Love it or Hate it – Doesn’t Go Well With This Movie
This Friday – Azhar is an upcoming sports drama hitting the theatres solo this week. The film is directed Tony D’Souza, which is based on the life of the most controversial Cricketer called Mohammad Azharuddin. The film is produced by Ekta Kapur under the banner of Sony Pictures Network having Emran Hashmi, Prachi Desai and Nargis Fakhri in the lead roles along with others like Lara Dutta, Gautam Gulati and Rajesh Sharma to name a few in supporting roles. The film has been making headlines for certain scenes, which have been added by the makers to in order to add the spice in it.  Though most of the scenes have had real time characters with the different names but some events portrayed in the film resembles causing the controversies in the media. Anyway, let’s focus on the movie to get the crux of the same.
Plot
The story of the film is based on the controversial cricketer – Mohammad Azharuddin who has been the most successful captain of nineties. The roller coaster life of this man and allegation of fixing and getting a life ban for returning on the Cricket Stadium has given the makers enough content to make a spicy film for the B Town industry. The life of this cricketer has been like an open book especially for people who have been following the sports of Cricket since nineties, while for the new generation it still enough stuff to catch the story of this man in the form of a story.
Review
The script has all the potential to give a completely masala filled movie, however, the makers have failed to realize the opportunities they had with this film called Azhar. Showcasing a life of someone, which has been open to the audience since things began, is certainly not a good idea. On the other side, the film has been making headlines for a number of reasons since many of the events appeared similar to things that actually happened. Yet the filmmaker failed to make it an interesting venture over the silver screen. You have all the elements in this film, which can make a typical B Town film; however, it seemed that the director has failed in using these elements the way it can make a classical movie. Also, the star cast chosen in the film failed to escalate the film to a new level in terms of performance, while the content has been rather uninteresting in many ways.
Performances
Azhar in person is a complex man to be chosen to play over the silver screen especially if it is being played by a non-cricketer like Emraan Hashmi who has all together a different expertise over silver screen. Though Emraan Hashmi worked hard to resemble like Azhar but in many ways he is different and what we saw Azhar in the media or over the years, while life was on a toss. Emraan failed to portray the way Azhar looked like both in terms of his looks and performance. He was seen any other cricketer who has in own sets of styles that may appear to be similar to the former cricketer. The other two ladies in the film playing the wife and second wife too failed to do any justice to the assigned roles. Though Prachi in her Muslim looked cool but she had nothing much to deliver over the silver screen except playing a simple character of a deserted wife, while the other played by Nargis Fakhri had little to add again. Nargis though had opportunities to showcases something interesting over the silver screen but she was given not much to perform for her character adding some glamor quotient over the silver screen. Lara Dutta played the character of the defense lawyer and thus had a limited screen space, which was decent enough to get applauds. The others look okay with different characters in the film yet failed to give the kind of entertainment value, which the film deserved.
Direction, Music, Screenplay and other elements
Tony D’Souza though is among good filmmaker, but he loves to falter at B Town. Having Blue in his name, he has once again failed in making Azhar the way it should be over the silver screen. Hence with his direction skills, he has failed to give the right image of the cricketer to the capacity it deserved to be portrayed. Music is okay with good songs as well in it doing wonders over the chartbuster list. The screen play is not that interesting and similar is the story with other elements as well. The other elements too failed to add any entertainment value in it.
Azhar – The Last Word
As the tagline of the movie suggest, love him, hate him, judge him, however, if you look at the movie it simply gives the signal that the director only loves Emraan. Well, no one can judge anyone, yet the way the film is made is not par with the expectation of anyone who knows Azhar very well apart from knowing the makers of the movie. The music can be impressive with a couple of cool numbers in it, but overall the film has very less to deliver to its audience. Thus the film doesn’t really deserve a higher rating.
Rating – 2.5
