This movie delivers everything you expect it to deliver from the previews. Shahid is adorable and wonderful. Sonakshi is wonderful and beautiful and fierce. And Sonu Sood is a) incredibly handsome and b) too handsome and beautifully handsome to be the evil villain he plays. He does a great job, but his handsomeness was a bit distracting for me.
Dancing: This movie is written, directed and choreographed by Prabhu Deva, so the dancing is amazing and technical. If you are a dancer, watch this movie. Seriously. Some of the stuff Shahid was doing is nothing short of amazing and of course Prabhu has a cameo in one of the songs (Gandi Beat). It was nice to see that Prabhu is capable of dialing it back when he needs to as the "we both just realized we are in love fantasy dance sequence" was low key, and beautiful without all the complex technical moves of the other numbers.
Action: Speaking of choreography, this is an action flick. And some of the fight sequences are beautifully choreographed as well. Most of them are jump cut so the flow doesn't allow you to see extended sequences and they could very easily just film individual action shots and cut them together. But there is a fight scene in the middle of the movie where Shahid is fighting 60 guys, and we get a long sequence of uncut moves that are really well done.
The final battle between Shahid and Sonu is in sepia tone – to give it more gravitas. It's hokey. They may have chosen that to hide flaws in Shahid's make up because at this point his character had been stabbed twice, beat up and buried alive before heading into the final battle, so... he had a lot of fake blood on him and it might not have looked right in regular color.
The battle itself reminded me a bit of the final battle in the 3rd Musashi movie except without the swords. They rush at each other. Fight a bit. Rush at each other and eventually, Shahid, after nearly dying 3 times in the battle manages to land a punch to the throat and they just stand there. For a long while. And no – I'm not giving anything away – obviously Shahid was going to win this battle – duh. Anyway, I thought it was a nice touch and used the main elements that everyone remembers from the final Musashi battle well.
Technical Details: As for what I didn't really like. Some of the editing was really odd and distracting. One of the first expository scenes is jump cut with odd angles of the faces talking, ending with extreme close ups. I found it distracting and annoying, especially since I was trying to read subtitles.
The other odd choice was a jiggling earthquake effect on the film at a pivotal moment. It was distracting and didn't really add to the scene. Those were the only two moments where this was done. The rest of the movie was well done.
The love story was OK – I have mixed feelings about the first half since it involved Shahid stalking Sonakshi and having been a victim of a stalking, it didn't sit well with me. I don't normally get that sort of reaction from other movies where this "following" happens. Normally, I think – ahhh. But I did react badly here so I think they missed the mark.
My conclusion: If you like rough action masala – this movie is great. If you like amazing dancing. This movie is really great. Love story? Meh. Really handsome actor – Oh YEAH! Sonu!!!! Music – fun. Worth seeing? Probably.
Dancing: This movie is written, directed and choreographed by Prabhu Deva, so the dancing is amazing and technical. If you are a dancer, watch this movie. Seriously. Some of the stuff Shahid was doing is nothing short of amazing and of course Prabhu has a cameo in one of the songs (Gandi Beat). It was nice to see that Prabhu is capable of dialing it back when he needs to as the "we both just realized we are in love fantasy dance sequence" was low key, and beautiful without all the complex technical moves of the other numbers.
Action: Speaking of choreography, this is an action flick. And some of the fight sequences are beautifully choreographed as well. Most of them are jump cut so the flow doesn't allow you to see extended sequences and they could very easily just film individual action shots and cut them together. But there is a fight scene in the middle of the movie where Shahid is fighting 60 guys, and we get a long sequence of uncut moves that are really well done.
The final battle between Shahid and Sonu is in sepia tone – to give it more gravitas. It's hokey. They may have chosen that to hide flaws in Shahid's make up because at this point his character had been stabbed twice, beat up and buried alive before heading into the final battle, so... he had a lot of fake blood on him and it might not have looked right in regular color.
The battle itself reminded me a bit of the final battle in the 3rd Musashi movie except without the swords. They rush at each other. Fight a bit. Rush at each other and eventually, Shahid, after nearly dying 3 times in the battle manages to land a punch to the throat and they just stand there. For a long while. And no – I'm not giving anything away – obviously Shahid was going to win this battle – duh. Anyway, I thought it was a nice touch and used the main elements that everyone remembers from the final Musashi battle well.
Technical Details: As for what I didn't really like. Some of the editing was really odd and distracting. One of the first expository scenes is jump cut with odd angles of the faces talking, ending with extreme close ups. I found it distracting and annoying, especially since I was trying to read subtitles.
The other odd choice was a jiggling earthquake effect on the film at a pivotal moment. It was distracting and didn't really add to the scene. Those were the only two moments where this was done. The rest of the movie was well done.
The love story was OK – I have mixed feelings about the first half since it involved Shahid stalking Sonakshi and having been a victim of a stalking, it didn't sit well with me. I don't normally get that sort of reaction from other movies where this "following" happens. Normally, I think – ahhh. But I did react badly here so I think they missed the mark.
My conclusion: If you like rough action masala – this movie is great. If you like amazing dancing. This movie is really great. Love story? Meh. Really handsome actor – Oh YEAH! Sonu!!!! Music – fun. Worth seeing? Probably.