Aurangzeb

Akbar and his favourite grandchild Shah Jehan were significant benefactors of South Asia’s construction industry and the arts; therefore even... read more

Akbar and his favourite grandchild Shah Jehan were significant benefactors of South Asia’s construction industry and the arts; therefore even today our builder fraternity through their faux Mughal construction projects, and the Lahore and Mumbai film industry in their film scripts continue to pay homage to GrandDaddy and Co. As it is Shah Jehan and his Deewar-esque progeny were the stuff of Saleem Javed’s dreams, so little wonder that reel life and the world of words continue to be inspired by  that real life brother against brother against father fracas.

 (Mohsin Hamid whose The Reluctant Fundamentalist hits screens this weekend had first captured our attention with the brilliant Moth Smoke –Hamid’s take of the Dara Shikoh-Aurangzeb saga)

Aurangzeb is the latest arrival.

The current decade has seen India’s film industry wooing Delhi once more after the “Delhi as guest star” status it enjoyed in Yash Chopra movies. Chashme Buddoor too was a  brilliant ode to the city .Today we have Dipakar Banerjee, Maneesh Sharma, and Habib Faisal amongst others to thank for Delhi being in favour again. Alas it wasnt long that Gurgaon with its me-too syndrome when it comes to Delhi, elbowed itself into Delhi’s party on the film screen.

The film starts with Arya’s (Prithiviraj Sukumaran) disgraced cop father (played by Anupam Kher—where this is a role, that Naseeruddin Shah has a special expertise for. Supporting a paramour and boy holed up in a hill station on the sly) confessing to son that he too has been doing a Naseeruddin Shah and it is left to Arya  to now do a “ Main Hoo Na”. Arya reels in his mentor uncle (played by Rishi Kapoor) and cousin who believe that the family in khaki that “collects hafta ” together stays together, and channel a bit of D’Silva from Don  to bring down the evil empire of Yashwardhan the Czar of Gurgaon (Jackie Shroff) thus giving closure to the family .

 And then the Kahani me Twists begin.

The men in khaki and construction industry’s sparring bouts are interspersed by performances by Sasha Agha (whose body of work and workout show that picking up her daddy’s squash racket would have been quite a crime) Amrita Singh (who is to the Evil Sari born) and Deepti Naval who as always is brilliant even if its entering a room with flour smeared on her hands.

For a city that is yet to bring down the Aedes Aegypti mosquito population, half of the city’s police force shoots down the other half pretty quickly; the bodies keep going down and clichéd kahani me twists rapidly following them.

By the end of the movie you are only relieved that Rishi Kapoor has been finally freed of his knitted sweaters ,for that man is a powerhouse of talent. Kaash ke Raj Kapoor sahib zinda hote. Tears of Joy! Shroff shows some of his old fire and Arjun Kapoor continues to prove that he will be the Abhay Deol of the Kapoor family yet. (Well for me at least!) Nary a false step yet. And he is only two films old.

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  Aurangzeb starts off badly and then builds up to a point where you are blown away, but only in parts. The premise itself is preposterous. Do... read more

 

Aurangzeb starts off badly and then builds up to a point where you are blown away, but only in parts. The premise itself is preposterous. Double roles are an ancient blueprint for a film. What is it doing in this century? The last time we saw that done well was Farhan Akhtar’s Don (2006) which was itself based on the 70s original. Aurangzeb takes this ridiculous set-up extremely seriously, which could be its biggest undoing but also its achievement and I’d like to stick with that.

 

Ajay and Vishal (played by Arjun Kapoor), two identical twins separated in their infancy. One goes with the mother, the other with the father. The movie is mainly about daddy issues. The title itself points to the Mughal king who usurped his father to take the throne. The plot consists of an elaborate plan by the Gurgaon police to infiltrate a gangster’s real estate empire by sending the good son to take the place of the bad son. What happens after that are a lot of misfires and equal amounts of brilliance.

 

Aided by superlative performances and Zimmer-esque music, this film is a semi-winner. Rishi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and Prithviraj are amazing. But there’s one scene where Rishi Kapoor knocks it out of the park and steals the film from the other actors. Arjun Kapoor holds his own despite getting a bit repetitive. Sasha Agha is appalling, I wish they had cast a better actress.

 

The second act of the film leading up to the finale is absolutely terrific. It starts with that one scene where Rishi Kapoor just knocks it out of the park (I know I said that before but I want to say it again because it’s that good). There are a few powerhouse moments when the is plot drawing to a close, like the one where Arjun Kapoor runs to save a character in slow motion. Or the three shootouts threatening to be the climatic end .They break out suddenly, but you are always involved in the action, unlike the climax of Shootout at Wadala. I also liked the scenes where we saw business meetings being conducted. This isn’t people pretending to be businessmen like we see in Hindi movies. These scenes have actual conversations where people are doing “sauda” (deals).

 

The premise may have been ridiculous but it is so well-plotted that it engages you in the family drama. It’s easy to be influenced by The Godfather (1972) when you make a father-son crime drama. I was impressed when the plot points did not fall into those traps. In fact, it admirably gives homage to the kind of dramatics Salim-Javed's screenplays regularly visited.

 

The sub-plot with the girlfriend is the film’s weakest link. The dialogues could have been better and the film could have been crisper. But there is a lot to like here. I would recommend you watch it, but with the knives in your pockets. Don’t expect a superb film but don’t try to stop yourself from savoring the moments where it almost becomes one.

 

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Aurangzeb starts on the premise that every man  has his father's character embedded deep into him and that will surface when it's crunch time.... read more

Aurangzeb starts on the premise that every man  has his father's character embedded deep into him and that will surface when it's crunch time. It thus posits that nature wins over nurture and spends most of the film trying to prove this point, only to turn on its heel and tell you that maybe sometimes  'parvarish' also matters. And that to me is the problem.

 

If you take a proposition (however contentious) and stick to proving it, it makes for an interesting story. But if you waffle then the point is lost. 

 

That is one problem with this movie. The other is that the main motivations of all the main characters are murky and confused. I never quite followed why they all embarked on the (very complicated and a bit foolish) plan they made. For which, coming up, story in (not so)short.

 

Arya, his uncle and cousin brother are all corrupt cops who live on collections. Arya's dad was also a cop who had to leave the force for an encounter gone wrong where the wife and child of a big gangster were mistakenly killed. On his deathbed he tells Arya that the woman and child were in fact saved by him and he had married her. He asks Arya to take care of that family after him. Now, it all gets murky. Turns out that the boy Vishal has an identical twin Ajajy who was left behind with the gangster dad as he was the weaker one. The corrupt uncle and Arya  tell Vishal that by impersonating Ajay whom they will kidnap a they can help the gangster to get arrested and then Arya's fathers name would be cleared of the killing. Now why would a corrupt cop duo who live on collections want to kill a cash cow instead of killing it is beyond me. So Vishal agrees and goes to live with the gangster dad who turns out to be not so bad after all and he starts to like him. Then all sorts of stuff happens that I can't bore you with. Myriad conflicts happen before its all solved.

 

The point is, when the key motivation is weak the rest becomes unconvincing. The serious drama and angst all become questionable.

 

This is Arjun Kapoor's first movie after Ishaqzaade and he shows his acting skills admirably. He manages to make the twins not only act different but even look different by using different expressions in his eyes - a softer look for Vishal and a manic one for Ajay. Excellent stuff. Prithviraj who was just eye candy in Aiyya gives Arya a troubled, controlled personality. Again, a very good performance. And my favourite Rishi Kapoor as the corrupt chacha seems to relish his new avatar as a baddie though I got one romantic look in the karwa chauth scene which was enough to make me happy. Jackie Shroff's gangster starts out well but fizzles out later. However, it was great to see Jackie again in a strong role again. Amrita Singh as his manipulative girlfriend is quite wicked.

 

This movie could have done much more by staying on the narrow road. With such strong performances it could have been a taut conflict drama but all that seriousness and heavy dialogues are wasted because of the stuff I wrote earlier. Go for the acting if you must. Otherwise, wait for a TV viewing.

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Yeah, just like y'all, I was impressed by the trailer and the dialogues, but the trailer revealed only the best parts of the film. Ajay and Vishal ... read more

Yeah, just like y'all, I was impressed by the trailer and the dialogues, but the trailer revealed only the best parts of the film. Ajay and Vishal are two twins, one on the corporate side with his father, and one on the classic Bollywood domestic side with his mother.
The film offers some action, but falis at points when it so easy to predict what Arjun (protagonist) is going to do next. They should know there's no action without thrill.
It was horrible to see a man who was nearly killed by Arjun, to wake up, walk like a handicap, kill Jackie Shroff and at last finally got killed by Arjun again. I doubt he wasn't a zombie!
So, at times, a got bored when they offered the same husband-wife drama but I was let up by Arjun's and Rishi's splendid performances. Watch it once if you have time.

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I never understood what Aurangzeb would be about by watching the trailers. I understood love, power, money, corruption, but Aurangzeb- why that tit... read more

I never understood what Aurangzeb would be about by watching the trailers. I understood love, power, money, corruption, but Aurangzeb- why that title? The first half of the movie was extremely below average. They tried to make it interesting, but failed. I had to salute them an insult by drowning my head in my tub of popcorn. The second half, though, had some change. Somehow my head looked up and I thought, "This looks nice. Watch!"
So I was pretty in love with the movie when once again it got boring with it's melodramaThe presentation by the lead actors were good, but the poor screenplay scrapped it all up. I also realized that perhaps they were doing this to create some kind of climax, like a suspense movie, but with a movie like this, they needed to try, try, try harder. Practice makes a man perfect, they say. These people need just some more. view less