urdu.
Jaideep Chopra’s, directorial debut, may have the making of a film that offers a surprise when one least expects it — the storyline is great and is well edited. Added to it is the typical language that one gets to hear among the gang lords of western Uttar Pradesh. It is a project that has a thriller aspect to it that one normally sees in Hollywood movies.
The fact that the movie’s opening frame is with the baddies is a prelude to what is the focus here — crime never pays and the goons always end up dead or at least they do in Bollywood and the hero triumphs, whatever the cost. Even if it means that he has to shoot down a couple of cops to get justice. But then the policewallahs in our movies are rarely shown to be good samaritans. Money, they say, makes the world go round. A fact reiterated in Maazii.
Despite, its surprise element, there are going to be very few takers for this movie. At the box office, this one isn’t likely to have a future at all. This is because there is nothing in this one that will catch the movie goers imagination or hold their attention. After all, there is no masala and no item number (the sorry excuse of one, at the beginning) is a damp squib. One wonders why it is there in the first placeIJ Unless it is there to drive home the fact that our duo goons have no qualms of going directly to a nachewalli to have some fun after having gunned down five cops in the police thana no less!
As for the acting, Sumeet Nijhawan’s, who is the film’s lead and writer, dialogue delivery is so stilted and slow that one can take a short nap and not have missed much of what is said. The rest of the star cast may have had some credible dialogues but the stiffness of our hero ensures that it all falls flat. As far as commercial success of this film is concerned, this one has no future.
But those who want to see the underbelly of UP, this makes for an interesting watch.