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tar-studded reviews
of Haider were all over newspapers and television channels as well, immediately
after the release of the movie. Vishal
Bharadwaj at the helm and the story adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth were the baits to draw the
audience to theatres.
The movie received a standing ovation from
cine actors at the end of a special preview, cried a report. It’s not that I am unaware of the fact
that publicity masquerades as news during the release of a movie, still
I along with my family of husband and two children went to watch it the second
day itself.
As I had read the rave reviews before, I
didn’t want to be put down so easily. Hence I kept waiting for the movie to get
better, but in vain. The pre-interval part was dragging and the movie caught
pace in the later half.
For
me many of the dialogues were inaudible, making me attentive all the more to
catch the curt one liners. A laborious
effort indeed. The blurred frames might have been used to accentuate the gloomy
mood, but too many of them marred the beauty of cinematography.
Shahid Kapur did not seem to suit the intense
character of Haider, however, he was a game for the lighter moments of the
character. Even Tabu’s acting was not convincing. The movie would have been still the same even
without Irrfan Khan. Kay Kay Menon justified
his role of a lecherous, hypocrite lawyer. He effectively portrayed his dilemmas and guilt
through his stammerings at times. A
sleazy number involoving Shahid and Shraddha Kapur was totally unwarranted.
Even though I don’t give a complete thumb down
to the movie, at the end I was baffled as to why the critics were very liberal
on bestowing so many stars upon the movie.
Perhaps, the so called secularist English media might have found a
perfect plot to reiterate their conviction that the minorities always suffer at
the hands of the majority.
Here the culprit was the Indian
Army. Lauding the efforts of Indian Army
during the recent Kashmir floods, was just a line at the end to assuage the
wound inflicted on the defenders of the country. When the whole valley is simmering most of
the time, such stray incidents might happen.
But it has been projected as a norm in the system.
