Mohenjo Daro Movie Review: AG goes from Oscar to ‘Ab Bas Kar’

Every Independence Day we like to remember Indian History to be proud of it. This I- Day is different. People who forget history (Khelen Hum Jee Jaan se, Whats your Rashee, Everest etc.) are condemned to repeat it. Ashutosh Gowariker seems to have lost his itch, though his last good movie (Jodha Akbar) was 8 years ago.

Mohenjo Daro begins where creativity stops. AG seems to have had dreams of all the movies that he saw in his lifetime. So he came up with a brilliant idea. He thought of his favorite subject in school and films- HISTORY, got ‘inspired’ from various scenes from different movies he had seen, decided to rehash the costumes and sets from Lagaan and Jodha Akbar, added his good-luck-charm-till-now Hrithik as the lead and a new comer- the petite Pooja Hegde- to cut costs.  The result is so disastrous that even an AR Rehman who tries his best by using all the instruments in his repertoire can’t save it. The movie is a historical extravaganza disguised as a romance flick cum revenge saga.

Sarman (Hrithik) is a farmer’s nephew who goes to the neighboring town (Mohenjo Daro) for business, falls in love with the priest’s daughter Chaani (Pooja) and has to fight with the evil Maham (Kabir Bedi) and his son Moonja (Arunoday Singh) to get her. Hrithik looks jaded and relies more on his biceps than his facials muscles to emote. Pooja looks lost, but good for her first film. Kabir is a cross between Amrish Puri and himself in Sandokan. Arunoday acts like he is constipated and just lost a bet in cricket. He could never be a good hero and now sucks as a villain too. Nitish Bharadwaj can’t let go of ‘Krishna’ though he is Sarman’s uncle.

Indian VFX studios are in the news for doing great work with Hollywood movies, but the same is found woefully wanting in Indian films! The crocodile who fights Hrithik looks plastic, rivers and the ancient sets are clearly ‘CG’, even the ‘rain’ is just localized with a shower. The story is cliched and a drag and characters are added even when they don’t have any role in the movie as if to justify the huge budget. There is a conventional ‘madman’ who keeps ranting nonsensical statements, a unicorn (looking more like a ‘unihorn’) who appears in Hrithik’s dreams, his mother and aunt who don’t add any value to the plot. Gladiators look like rockstar rastafarers and the audience screams jingoistically as if it is a Indo-Pak cricket match. Chest thumping background music covers up for the lack of on-screen action and last but not least very poor editing torments us for more than two and half hours. Moreover, just like a long porn movie, it has multiple climax scenes.

Rather watch the I-Day flag hoisting on DD or better still scoot off to a peaceful resort for the long weekend!!!

-IndieYogi

Note-IndieYogi’s posts are short/quick reviews,catering to the reader on the go. The attempt is to try something new in addition to the regular style of writing/reviewing.