Toofaan Movie Review: Too (much) fun? Thoda sa though!

ToofaanDir Rakeysh Omprakash MehraCast Farhan Akhtar Mrunal ThakurRating This had the tools material and makings of a great film Alas it stops at just about being good enough Stops when At 20 minutes shy of three hours Which might make Toofaan seem like such a long movie But given how much it packs into its compressed timeline with breathless energy without a moment of pause let alone to ponder mdashyou wish sometimes that all of it was stretched into a series insteadAnd yet the reason I could go all the way I suspect is because Irsquove missed a traditional oldworld Bollywood entertainment experiencespace of this sort in a theatre for far too long Which is where this film rightfully belongs With enough cutpaste masala in it to keep you casually hanging mdash so long as the popcorn tub on your lap hasnrsquot bottomed outWhat do I mean by that exactly At least four Bollywood movies in succession for the price of one Starting with Zoya Akhtarrsquos Gully Boy about a Muslim ghetto boy in Dongri here instead of Kurla fighting his way to survive playing along with priceless patois ldquoBantairdquo ldquoChances nairdquo etc And hiphop for background scoreMani Ratnamrsquos Bombay since interreligious marriage and lsquokhadoos baaprsquo is at the centre of conflict Abhishek Kapoorrsquos Rock On about a man quitting his life of passion to pursue work that marks him out as worldly wise instead And eventually Shimit Aminrsquos Chak De India about fighting to restore onersquos dignityhonourItrsquos almost like whenever the writers were stuck with where to go with the story next someone threw at them a wellwatched movie for a solution Whatrsquos the issue with all of that Transition of course Meaning seamlessly moving from a plot to another mdash as goals shift so does the goalpostThis overpacking may be a sign of underconfidence over being able to see a single point through Some of it might be deliberate While the frames are neatly lit and sets studiedly designed which is undoubtedly director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehrarsquos forte anywayTake the case of Paresh Rawal He plays a boxing coach whorsquos unreservedly a religious bigot mdash holding strong prejudices against Muslims at large Why Apparently his wife died in a terror attack This might seem a slightly lame point to hate on 18 billion people in the world who had nothing to do with it But is his worldview resoundingly challenged No and I can imagine certain audiences having an issue with it As they mustYet in the fearful times of random FIRs issued against artexpression the fact that the mainstream filmmakers bring up the bogey of lsquolove jihadrsquo itself or even intercommunity housing in Bombay might seem an important thing to do Glad they doLikewise the girl in question the ever gently grinning Mrunal Thakur boxing coachrsquos daughter is a Dadarmiddleclass medical doctor whorsquos fallen for the Dongri dude Do we see this unlikely love blossom in mysterious ways as it would Bahut time jayega But we know the Hindu girl and Muslim boy fall for each other Guess a bigger issue in this coupling is likely to be class Shersquos the posh reformer hersquos the orphaned ruffianAt the core of all these tropes is actor Farhan Akhtar inside the ringrope as it were Letrsquos not forget this is essentially a believably choreographed lsquoboxing filmrsquo mdash in a country that hardly has a professional boxing culture so to say Itrsquos set around statechampionship levels Goes without saying Akhtar is up against all possible oddsFirstly this is entirely a young manrsquos movie to shoulder mdash about finding first love in life or seeking greater glory in sport Even if itrsquos been made at Akhtarrsquos behest mdashproduced by him and hersquos taken ldquostory ideardquo credit for it too Hersquos currently 47 Which is why half way through the movie I was wondering mdash really whatrsquos at stake hereAlso readRakeysh Omprakash Mehra Paresh was my first and last choiceTo be fair Robert De Niro was 35 when he played a 19yearold Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull Saying this because De Niro is apparently Akhtarrsquos hero And this film may not be a coincidence in that regard In terms of the Bombay lukkha lingoswag Akhtar kinda plays it straight without looking like hersquos trying too hard But itrsquos his physical transformation that genuinely draws you in Perhaps in ways that I wouldnrsquot have cared for so much or at all if it wasnrsquot Akhtar mdash besides many things the lead from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara 2011 which released exactly ten years before this filmrsquos dropped onlineThis is effectively a smartly curated showreel to showcase Akhtarrsquos genuinely inspiring makeover Impossible to be dismissive about it or altogether ignore either And since you canrsquot mdash yoursquove breezed through a relatively understated redux version of a starpower script that Sunny Deol wouldrsquove led with back in the rsquo90s Impressed for sure Loved it though Nope Regretted Not at all Yeah itrsquos one of thoseAlso readRakeysh Omprakash Mehra The films idea came from Farhan

Toofaan Movie Review: Too (much) fun? Thoda sa though!

Toofaan
Dir: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Mrunal Thakur
Rating: ***

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / Toofaan Movie Review: Too (much) fun? Thoda sa though!

Toofaan Movie Review: Too (much) fun? Thoda sa though!

ToofaanDir: Rakeysh Omprakash MehraCast: Farhan Akhtar, Mrunal ThakurRating: ***

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Toofaan
Dir: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Mrunal Thakur
Rating: ***