Resuming writing after a while! Understatement I know.
I chanced upon 'GOLD' last night on Tata Sky, where it seemed to be on some kind of a premiere show. Starring Akshay Kumar, written and directed by Reema Khagti, produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, all A-listers in the Hindi film world. Yes, I know it bombed at the box-office, so most people have written it off. But the subject itself makes at least a look at the movie compulsory. It is about the first team from 'independent' India that won an Olympic Gold in the 1948 London Olympics. Subjects don't get bigger than that, patriotism, hockey, underdogs winning in a white man's world-all combine into a single storyline.
What you do get is a poorly finished, technically incompetent movie without much of a storyline. (Can't blame the Camera Person and Editor too much, when the treatment itself has flaws). Yes, that's the surprise, there isn't a storyline in the movie, the characters are poorly worked out and don't move the narrative forward. Our hero, of course played by Akshay Kumar, is the only one with a motivation. The rest of the characters remain very near to ciphers- fulfilling a plot function and nothing else. Just look at the casual manner in which the 'white'/ British characters and their motivations are worked out- there is simply nothing to them.
The film does invoke the patriotism theme pretty well, especially at the end, the audience knows the story and plot so the challenge was always going to be in the treatment. Compare it to Niraj Pandey's MS Dhoni and the contrast is striking- the Dhoni movie builds up to the World Cup win, but this one is unable to do so.
By chance saw Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER' this afternoon to get a brilliant take on how to integrate an individual story with contemporary history, while being based on real people and real events. This is not Marquez and 'magic realism', this is simply a selection of events and connecting them to a person's life. Where does it connect to GOLD? Very simply - GOLD has a similar premise, connecting an individual's story with historical events. Why does it fail?
GOLD fails in the writing and the treatment, but setting its sight too low. The whole production is more worried about creating opportunities for the lead character to be heroic, than worry about the emotions the storyline is creating in the viewing audience. There are moments which have potential, the meeting with the chief monk at Kanheri caves for example, but the treatment sort of lets the scene collapse.
Am I being unduly harsh on a movie where the viewing audience has already passed its judgement? Can't say. But until each movie and every single moment in it aspires to rise up and the best it can be, we are not going to get great movies. And believe me, some of them will work with audiences too.
I chanced upon 'GOLD' last night on Tata Sky, where it seemed to be on some kind of a premiere show. Starring Akshay Kumar, written and directed by Reema Khagti, produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, all A-listers in the Hindi film world. Yes, I know it bombed at the box-office, so most people have written it off. But the subject itself makes at least a look at the movie compulsory. It is about the first team from 'independent' India that won an Olympic Gold in the 1948 London Olympics. Subjects don't get bigger than that, patriotism, hockey, underdogs winning in a white man's world-all combine into a single storyline.
What you do get is a poorly finished, technically incompetent movie without much of a storyline. (Can't blame the Camera Person and Editor too much, when the treatment itself has flaws). Yes, that's the surprise, there isn't a storyline in the movie, the characters are poorly worked out and don't move the narrative forward. Our hero, of course played by Akshay Kumar, is the only one with a motivation. The rest of the characters remain very near to ciphers- fulfilling a plot function and nothing else. Just look at the casual manner in which the 'white'/ British characters and their motivations are worked out- there is simply nothing to them.
The film does invoke the patriotism theme pretty well, especially at the end, the audience knows the story and plot so the challenge was always going to be in the treatment. Compare it to Niraj Pandey's MS Dhoni and the contrast is striking- the Dhoni movie builds up to the World Cup win, but this one is unable to do so.
By chance saw Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER' this afternoon to get a brilliant take on how to integrate an individual story with contemporary history, while being based on real people and real events. This is not Marquez and 'magic realism', this is simply a selection of events and connecting them to a person's life. Where does it connect to GOLD? Very simply - GOLD has a similar premise, connecting an individual's story with historical events. Why does it fail?
GOLD fails in the writing and the treatment, but setting its sight too low. The whole production is more worried about creating opportunities for the lead character to be heroic, than worry about the emotions the storyline is creating in the viewing audience. There are moments which have potential, the meeting with the chief monk at Kanheri caves for example, but the treatment sort of lets the scene collapse.
Am I being unduly harsh on a movie where the viewing audience has already passed its judgement? Can't say. But until each movie and every single moment in it aspires to rise up and the best it can be, we are not going to get great movies. And believe me, some of them will work with audiences too.
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