"I am the easiest guy you can have. I am the fixer..." Yes thats Michael Clayton for you. With George Clooney in the title role, this film promises a lot, and to be honest, the beginning, is as intriguing as it can get.
The opening strikes you, because a set of seemingly unrelated images keep playing to a voiceover narrative, and even the narrative hardly seems to make any sense. The opening,perhaps, is the strongest element in the film. The fragmented narrative adds an additional dimension to the film. The fragmented first half foreshadows the second, where the characters reveal themselves. The characters, their lives, are fragmented and flawa. The protagonist is a 'fixer' who mends the holes in the seemingly fluent fabric of an affluent law firm. But the man cannot mend his own problems...cards. Yes.cards are his problem.
The use of cards is yet another piece of clever symbolism by the director/scriptwriter.The three main characters in the film-Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and George Clooney form the Queen, King and the Jack of the fast crumbling enterprise.
The film to an extent questions the dichotomy between sanity/insanity. Tom Wilkinson plays an ageing janitor who is defending "UNorth", a GM food corporation, against a class action. But as the case unfolds, he realises that he is on the wrong side of the fence.ANd his seemingly insane actions become a sore point for the corporation. Much in the same fashion as Toba Tek Singh ( Toba Tek Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto), the janitor, through in seemingly insane actions brings to the fore the corrupt nature of 'normal' men. Wilkinson pulls off a stunning performance, in a film that seems to be tailor made for Clooney(George Clooney was also the Executive Producer for the film!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------#
A note of apology
The review is incomplete, and too late! Readers are welcome to append!
The blue sky slowly melted into a murky black
and the stars shivered in the distance
the wind howled as if in a trance
and as the dew drops seeped in through the cracks
I chased your shadows in the streets
and to the winds, whispered your name
everything is, as it was
everything is kept the same.
I really loved you,
and i think, you did too.
So, would you pay a 150 bucks to watch a saas-bahu saga unfold over a four hour long period. I doubt you would. Ashutosh Gowariker's magnum opus is just that, if not worse.
The film begins with the great Mughal dynasty in turmoil, and the young 14 year old Akbar is entrusted with the responsibilty of realising his father's dream- establish a 'hukumat-e-hindustan'. With Berham Khan as his mentor, the young mughal, begins his campaign...The Battle of Panipat. Inspired from The Gladiator, the battle sequence neither has the magnitude nor the grandeur of the former. The same can be said of the climax, when Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar takes on his 'baaghi' brother-in-law Sharifuddin, in a one to one fight. With Hector-Achilles duel, forming the inspiration, this sequnence too promises to light up a rather dull film, but hardly manages to create a second of tension. The sequence fails because of its foregone conclusion, and this is true of the entire film.
Perhaps, that is what is surprising...Yes, the film fails to surprise you throughout its four hour long run, a clear indication of the weak screenplay. The wicked (god) mother in law cannot tolerate the the King getting cosy with his Queen, and so she sows the seed of jealousy in the King's mind. Akbar spots his beloved Jodha with a stranger, and orders her to go back. Then the good mother in law comes and unveils the truth, which is followed by wooing game, or should I say, a duel. Jodha has to come back at the end of a celebration, and happy moments have to be followed by tragedy...the 'dava' and 'dua' formula...the Queen has to come when her brother is dying and so on... This film is full of cliched sequences, and the dialogues are a hangover from the early 80s.This film is as 'filmi' as you can imagine.
The Director, in his numerous interviews, had made it clear, that this film is his interpretation of that period, and in his attempt, to break away from the 'historic' mould Ashutosh Gowariker finds himself in no man's land. This dilemma is best exemplified by his use of 50s style wipes, which co-exist, with some shoddy special effects (The bolt of lightning from the sky...The mirror lighting up etc...)
This duality is also visible in the treatment of characters especially that of Akbar, whom , Gowariker tries to portray as a modern man in a medieval age. Akbar, cannot decide whether to put on a stern face and behave like a king, or portray himself as 'uber-cool, metrosexual man'. This love struck king cooes like a dove and yet roars...ah, not really...barks like a greyhound! Probably,for the first time Hrithik's good looks do not serve him well, or perhaps, it is our stereotyped notion of a macho king, that fails to recognise that even the greatest of all Kings is as human as the rest of us. But what is really astonishing is that the character of Akbar is not allowed to develop beyond that of a Romeo. In that respect, Jodha's character is better sketched, and Aishwarya pulls off a stunning performance.
Most of the characters fail to portray the intensity of the roles assigned to them. Berham Khan fails miserably to pull off the role of a merciless soldier. And Ila Arun, as the scheming(god) mother-in-law is worse than her counterparts on the boob tube. The film has a huge ensemble of character artists who come and vanish. Sonu Sood is as plastic as he was when debuted, and the villians look like mere caricatures.
Apart from Akbar and Jodha's costumes, the rest seem to have been made from cheap quality plastic...the wigs are attrocious ( Raza Murad looks ludicrous!) and the much hyped Agra Fort, to be honest, looks very fake. The voice-over commentary is not needed, and the cinematography is brilliant but only in patches.
So is there any reason, why you should watch this film? None whatsoever. But if you have nothing to do this weekend, and have loads of money to spare then leave your thinking mind behind, and along with it all expectations of seeing a grandiose movie, then Akbar with his charms might just win your 'Dil'!
