REVIEW OF CHHAAVA

Saw the movie Chhava yesterday. It is loosely based on the story of Sambhaji, son of Shivaji, battling Aurangzeb and finally becoming a martyr. I say loosely based, because the narrative is heavily dramatised and fictionalised, and, in any case, there is nothing about the film that is tight. 

The story is simple enough. Shivaji dies. Sambhaji his son, Chhava "the lion cub" played by Vicky Kaushal,  takes over. He sacks Burhanpur, a city that is Aurangzeb's pride and joy. Aurangzeb, played by Akshaye Khanna,  goes berserk. Mobilizes his entire army and marches to the Deccan. After many years, Sambhaji is finally captured by Aurangzeb, thanks to the treachery of two of his key commanders, tortured gruesomely ( this part is historically true) and killed. 

That's a good enough story for a good Director to get going and make a decent movie. 

But then, our Director, Lakshman Utankar, is not one of your ordinary directors. He seems to be from the school of Tamil serials. The first half is full of characters assembled in a room mouthing dialogues, and after each dialogue, each character's face is shown in turn. You know how it is in those Tamil serials, it's the same  here. And the dialogues, oh they are cheesier and more banal than the characters assembled in a room. A kid writing dialogues for a school play would do a better job. 

And you would think that A R Rehman as music director, would salvage something from this mess. I think A R Rehman has surpassed himself in this movie. It is not easy for anyone, I repeat anyone, to produce such a bad output. What the director set out to do with his dialogues and close ups of hamming characters, A R Rehman resolutely completes. He is determined to make sure that you the viewer, who are already cringing, positively gets embarrassed and ashamed at the shoddiness of the whole thing. 

In short, it's a cringe fest. All the way. 

Vicky Kaushal, the hero, has been asked by the director to throw out his chest and walk like a lion. Ask your eight year old son to do that, and roar like a lion. Well, you get the idea. Vicky does that throughout the movie and mistakes it for acting. 

Akshaye as Aurangzeb is the only saving grace of the entire movie. Subdued, kind of meditative even, he gives a good performance. Maybe the director didn't direct him and just let him be. 

And the director has fights of fancy. Oh he and his flights of fancy! Every now and then, The hero will go back and relive a childhood memory, talking to his mom and dad, in a kind of floating dream sequence. More cringe. 

And the director really thinks his screenplay is so good that he inserts long stretches where the dialogue is the chief character and stretched, and stretched... Utankar thinks he is divinely inspired during these scenes and the viewer will be blown out of his mind. Well I was definitely blown out of my mind. Whatever was left of my mind finally exploded. 

Any good thing to say about the movie? 

Well, it is so bad that is good! 

So yes, go watch it, to see how completely cheesy and cringey a movie can get.