Expectations
Director Ashutosh Gowarikar is known for making some fantastic periodic films like 'Lagaan' and 'Jodha Akbar'. Despite of his last periodic film 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey' being a super flop, this director is still known and cherished for his past works. Those films open the Pandora box for many filmmakers who feared to venture into this taboo genre.
With the recent success of periodic films like 'Bahubali' and 'Bajirao Mastani', the expectations were at its peak when Ashutosh Gowarikar decided to make his next periodic film 'Mohenjo Daro', with Hrithik Roshan in it. Though, the first trailer followed by weak songs and minimal promotion, the buzz for this movie has fallen quite low, making it a right contender for an underdog type of a film.
Story
'Mohenjo Daro' is a story set in 2500 BCE around one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus valley civilization. Sarman (Hrithik Roshan) is a village farmer living with his uncle (Nitish Bharadwaj). Sarman decided to go to the nearest big town Mohenjo Daro for trading. On his first day of trade, he falls in love with Channi (Pooja Hegde), the daughter of head priest (Manish Chaudhary). Channi is destined to marry Moonja (Arunoday Singh), son of the Prime Minister Maham (Kabir Bedi). This sets an enmity between Sarman and Maham leading to several unexpected incidents.
The 'Glitz' Factor
There are few scenes like Hritik’s first day in Mohenjo Daro followed by his fight with man-eaters in the arena. The outdoor locations are good and so is the background score. Hrithik looks cool and Pooja Hegde looks beautiful in some scenes. Kabir Bedi looked fantastic in his character and is the only actor to do justice to his role. Manish Choudhary and Diganta Hazarika lend good support.
The 'Non-Glitz' Factor
The story is typical and reminds you of recent periodic drama 'Bahubali'. The basic format style is same, except for the grandness which is nowhere to be found in 'Mohenjo Daro'. The movie seems more fictional or let's say fantasy based rather than being historical.
The historic references are minimal and fail to blend with the flow of the film, as they seemed forced. The C.G.I work is weak and soils the decorum of the film. The finale part tries to justify the historic events, but fails miserably. The movie has one liner script and has been stretched to infinity.. The makers should have added more historic detailing related to 'Mohenjo Daro', rather than focusing on the bland love story.
There is nothing grand in this movie incomparision with recent films like 'Bahubali' or 'Bajirao Mastani'. The sets are tacky and look for like T.V serial sets than of a mega budgeted film. The mistake list is endless along with the slow narrative part. A.R. Rahman's music fails to do wonders to this ill-fated script. 'Tu Hai' is the only decent song which sounds good and looks bad on screen.
Director Ashutosh Gowarikar dares to touch such rarest of rare topic, but fails miserably while executing it. He surpasses violating the historical facts more than what the T.V series do. The director seems to have lost his magic touch as it was in the case of his films like 'Lagaan', 'Swades' or 'Jodha Akbar'. His impact as a director at those times was so strong that people felt that the story of 'Lagaan' was real and not fictional. Sadly, out here only the ruins of this director are to be found.
Hrithik fails to justify his character and Pooja fails miserably in all the dramatic scenes. Her dialogue delivery is terrible. Arunoday Singh looks bad and displays equally bad performance. Nitish Bharadwaj, Kishore Shahane, Suhasini Milay, Sharad Kelkar and others have hardly anything to do in this weak scripted film.
Final 'Glitz'
'Mohenjo Daro' is the worst film of director Ashutosh Gowarikar. One does appreciate the hard work and efforts behind this film. But at the end of the day, it's on the lines of all those historical T.V serials with bad C.G.I work and overstretched love saga ruining the history and facts.
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