Nawazuddin Siddiqui Does It Again!
This Friday, you have two movies releasing, which certainly include the film Manjhi- The Mountain Man. It is a biographical film (biopic), which showcases the life of Dashrath Manjhi. He is popularly called as the Mountain Man, who is basically a poor laborer from the village of Gehlaur near Gaya in the Indian state of Bihar. He alone carved a path inside the mountain using his hammer and chisel. The film is directed by Ketan Mehta and produced in alliance with Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and NFDC India. The film has Nawazuddin Siddiqui who has played the character of Manjhi with Radhika Apte playing his wife’s role. Now, let’s dig into the film to find out the crux of the same.
The Plot/Story
Meet the poor laborer called Dashrath Manjhi played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who lives in a small village in Bihar in the sixties. He and his wife called Phaginiya Devi played by Radhika Apte together lead a simple life with love and care. There exist a rocky mountain in between their village and adjoining town to get all the medical attention. People had to literally either had to climb this mountain or go a long way to the medical attention to the town next called Wazirganj. One fine day, her wife falls down while climbing the mountain and thus he loses her crossing this rocky route. This man Manjhi decides to carve a route between this hard and rocky mountain using his hammer and chisel. When he takes up this mission, he is called as a crazy specie by one and all in his village. However, his consistent efforts of 22 years, he carves a path of 360 feet long, 30 feet wide and 25 feet deep. Now, this man is no more as he passed away on 17th August 2007 at the age of 73 battling gall bladder cancer in AIIMS in New Delhi. After his death, the Bihar government constructed a metalled road towards Gehlaur in the year 2011.
Script, Star Performances and Other Elements
The film has a simple script, which is known by one and all as it happens to be a biopic. So, there is hardly anything which is not known to the audience provided you are aware of this man. There is not much unknown about this story, except few dialogues and romantic moments being added by the filmmaker in order to boost up its entertainment value. Now, talking about performance, there is only man to catch up in this film. Yes, the man and the incredible performing guy- Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the man who has played the central character of this biopic called Dashrath Manjhi. Nawaz is an accomplished actor and once again he has nailed the film with his incredible performance. In fact, Ketan was smart enough to choose the right man for the central character of the film. He didn’t had to do much in order to make the lead actor understand the character. Nawaz did what he wanted from him, so with such a smart choice, even direction for this man has become a simple task.
Now, if we talk about people like Radhika Apte playing the character of the labor Manjhi, she had a small screen space, yet, she managed to do justice to character playing smartly the way the director wanted from her over the silver screen. She becomes the inspiration for the man to accomplish something incredible task like cutting down the mountain to slash down the distance of almost zero from 88 Kms. The others in the film like Tigamanshu Dhulia, Pankaj Tripathi, and Gaurav Dwivedi also did a decent job for the same. The earlier screening for the film for celebrities had nothing but applauds for the film and the performance of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, which include a long list having both B Town actors and people from politics as well like Delhi CM – Kejriwal. Talking about the other aspects like screenplay, music, editing, location and other things, everything remained perfect in this biopic film. Overall these elements have simply helped the film to become rich in terms of entertainment value.
Manjhi – The Mountain Man– Last Word
The movie is indeed promising and inspiring. It has successfully able to showcase the life and struggle of the poor labor called Manjhi who turned all the stones inside the mountain to make road to the adjoining town that was connected at a distance of 88 Kms. All thanks to versatile actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who was simply stunning with his performance over the silver screen. The biopic movies are difficult to make, however, if you get the right set of people and passionate filmmakers, they can have the guts to translate to a simple story into worthy film to catch in the theatres. Manjhi is one of such movie, which is backed by power pack performance from Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who has left no stone unturned to showcase his best performance on the silver screen. Indeed, Manjhi-The Mountain Man is a worthy movie to catch and loads of inspiration to take up while catching this film.
Rating –Â 4.5
