Movie Review: Azhar

Movie Review: ‘Azhar’

Rating: 2/5

Director: Tony D’Souza

Cast:  Emraan Hashmi, Prachi Desai, Nargis Fakhri, Lara Dutta, Gautam Gulati

Azhar Movie Trailer

Azhar is clearly made as an attempt at redemption for the tainted cricketer and India’s ex-captain Mohammad Azharuddin. Tony D’Souza may have inserted a big slide at the start of the film claiming that the film is not a biopic but that surely does not give him any leeway from giving us such a fickle film.

As most of us in this cricket loving nation would know, Azharuddin was a revered cricketer and the captain of Indian team, before he was banned from playing after he was accused of being part of a match fixing scandal in 2000. The film mainly focuses on his journey and struggle after the ban till eight years later he was given the clean chit, due to lack of evidence. If his alleged involvement in the scandal hugely disappointed his fans, this movie is only going to disappoint them further. Narrating a tale of this kind of a upheaval in a cricketing genius’ life requires a lot of research, thought and of course, a clear vision. Lacking in all three, the direction, the script and even the dialogues just about skim the surface, refusing to take pains to go any deeper or even invest any time and energy in showing some real on ground cricket.

Azhar could easily be said to be one of the weakest films when it comes to portraying a real-life character on-screen. The writers have a great subject at hand and there is so much to explore but what they stick to is an overly commercial approach.

Filled with extremely corny dialogues that make little efforts to convey anything sensible, there is less to look out for in this script. It also seems more like, pieces from Azhar’s life have been simply weaved together in a montage to make us sympathize with him and his situation back then.

Invoked with zero feelings of even Azharuddin’s love for the game, this glitzy affair has songs that are great to listen to, but misfits for story-telling.  The courtroom scenes are written poorly with snooty dialogues assigned to Lara Dutta’s character that make the entire sequence highly fictitious. Side characters are gravely under-developed as opposed to their importance in Azhar’s real life.

Emraan Hashmi plays the lead protagonist Azhar. While it was said that the actor spent a lot of time with Azhar to get into his character, it hardly shows in the film. Lopsided shouldered walk does not make up for his weak act in the film. We see too much Emraan in the film than Azhar thanks to his typical dialogue delivery.

Prachi Desai’s demure act of Naureen, the wife he wronged is quite decent. She does not have much screen-time but manages to do exactly what she is expected to in the film.

Nargis Fakhri is another weak link in the film. Her acting deficiency is known to us and it continues with this film. Other than batting her eyelids, pouting and dramatic soft sobs, she hardly has anything to do.

Lara Dutta as the oversmart and snooty lawyer Meera hams in the film. Also there is something terribly wrong with her look in the film.

Kunal Roy Kapur does a decent job as Reddy, Azhar’s lawyer. He overdoes his accent a little but overall a good change for him.

TV actors Gautam Gulati, Varun Badola and Fukrey fame Manjot Singh are cast as supporting characters in the film. Their characters are under written and hence fail to create any impact.