Mausam (2011) Review

"Mausam" needs a lot of patience on part of viewers to see it through.At least I got really restless and fidgety in the second half as to where the movie is going and how it will end.Thankfully I had taken a large combo of Popcorn and Pepsi which really gave me something to do while the whole boring proceedings went on.

Well but I have to admit I still find the movie nice.Its good and different from the movies we see now a days.Very few times now we see village life on screen so its a refreshing change.Some scenes have sweeping vistas like the train scene or the view of the river.Camerawork is really beautiful.

Shahid Kapoor in first half looks really mesmerizing as a simple village boy.His behaviour his mannerisms and his dialogs are so different from all his previous movies and he looks younger here.Think his father brought best out of him.I did not liked him much in the second half with his moustache etc.His song "Tashan Mein Rehna" is really rocking.Though music on the whole is quite poor and uninspired.Background score which can lift movie and make it ethereal is missing.Such sort of movie that tells about a decade of event needed a good a great background score which is sadly missing from the movie.Editing ,good editing which makes movie exciting for the viewers is also missing.Which is quite sad since this movie had potential to be a great movie.Direction from debutante director Pankaj Kapoor is good enough does not seem like his first movie.Some dialogs do fall flat ,good story needs good dialogs to tell it in fine way to evoke emotions of movie goers,which these flat dialogs make unnatural.

Sonam Kapoor does great too here,gets a role of a life time.She is quite natural and effortless.All the supporting cast here does great too.
w
The train chase sequence here is strange.Since we have all these accidents on rise where drivers overlook signals in hurry to jump track.Quit dangerous and unsafe I hope youngsters don't start aping it.

References to Babri Demolition,Kargil and Trade Tower Attacks is quite fleeting and I feel more coverage to them or getting those archival footage could have made this movie better.At least Naseeruddin Shah his eminent colleague did it better in his 2006 directorial debut "Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota: What If...? ".Quite thrilling sequence of plane hitting trade tower from inside a Tower Cabin.Kargil scenes seem really lousy and toy like or child like.

But at least Gujrat riots are done well just a grim reminder to naive citizens that what happened their should never be forgotten.The ending scenes do remind of Dharmendra's "BlackMail" where couple hide to escape from dangerous people.The whole movie seems reminiscent of Rajendra Kumar's "Aas Ka Panchchi" which has the same sweeping story pattern and which was much better then this.I was really glad when the movie ended its 3 Hours long.People keep saying it is inspired from Tom Cruise's TopGun which I have not seen.But the first half to me is really refreshing and Original.So I would still recommend to people to go and see it for Shahid,for the beautiful vistas and endearing supporting cast.

And no resemblance here to Gulzar's Mausam (1975) which definitely had a thousand times better music.