It has been less than a quarter into 2018 and we have seen the release of a number of Bollywood films that have been successful at making a mark at the box<\/p>\n
office. While the month of January (and even the following ones) was owned by Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s magnum opus Padmaavat, February was all about<\/p>\n
Akshay Kumar\u2019s PadMan. March\u2019s big release came with Ajay Devgn\u2019s Raid.<\/p>\n
While on the surface, these films are a stark departure from each other, Padmaavat being a period war film, PadMan a social drama and Raid a crime thriller,<\/p>\n
one thing that connects the three, apart from their stupendous box office success, is their claim to be rooted in reality. While it is a known fact that PadMan is<\/p>\n
based on the story of the social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham, the first slide of Ajay Devgn\u2019s Raid reads \u2018Based on true stories.\u2019 Padmaavat,<\/p>\n
however, is a different story altogether. It may be based on a fictional poem but it will still remain a piece of \u2018historical\u2019 fiction.<\/p>\n
Let us first look at Bollywood\u2019s latest offering Raid which narrates the story of a newly appointed IT Commissioner Amay Patnaik (Ajay Devgn) as he conducts<\/p>\n
the country\u2019s biggest raid on one of the city\u2019s most wealthy and well-connected politicians-cum-businessman MLA Rameshwar Singh (Saurabh Shukla). An<\/p>\n
interesting premise at hand, right? But writer Ritesh Shah (who has films like Pink, D-day, and Citylights to his credit) does a disappointing job at bringing the<\/p>\n
story out on screen.After watching the film\u2019s trailer, you not only expect Raid to be a terse exploration of the ingenious strategies and planning that goes into<\/p>\n
conducting a high-profile raid like this but also a story which is believable and intriguing at the same time. But throughout the film\u2019s 130 minutes, what we see is<\/p>\n
Ajay Devgn tapping different corners of Singh\u2019s mansion resulting in showers of wads of cash and stocks of precious jewellery. There was just so much more<\/p>\n
that director Raj Kumar Gupta could have explored with Raid: the pre-liberalised India of the 80s, the relationship between the affluent families and corrupt tax<\/p>\n
officers, the struggles of a sincere officer like Patnaik in convincing his seniors to approve the raid but instead all we get is a predictable stand-off between the<\/p>\n
goody-two-shoes hero and the abysmal baddie, repeated to the point that it stops making any kind of sense.<\/p>\n
If the makers would have taken to themselves to thoroughly research the lives of previous IT officers (instead of spending so much time and effort on the look<\/p>\n
Ileana is sporting), the film would have come out a lot differently. While the power-packed dialogues were definitely a highlight of the trailer, in the film, it is just<\/p>\n
taken too over the top. Viewers never witness Tauji or Patnaik engage in any kind of genuine conversation, be it with their family or to each other, it is almost like<\/p>\n
they are their sassy best at all times.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to my next observation that films like Raid are almost always packaged as \u2018woke\u2019 cinema with the actors repeatedly stating in their promotional<\/p>\n
interviews how their film doesn\u2019t stick to conventional stereotypes. And when under that impression audiences flock to the theatres, all they get is the same-old<\/p>\n
Bollywood masala movie.
\nsonam kapoor and akshay kumar in padman Akshay Kumar and Sonam Kapoor in a still from PadMan.<\/p>\n
Similar is the case with R Balki\u2019s PadMan. While PadMan is based on the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, the man who started a revolution by creating a<\/p>\n
low-cost sanitary pad-making machine, Balki is never able to effectively convey the seriousness of Muruganantham\u2019s struggle to the viewers. It is almost like all<\/p>\n
his problems are solved miraculously and not out of his own caliber. And as a result, the essence of Muruganantham\u2019s story is lost somewhere in the film. A<\/p>\n
major point of contention with the kind of \u201ccinematic liberties\u201d that R Balki chooses to take in PadMan is Sonam Kapoor\u2019s character Rhea, who is completely a<\/p>\n
figment of Balki\u2019s imagination. Yes, Rhea does become a source of great strength for Lakshmikant in the latter part of his journey but there isn\u2019t a logical<\/p>\n
explanation as to why Balki felt the need to introduce a romantic angle between her and Akshay\u2019s character.<\/p>\n
However, in comparison, Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s Padmaavat has definitely had the most interesting relationship with its claims to reality. With the violent Karni<\/p>\n
Sena protests, the makers did acknowledge that the film is based on the epic poem \u2018Padmavat\u2019 by Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi which is a revered work of<\/p>\n
fiction but that doesn\u2019t mean that the film will not be classified as a work of historical fiction. While Rani Padmavati\u2019s (Deepika Padukone) existence has been<\/p>\n
questioned by renowned historians over the years, there is no doubting the fact that Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh) and Maharaja Rawal Singh (Shahid Kapoor)<\/p>\n
were real historical people. And so is Khalji\u2019s attack on Chittor.
\nDeepika Padukone as Rani Padmavati in Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s Padmavaat.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the folklore around Rani Padmini and her beauty is an important part of the cultural memory of the Rajput community. In that sense, the historical<\/p>\n
authenticity of Jayasi\u2019s poem and in turn, Padmaavat has become a highly debatable topic. But it wouldn\u2019t be wrong to say that Padmaavat\u2019s whole debacle with<\/p>\n
history (and Karni Sena) has been one of the most important selling factors for the film. The movie does end with a slate that reads \u201cPadmavati ka jauhar, Khilji ki<\/p>\n
sabse badi haar aur Rajputo ki sabse badi jeet thi.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been less than a quarter into 2018 and we have seen the release of a number of Bollywood films that have been successful at making a mark at the box office. While the month of January (and even the following ones) was owned by Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s magnum opus Padmaavat, February was all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25424,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions\/25424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}