It was only about the Man who made movies like Bose, Zubeida, Sardari Begum (for the new gens to remember) otherwise Mandi, Ankur, Suraj ka saatwan ghoda and the Hindi version of Discovery of India : Bharat ek Khoj of Nehru’s fame, one was excited yesterday !
Its 46 Long years Benegal Baabu who has been a Padmashri and Padmabhushan Awardee has been entertaining audiences but of a different kind – the Offbeat ones. He has never been a commercial movie man…. But with his creativity and artistic Bong Mind, he has given some great movies as above by tapping fresh talent mainly from the FTII and NSD like Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Kulbhushan Kharbanda & Amrish Puri.
It was only one single reason why I took a step ( it was a step post the outcome; else it would have been an initiative ) to go and watch “Welcome to Sajjanpur” and believe me – one thing which I went and checked in the middle of the movie on the poster at the lounge area was that was it really Benegal ?
It was a waste of 3 hours and only because it was Shyam Benegal, I had to respect the art by sitting till the end, unlike my brother who walked out in 40 Minutes.
If I have to analyse what was good in the film and what was bad – Good ? I did not find a single thing (unlike even one babe, one number, one scenic location, one comic scene, one character, if not the whole movie which could be a self-convincing technique post shelling out those monies. ) The only good thing was a different plot of a village and multiple characters – but nothing was new / unknown – Well, if one would have screened ‘3 hrs of crisp mix of the Malgudi Days” it would have been a real treat !
A complete waste of talent like Rajeshwari, Divya Dutt, Ravi Kishan, Yashpal Sharma and Kunal Kapoor. It was only Shreyas Talapade trying to do some acting and Amrita Rao…well, a bird is better than 2 in bushes atleast… She is a decent actress, atleast she tries, but here she was also wasted along with others.
And the best part is, I thought Benegal hai..kuch story ayega…but till “The End” failed to find a story !! Non-sense humor, no plot, no spend on the movie – And the confused director did not understand who the target audience was – Was there any ? And what was the need of putting in songs ?? Or was it a formality as it is no one would have ever bought a music album of the movie !!!
Well, its Shyam babu so am limiting myself further, but the most surprising part was Masand’s verdict with 4/5 Rating on this claiming one of the best movies of the year – Come on, Mr. Masand – this loosens your credibility compared to Taran Adarsh who has rated it 3/5. Well, a strong recommendation to Mr. Masand to take a weekend off and travel to any nearby village, if that was the only thing he was excited to see for the first time. Anyways, if you ask me, with all due respects to the efforts (well not much)by all : I would rate if 1/5. 1 only because of the respect one has for Shyam Benegal and his past records, else it would have been in the minuses.
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