The M Town has witnessed one of the most awaited films called Ekk Albela. It is a biographical film based on the life of Bhagwan Palav fondly called as Bhagwan Dada who is considered to be the legend of the industry. Shekhar Sartadel has directed the film whereas Dr. Monish Babre is the producer of the movie made under the banner of Manglmurti Films in association with Kimaya Motion Pictures. The film has a huge star cast having Mangesh Desai, Vidhyadhar Joshi, Swapnil Rajshekhar, Vighnesh Joshi, Prasad Pandit, Shriram Kolhatkar, Shekhar Phadke, Arun Bhadsavle and Vidya Balan. Vidya has a cameo in this film, which marks her debut in M Town. The film covers the era of fifties and it highlights the struggle and life of the dance legend of Bollywood. How about checking the crux of the film as under:
Review
At the outset, let’s be very clear about one fact regarding biopics that these are a difficult task to accomplish.  These are tricky business to consider, especially when these are made at the backdrop of fifties and sixties as evident in the case of Ekk Albela. The film appeared to be ambitious from the trailer itself as we can understand the quality of production value that is kept intact. Mangesh Desai playing Bhgawan Dada ironically has not played such character before despite having the capacity to play such roles perfectly. Also, the presence of Vidya Balan in a movie song made the film have its good promotion value speaking much of the efforts behind its making.
We all know that this film is a biopic based on the journey of Bhagwan Dada covering his life from an aimless actor to a successful B Grade action film actor and his transition to be a director of the film along with covering the hurdles he has been getting on his way. You can find the film in getting its mood right by having all the traces of pre-independence look and feel along with a perfect costume designing and other details things. The makers of the movie simply deserves applauds for making a film without diluting its production value. Â You can find Mangesh Desai is almost all the scenes of the movie, which gives us a feeling that the makers of the film has added all its heart and soul while making the movie. Look at the signature style, his popular mannerism and many more things that makes the dance style interesting and specific. Even Vidhyadhar Joshi was seen maintaining his signature coughs in the film to a great extent.
Though the film has a couple of technical elements at a right spot yet it fails to engage the audience. The staging in the movie is loose and it simply doesn’t really engage you at all. Forget about the character of Bhagwan Dada as it fails to have any ups and downs found in the life of protagonists. You can only watch the film at a certain distance having Raj Kapoor in it, which is a rare thing to see in any Indian cinema to name any legend with his or her name. However, despite the presence of legends like Raj Kapoor, the scene is seen falling flat as the actor who plays Raj Kapoor is really very much weak.  The movie is littered with a number of scenes, which don’t get its desired level impact at all. This is really sad, which has happened despite all the effort of the director. The two songs having Vidya Balan in these though remain an important attraction but these remain only as showpieces.
Ekk Albela – Last Word
Despite a cool performance from Mangesh Desai and others in the lead role, the film Ekk Albela doesn’t happen to be an engaging film for obvious reasons. Yet the efforts put in the film cannot be underestimated, which stand alone in the film giving all rounds of applauds to the makers. This brings in the film to get a decent rating if not bad.
Rating – 3.5
