Review: MOHENJO DARO

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2 stars

Mini Review:

Ashutosh Gowarikar has a penchant for long drawn out epic tales. This time he goes to 2016 BC in order to tell a tale that is a bhelpuri or avial or stew or all of the above of everything from Star Wars to Gladiator to Moses to Noah to Hercules and everything in between. It starts out to be an interesting journey, but rapidly rolls towards a disaster (literally and figuratively) to a bedraggled end.

Main Review:

How many DVDs were watched before Mohenjo daro was made? No one knows, but the movie starts out with Hrithik (Sarman? Shravan?) yearning to step out of Aamri (Amari?) to experience the world and his uncle and aunt discussing: how long can you keep him here?

This is so much like Luke Skywalker’s original need to go to Starfleet Academy that my attention was hooked!

Ooh! You don't hear Hrithik say, 'Expecto Patronus!' but there's a Unicorn! And when you see unicorn, good things, happen, right?

So his uncle gives in and lets Sarman go to MohenjoDaro for ‘vapar’ (vaporetto? Are we going to Venice?) with indigo and a potli to be opened only in case of ‘jaan-jokhim’ (say whaa?)

The first half is fantastic because you don’t understand a single dialog that they’re speaking. It’s gibberish with Hindi sounding words thrown in. You keep hoping subtitles will appear, but they don’t.

The gibberish also stops you from wondering why such a strapping young man who can wrestle crocodiles (yes, yes, the made famous by trailer croc who jumped over Hrithik scene has happened) is still staying at home. Audience seems more worried if they had come to a wrong language screening instead of a Hindi film instead of enjoying the action.

The kafila of bail gadis reaches Mohenjo Daro. Walled city built like any Hollywood’s idea of Roman/Greek fortress (you expect Zeus to show up from the skies and seduce women or soldiers in skirts march in formation)

But you get the wide-bodied Airbus… I mean… Arunoday Singh riding a bullock cart wearing a turban that is reminiscent of beehive hairdos of the sixties. His snort is villainous enough to earn himself a star on its own.

The other star goes to Kabir Bedi who plays the villain Maham who has enormous screen presence. He is the baddest of the baddies, stabbing and killing at will, wears a Bison horn hat menacingly and has a voice to match Amitabh Bachchan himself. Wonderful to watch real evil on screen once again.

The rest of the movie has been reviewed several times before. As 300, Spartacus, Moses, Hercules, Noah, Gladiator and every movie (and TV shows like Olympus) you can think up where the hero of fabulous parentage battles evil and saves poor suffering villagers… To watch Hrithik Roshan waste three hours trying to be so many heroes at once is heartbreaking. You wonder what colossal egos and madness must be at work behind this pointless ambitious nonsense! The movie movies from little to zero to negative plausibility within minutes and continues to plummet to stupidity. Not even the Indus river flooding the city of Mohenjo Daro can save this film. The only saving grace is that Hrithik is not made to wear a skirt a la Dharmendra in Dharam Veer.

P.S: Wonder if Ashutosh Gowarikar productions is selling second hand dvds?