Review of Bengali film "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar 2"

"Chirodini Tumi Je Amar 2" has nothing to do with its prequel "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar". The only similarity is that it is also a  tragic love story and is a remake of a south Indian film. With this two similarities it could have been easily named as a "Prem Amar 2" or a "Bojhena Se Bojhena 2". Anyways what is in a name. 

This movie is about two young couples whose stories are very much different with each other but they are interconnected. At one side there is an innocent love story where there is no money but the hearts are full of love on the other side there is lust and betrayal of a rich spoilt brat where there is lots of money but there is no love or trust. When this two stories criss-cross each other what happens, obviously poverty will surrender to the power of money but will true love surrender against the power wealth or not?

The story starts with a poor guy Bhanu Sardar (Arjun Chakraborty) who had came to Kolkata from a village of Purulia to earn money to run his family. He works at food stall. One day he meets Jyoti (Urmila Mahanta) , a housemaid at nearby apartment. Soon after his first meeting with Jyoti, he falls in love with her, but Jyoti's mother(Soma chakraborty) does not like him. So feels scared to express his feelings to Jyoti. Parallel to this love story there is another track of a grown up rich kid Raj (Bihu Mukherjee) who has some lustful intentions towards an innocent teenager girl Shreya (Ena Saha) who lives in the same housing complex. Shreya is the girl from the house where Jyoti works as a maid.
At one point these two stories mingles with each other and true love has to face the challenges of the power of wealth.And what happened then is the climax of the film.

The story works well with audiences because of the interesting screenplay and a bunch of believable characters with whom one can easily identify. The way the story unfolds using the flashbacks of past incidents looks interesting. At interval point a twist comes to the story which is very good. In the middle of all seriousness and tension some solid dose of laughter has been provided in the form of the character of Rakhal Mondal (Riddhi Sen) a friend and co-worker of Bhanu at the roadside food stall. Bhanu and Rakhal 's friendship track has emotional quotient too. Another good thing is that unlike other commercial Bengali movies the use of songs has been restricted very well there is no scope for unnecessary songs picturised in foreign locations. The only problem with the screenplay is its length.  The movie could have been shortened a bit by reducing the elaborated depiction of Bhanu's past life in the opening few reels. It has nothing much to do with the original track.

As a director Soumik Chatterjee has done full justice to his characters and story. At one point he has captured the poor class people's life authentically on the other hand he has portrayed the young rich kids and their lifestyle too with much detailing. Another credit goes to him for introducing a bunch of new talented faces and make them act well in front of the camera.

Among the actors it can be said apart from Arjun Chakraborty all the other kids are new, even for Arjun Chakraborty too it is his second film only. But all of them has acted very well. Arjun Chakraborty is totally believable as the poor helpless Bhanu. His body language to his dialogue delivery everything is appropriate for his character. Riddhi Sen (Son of Kaushik Sen) has done a brilliant job as Rakhal. He is the live wire of the film, without his comic relief the film could have been turned into a monotonous and depressing story. Every time he comes on the screen , he brings smile on the audiences faces. Even in the climax portion he has acted well in the emotional scenes too. Newcomer Bihu Mukherjee(Son of Kharaj Mukherjee) is another genius and he is also the future of Bengali film industry. He shines very well with his evil to the core character of Raj. 
The screenplay has been written in  such a way that the guys get better roles in most of the part but the two debutante ladies  Urmila Mahanta and Ena Saha have done justice to their characters too. While Urmila Mahanta has not much dialouges for most of the parts, she has to enact with her eyes and facial expression only and she does it very well. On the other hand Ena Saha' s character Shreya is totally different to Jyoti, she is a bubbly rich talkative girl who is very lively and Ena Saha has brought life to the character. 
The best thing about the young actors is that they act as per their age neither they looked too mature to their age nor they behaved too childish.

Among the senior actors Kharaj Mukherjee is just too good as the Police Officer. He brings smile with his comic timing. Another actor who has shown good comic timing is Sumit Samaddar as the food stall owner Ghanada. Soma Chakraborty has given good support as Jyoti's mother. Music composer Samidh Mukherjee has a very funny guest appearance as a Tollywood actor.

The dialogues are very realistic and very bold too.As a result some of the cuss words have been beeped as per censor board's advice. The camerawork by Madhusudan Shee is good, only the overuse of close up shots could have been avoided. The sets and costumes goes very well with characters. 

The music by Jeet Ganguly is very much soulful and melodious. Both the songs "Mon Bojhe Na" and "Eka Ekela Mon" has been composed and written very well and have been sung well too by current favorite Arijit Singh.  Another track "Maula" comes towards the climax in the background, but it failed to create the needed impact of pain and agony of the two lovers.

Over all this is  a  film with a good story which will touch your heart, though the climax may not be acceptable for some of the audiences. But the interesting characters and the good acting by a bunch of newcomers will win your heart. Go and watch it and give a chance to the future actors of Bengali film industry.

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Review of Bhootnath Returns

Now a days it is trend to make sequels just to en-cash the success of the first movie , no matter if the sequel really carry forwards the story of the prequel or not. In that sense "Bhootnath Returns" is a true sequel to the 2008 release "Bhootnath". The story starts from the same point from where the story was ended in the earlier movie. There are some reference of Banku and his father too but if you are thinking that this is going to be the same fun ride for kids then you are wrong this belongs to a totally different genre of movies. There are humors for kids too but those are very few as the main story revolves around a social message which tries to motivate the voters to vote to bring change in system and to build a better country. This film targets the voters, the 18+ audiences not the kids. but that does not mean that this is an adult film as a character at one point says in the film , it is for adults but not only for adults.

The film's opening few reels are the most interesting where Bhootnath (Amitabh Bachchan) goes to ghost office where every ghost is waiting for there turn for reincarnation. Then suddenly Bhootnath realizes that everyone is laughing at him as he had failed to scare a single kid (Banku) with his supernatural powers. To clear his image Bhootnath returns to the earth once again just to scare some kids. But his destiny brings him to Akhrot (Parth Bhalerao) a kid from the slum area of Dharavi, who can see him. Very soon Bhootnath becomes friendly with Akhrot and gets involved in his personal problems. And at one point while solving Akhrot's problems Bhootnath realizes that the problem is on a larger scale and he decides to fight general elections against the local corrupt politician Bhau (Boman Irani). After that the next half tells the story of how a ghost does his election campaigning and finally will he able to win the battle against Bhau or not?

The story written by Nitesh Tiwari and Piyush Gupta is very unusual and it requires the support of a good screenplay to keep the audiences interest alive. But unfortunately in some moments the screenplay looks repetitive. In both the half there are scenes where Bhootnath decides to punish the corrupt government employees but when the same thing happens for 5-6 times it looses the impact. Another problem with the screenplay is its too lengthy, it should have been reduced by at least 20 - 25 minutes. At one point in the movie, it features a whole 5 minute song depicting the poverty of lower middle class people of India which looks totally out of sync with the movie. Although the intention is noble but a movie should entertain also. Unfortunately not everyone knows how to give social messages with entertainment like Rajkumar Hirani. In the second half where a movement has been shown to create Voter ID card looks totally inspired by Munnabhai movies but it does not look as convincing like the Munnabhai movies.

But that does not mean that the movie does not have any interesting moments there are some entertaining scenes. Such as the scene in the opening sequence showing the ghost office, or the scene when Bhootnath along with Akhrot goes to consult with a lawyer (Sanjay Mishra) for the information regarding contesting for elections, or when Bhootnath goes to Anuraag Kashyap with the request to write a promotional song for their party, the sequence involving Bhootnath and Bhau in Bhau's toilet etc. 

Another high point of the film is its dialogues penned by Nitesh Tiwari and Piyush Gupta and additional dialogue writers Nikhil Mehrotra and Shreyas Jain. No matter the screenplay is going up or down the dialogues of the film are always funny and innovative. 

As a director Nitesh Tiwari has done a fair job. He has casted the actors very well and has extracted good performances from all. The detailing about the locations and characters is also visible. Only thing which goes missing by him is that at some points he failed to provide the entertainment value along with the social message as a result in some points the movie starts sounding and looking like a documentary made by Election Commission of India.

In acting department, there is no point to prove once again that what a great actor Amitabh Bachchan is. Among the others the kid Parth Bhalerao has done a superb job. His body language, dialogue delivery goes very well with his character and he has acted like a seasoned actor. Boman Irani is brilliant once again in negative role where he does more comedy than negativity. But one thing needs to be said that now Boman Irani is getting type casted in such comical villan roles. He should stop it before that people starts feeling bored of it. 
Among the others Sanjay Mishra as the lawyer , Usha Jadav as Akhrot's mother and Brijendra Kala as bhau's aide have given well support. 
Anuraag Kashyap has  impressed the audiences in his cameo, but the same can not be said about the two superstars Shahrukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. Both the actors have done good but their guest appearances has not been used properly in the movie so it does not make much impact on the story.

Among the technical team it can be said that Wasiq Khan has done a wonderful job by recreating the Dharavi Slum area with his realistic sets. The camera work by Kamaljeet Negi is also good. The rest of the technical team is just okay

There is not much scope of music in the movie, and the songs are not much popular. Still the song "Party To Banti Hai" is a catchy number and works in favour of the movie. Among the other songs the "Dharavi Rap" has been written very well with very funny lines and it has been picturised well too so it looks good in the movie.

Overall "Bhootnath Returns" is film made with well intentions to make people aware of their rights using which people can bring change to their society. Of course it is a family film but  the running is too long which can bore the kids accompanying their parents. But still it is enjoyable for its funny dialogues and the brilliant performance by its two main lead. 
So in this voting season you can give your valuable vote to Bhootnath.

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Review of "Main Tera Hero"

From last 25 years David Dhawan is continuously entertaining the audiences with his trademark comedy movies. Among them some of them clicked very well with the viwers and some of them not but he never tried to do something different and neither the audiences expected from him to change his style. So from the beginning you understand what to expect and what not to expect from "Main Tera Hero". From start to end it is a mindless entertainer where story can be given any kind of twist at any point without thinking about any logic, where the songs can pop out anywhere in the movie but whatever you see on screen appears good to you.

This movie is a remake of a Telugu hit "Kandireega" and where most of the filmmakers are trying to remake action movies from south , it is a fresh change that someone tried to remake a comedy. The screenplay has not been changed much only some modifications has been done to make it more suitable for Hindi movie audiences.

The story is of a small town guy Seenu (Varun Dhawan) who comes to Bangaluru to get a degree from a college but fall in love with a girl Sunaina (Ileana D'cruze) from the first day of his college. But there is a local cop (who acts more like a goon) Angad (Arunoday Singh) who loves Sunaina and thinks her as his property. The first half revolves around how Seenu wins Sunaina's heart and makes her free from Angad. In the second half the story shifts to Bangkok where a don Bikrant (Anupam Kher) kidnaps Sunaina so that Seenu comes to him and he can forced Seenu to marry her daughter Aisha (Nargis Fakhri), as Aisha is madly in love with Seenu since she had seen Seenu fighting with some goons on a train journey. From this point starts some comedy of errors and confusions where Seenu continuously keeps making others fool.

It has the masala ingredients like comedy , action, song and dance but one thing which is missing are the laugh out loud moments throughout the whole movie. It has some funny moments like Seenu's conversations with God(Superbly dubbed by Salman Khan), the bhajan inspired by a popular dance number, the kissing rehearsal sequence towards the climax etc. But as it has been promoted as a comedy it should have more funny dialogues specially in the first half.

As a director David Dhawan has done a good job. Though its true that besides a director he acts as a father too and gives his son maximum of the opportunities as a result the other characters did not get ample chance to make an impression on the audiences.

In the acting department Varun Dhawan has done quite a good job. Its very clear that his performance is very much inspired from Govinda and Salman Khan who were the most favorite actors of his father's earlier films. But still he has managed to make his own image too. His comic timing is superb. He dances very well and does the action scenes good too. Overall he is truly deserves to be called a Hero of commercial Hindi movies.

In a David Dhawan movie heroines do not need to act they just need to look glamorous in their short clothes and here too both the ladies Ileana D'cruze and Nargis Fakhri have managed to look glamorous and have given good support to their hero.

Among the supporting cast it is Sourabh Shukla who has done a fantastic job and has delivered some funny lines too. Anupam Kher and Rajpal Yadav have acted well too. Arunoday Singh has made a 360 degree rotation from non commercial parallel cinema to a David Dhawan comedy but this initiative doesn't go well for him. He has tried a lot to do a fair job at least in the second half but still he looks a misfit in his role.

The technical department has not done a mind blowing job but everything is in place and goes well with the requirement of this film. Special mention is deserved for Sanjay F Gupta's cinematography which is pleasant to the eyes. The choreographers Bosco-Ceaser and Ganesh Acharya has done a good job and the dancing capabilities of the leading man Varun Dhawan has made their job more easier.

The music has been composed by Sajid-Wajid, which is good though the songs sound very much inspired (copied) from other songs. The song "Tera Hero Idhar Hai" has been completely lifted from the old hit song "Jahan Teri Ye Nazar Hai" where the song "Shanivaar Raati" has lots of similarities with last years hit "Dilliwali Girlfriend" and the song "Galat Baat Hai" sounds and looks much similar with the song "Second Hand Jawani". In spite of the lack of originality the songs are quite popular and the picturisation is also good so it doesn't bore the audiences although some of the songs comes all of a sudden in the movie without any situation.

Overall it is a time pass movie , if you love the mindless comedies from David Dhawan or you are a fan of Varun Dhawan then you can go for this. But don't expect too much, just sit and enjoy the movie and the popcorn too.

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A quick update on the happenings in Bollywood in Quarter 1 of 2014

Quarter 1 of 2014 is over so its time to look back at the happenings of Q1 of 2014 in our Hindi film industry.

Business of Bollywood in January:

The year started with the release of the 3D version of the biggest hit of Indian cinema ever

"Sholay" but this time it failed to create the magic once again even with the 3D effects. 

Then the next movie to watch out for was "Dedh Ishqiya" which was a sort of comeback film of the legendary Madhuri Dixit, but alas neither she not the movie was able to create the kind of magic which was expected. As a result it turns out to be a flop. Same goes for Salman Khan's much hyped "Jai Ho" which failed to meet the expectations of the trade analyst. Although it did very well at the box office and managed to enter in the 100 crore club but it did not break any record and also got very poor reviews from the critics.Where the big stars failed to bring the audiences to the theaters, surprisingly a bunch of newcomers gave a surprise hit at the box office with "Yaariyaan". Although the critics washed out the film with their harsh comments but the college campus drama made a solid impact on the young cinegoers with some adult comedy and very much popular songs. Its box office collection was not that big but in comparison to the budget of the film it was a hit.

Business of Bollywood in February:

Keeping the romantic season in mind most of the mainstream movies released in February were romantic films. It started with very entertaining "Hasee Toh Phasee" which introduced

the fresh new pairing of Sidhharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra.Though the story was predictable enough but for a fresh screenplay and some lovable characters it entertains the audiences as well critics and becomes a profitable movie at the box office. Next comes Yashraaj film's much awaited retro drama "Gunday". It got a mixed reaction from the audiences but thanks to good publicity and hit music it manages to earn between 70-80 crores and becomes a hit. Then comes another highly awaited movie "Highway" which was the talk of the town for its unusual pairing as well as for its director Imtiaz Ali and also for the music of A.R.Rehman. And due to all this factors this movie got a good response from class appealing audiences and from critics too. At box office it was just average. On the last week of February comes another big mainstream movie "Shaadi Ke Side Effects" but unfortunately this movie's effect was not so good on the audience and box office. The leading pair tried too hard to save the film but its story and presentation were not engaging enough. Though it took a good opening due to pre-release hype but later its collection kept dropping.

Business of Bollywood in March:

In the month of March too many movies were released but none of them had big star or much hype. In fact no one had any kind of expectations with these movies but there were two surprise hits which managed to earn more than 50 crores at box office. The two movies were "Queen" and "Ragini MMS 2". Both these movies were as different as chalk and cheese but still there was one similarity that was both were hits due to the woman power. Where "Queen" conquered the box office with the solid performance from the leading lady Kangna Ranaut , on the other hand the horror movie "Ragini MMS 2" achieved good collection for the sex appeal of the leading lady Sunny Leone. This movie opens the door for a new genre of movies for Hindi cinema which is Horex(Horror + Sex).

Top Performances of Q1 2014
Actors-

• Arshad Warsi - Dedh Ishqiya
• Nawazuddin Siddiqui - Miss Lovely
• Randeep Hooda - Highway
• Sanjay Mishra - Ankhon Dekhi
• Satish Kaushik - Lakshmi

Actresses-

• Kangna Ranaut - Queen
• Alia Bhatt - Highway
• Parineeti Chopra - Hasee Toh Phasee
• Huma Qureishi - Dedh Ishqiya
• Lisa Hayden - Queen
• Seema Pahwa - Ankhon Dekhi

Top Songs of Q1 2014

• Baarish / Sunny Sunny / ABCD / Allah Yaariyaan - Yaariyan
• Zahenaseeb / Drama Queen - Hasee Toh Phasee
• Entriyaan - Gunday 
• Patakha Guddi / Maahi Ve - Highway
• London Thumakda / O Gujariyaa - Queen
• Baby Doll - Ragini MMS 2

Main Highlights of Q1 2014-

• "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" got most of the Awards for the Best Film of 2013.
• Farhan Akhtar got the Best Actor award for 2013 in most of the awards shows.
• Deepika Padukone received the award for Best Actress of 2013 at all award functions.
• Aamir Khan returns to TV with the second season of his  Non-Fiction show "Satymev Jayate"
• Aamir Khan's next movie "P.K." 's release postponed to the Christmas. Now it will clash at the box office with another big movie "Bombay velvet"starring Ranbir Kapoor.
• Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor left "Shudhhi", the much awaited movie from Karan Johar's production house.
• Sonam kapoor has been signed as the leading lady opposite Salman Khan in Sooraj Barjtya's next movie "Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo". It is scheduled to release on Deewali 2015.

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Winners of First Bengali Filmfare Awards

Best Film - Chander Pahar
Best Director - Shiboprasad Mukhopadhyay and Nandita Roy (Alik Sukh)
Best Actress - Konkona Sen Sharma (Goynaar Baksho)
Best Actor - Ritwick Chakraborty (Shobdo)
 
Best Supporting Actor - Indraneil Sengupta (Mishwar Rawhoshyo)
Best Supporting Actress - Moushumi Chatterjee (Goynaar Baksho)
Best Debut - Sohini Sarkar (Rupkatha Noy and Phoring)
Best Debut (Director) - Indranil Roychowdhury (Phoring)

Best Actor Male (Critics) Soumitro Chatterjee (Rupkatha Noy)
Best Actor Female (Critics) - Rituparna Sengupta (Alikh Sukh)
Best Film (Critics) - Shobdo & Rupkatha Noy.

Best Background Score : Neel Adhikari (Tasher Desh) & Prabuddha Banerjee (Phoring)
Best Choreography : Baba Yadav (Jhinkunakur Nakkunakur) (Boss)
Best Cinematography : Soumik Haldar(Meghe Daka Tara) and Indraneil Mukherjee (Phoring)
Best Production design : Tanmoy Chakroborty (Goynaar Baksho)
Best Sound Design : Anirban Sengupta and Dipankar Chaki (Shabdo)

Best Lyrics: Anindya Chattopadhyay (Raat jaaye - Alik Sukh)
Best Music Director: Jeet Ganguli (Boss)
Best Playback Singer Female: Anwesha Dutta Gupta (Sara Din Aar Sara Raat - Rupkatha Noy)
Best Playback Singer Male: Arijit Singh (Mon maajhi re - Boss)

Special Award - Prosenjit Chatterjee
Lifetime Achievement - The Late Suchitra Sen and Madhabi Mukherjee

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The nominees for the 1st Filmfare Awards for Bengali Cinema

The nominees for the 1^st Filmfare Awards.

Filmfare Award for Best Film – Bengali	Filmfare Award for Best Director – Bengali
Alik Sukh Chander Pahar Mishawr Rawhoshyo Phoring Shobdo	Aparna Sen - Goynar Baksho Indranil Roychowdhury - Phoring Kamaleshwar Mukherjee - Chander Pahar Kaushik Ganguly - Shobdo Shibprasad Mukhopadhyay and Nandita Roy - Alik Sukh
Filmfare Award for Best Actor Male – Bengali	Filmfare Award for Best Actor Female – Bengali
Dev - Chander Pahar Jeet - Boss Prosenjit Chatterjee - Mishawr Rawhoshyo Ritwick Chakraborty - Shobdo Saswata Chatterjee - Meghe Dhakha Tara	Ananya Chatterjee - Meghe Dhakha Tara Arpita Chatterjee - Satyanweshi Konkona Sen Sharma - Goynar Baksho Rituparna Sengupta - Alik Sukh Sohini Sarkar - Phoring
Filmfare Award for Best Actor Supporting Role Male – Bengali	Filmfare Award for Best Actor Supporting Role Female – Bengali
Abir Chatterjee - Meghe Dhakha Tara Indraneil Sengupta - Mishawr Rawhoshyo Kaushik Ganguly - Kangal Malsat Saswata Chatterjee - Goynar Baksho Paran Bandopadhyay - Proloy	Locket Chatterjee - Nayika Sangbad Moushumi Chatterjee - Goynar Baksho Sreelekha Mitra - Ashchorjyo Prodeep Swastika Mukherjee - Maach Mishti & More Raima Sen - Maach Mishti & More
Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Bengali	Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist – Bengali
Debojyoti Mishra - Meghe Dhaka Tara Jeet Gannguli - Rangbaaz Jeet Gannguli - Boss Indraadip Das Gupta - Hawa Bodol Neel Dutt - Maach Mishti & More	Anindya Chatterjee - "Raat jaaye" from Alik Sukh Prosen - "Din khon mapa aache" from Hawa Bodol Sugato Guha - "Ami akash khola" from Aborto Srijato - "Balir shohor" from Mishawr Rawhoshyo Srijit Mukherji - "Tumi ebar" from Maach Mishti & More
Filmfare Award for Best Singer Male – Bengali	Filmfare Award for Best Singer Female – Bengali
Anindya Chatterjee - "Raat jaaye" from Alik Sukh Anupam Roy - "Istofa dilam" from Nayika Sangbad Arijit Singh - "Mon maajhi re" from Boss Arijit Singh - "Din khon mapa aachhe" from Hawa Bodol Arijit Singh - "Ki kore toke bolbo" from Rangbaaz	Anwesha Datta Gupta - "Sara din aar sara raat" from Rupkatha Noy Somlata Acharyya - "Tumi ebar" from Maach Mishti & More Anwesha Datta Gupta - "Roshni elo" from Proloy Shreya Ghoshal - "Balir shohor" from Mishawr Rawhoshyo Ujjaini Mukherjee - "Ami Akash khola" from Aborto

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Review of Highway

Imtiaz Ali is the master to show unconventional romance which is not love at first sight but a gradually bonded relationship between two people. Highway too is the story about two persons as different as chalk and cheese and how they discover each other and gets attached with each other.

It is a story of a young girl Veera Tripathy who is the daughter of a socially and politically powerful rich and famous person. Just a day before her marriage, Veera got kidnapped by a gang of robbers lead by Mahabir Bhati(Randeep Hooda) at a petrol pump while she was there out on a long drive with her fiance. Mahabir kidnapped Veera just to take her as a hostage to escape from the crime scene but soon he realized the real identity of Veera and also understood what risk he had taken kidnapping a girl from such a powerful family. But still he did not surrender to the situation and decided to take ransom from Veera's father and sell her to any flesh market. To hide her from police he started a journey with Veera and his aide Aadoo (Durgesh Kumar) on a truck from Delhi to Rajasthan to Punjab to Himachal to Kashmir. during this journey Veera discovers that Mahabir is not the kind of harmful person what he looks from outside rather he is soft from inside and later she develops a soft corner for Mahabir. Not only that she finds an ultimate freedom in this journey for which she was longing for throughout her whole life. She becomes so close to Mahabir that she even shares the dark secret of her childhood with him. Mahabir who is also a victim of disturbed childhood becomes sympathetic to Veera. But can this sympathy and attachment can turned into a full fledged love ? Is it possible for a girl like Veera to settle down with a guy like Mahabir who has a background of three murder charges? This questions have been answered in the climax.

The story is clearly about Stockholm syndrome where the kidnapped person develops sympathy for kidnapper but this plot has been given a fresh twist with the issue of security of woman in our society. But this story could have been told even without the incident of kidnapping. Veera and Mahabir could have meet in any other situation too then it would have looked more convincing. As the way Veera gets friendly with her kidnapper's in just few days time that really looks unconvincing. If we left this flaw then the screenplay is very nice and engaging. It could have been turned into a monotonous journey of two people but there are some lighter moments in between which keeps the audiences interest level intact. For example the sequence where all of a sudden Veera start dancing to the tunes of an English song in the middle of a highway or her baby-talking to Mahabir when he reveals his softer side. But towards the climax the story seems too stretched as after a point when the lead protagonists reach to the beautiful valleys of Kashmir the story becomes a bit stagnant. From that point nothing much happened to the story for a considerable amount of time which could have been shortened. Although it is pretty much expected that what could have been the destiny of such a relationship but still some optimistic audiences can feel unhappy with the ending.

As a director Imtiaz Ali is brilliant. Like his earlier movies here too he has created such a realistic characters with them anyone can identify. He has an eye for every detailing about each characters body language to their costumes , even the characters who have one or two scene appearances will leave an impact on the audience. The different state's names have never been told in the movie but still you will be able to identify the location as the places has been shown with such perfect detailing. From the opening sequence where just some footage of a big fat Indian wedding preparations have been shown , it has been proved that how perfectionist Imtiaz Ali is as a director.

There are only two lead protagonists in this movie and both of them have acted so well that it looks that they were the best available choice for their corresponding roles. Alia Bhatt is just two films old but the way she has given life to the character of Veera that it can be definitely said that it is one of the best performances done by any actress in Hindi movies.
Just watch Alia Bhatt in the scene where she is telling Mahabir about dark secret of her childhood , you can feel the pain in her eyes.
While Veera is bubbly talkative full of life on the other hand Mahabir is serious , less talking.

And Randeep Hooda has done full justice to the character of Mahabir Bhati. Mahabir is tough character he can slap Veera , he can give angry look but at the same time he is protective and careful about Veera too. Randeep Hooda has very few dialogues and most of the time he has to express through his eyes only and he never disappoints. 
Among the rest of the cast no one is a popular actor but every one looks perfect as per their role and gives a good support and the one who stands out is Durgesh Kumar as Aadoo , Mahabir's aide on the truck journey. Here it should be mentioned that the credit goes to the casting director Mukesh Chhabra for selecting actors who look and act perfectly in the supporting roles.

Technically the movie is brilliant.  Anil Mehta's camera work is just mind blowing . The scenic beauty of northern India has never been showcased with such a magical way. Apart from that the way he has shoot the wedding preparation sequence in the beginning and the incidents showing the police investigation after the interval with shaking images which gives it a kind of handy-cam shooting feel looks very realistic. Resul Pukoutty's sound design is brilliant. Aarati Bajaj's editing is fair enough. The production design by Acropolis and the costumes by Akki Narual are perfect and shows the effect of the research which has been done about the different culture of the different states of northern India.

The eye catching locations have been truly complemented by the haunting melodies of A.R. Rehman. All of the songs have been used in background and in spite of the fact that not all of the songs are chartbusters , every song sounds perfect in the movie. There is no doubt that the winner among all the tracks is "Ali Ali " and "Mahi Ve" but rest of the songs are also perfect for the situations in the movie.

At one point of the movie Veera tells Mahabir that she dose not want go back to the point from where she had started the journey and she neither want to reach to the destination but she just want to enjoy every moment of the journey. Just like Veera the audience will feel the same. So don't think about the climax just enjoy the movie, a journey of girl from bondage to freedom and you will surely love it.

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