This is a biographical film of Milkha Singh's life. The movie actually starts with the race of 400 meters in the 1960 Summer Olympics games in which he finished fourth-place time of 45.73 which became the Indian national record and held for almost 40 years. The controversy / strange things of this final was after 250 meters, he slowed down by watching others and giving their way to finish the race. This was his worst memorable incidence which made lot of impact on him. The films then take the term to his childhood with the help of flashback. The plot is drafted very nicely with twists and turns of his life. Those are nicely presented with flashback and to & flow of the film.
The story roams around the life of Milkha Singh starting from his childhood. During 1947 India’s independence, he was orphaned during the Partition, when his parents, a brother and two sisters were killed in the violence that ensued. He witnessed these killings. He was compelled to come to India by train and stay in the refugee camp in Delhi. The situation of that time was picturised very nicely making the audience very serious about the same. He lived for a short time with a married sister and was briefly imprisoned at Tihar jail for travelling on a train without a ticket. His sister, Ishwar, sold some jewellery to obtain his release. The scene of making jewelry again for Ishwar is very touching. Milkha soon makes friends and survives by stealing with his friends. He falls in love with Biro (Sonam Kapoor) but she asks him to live a life of honesty. He joins the Indian Army in 1951 in his fourth attempt and comes in the 6th place in a compulsory cross-country run for new recruits which he runs for the sake of getting milk, two eggs and excuse from exercise daily. He gets introduced to the athletics in the army and he gets well attracted with that and spends day and night in the practicing. He gets good exposure by his coach with right running habits and improving the stamina. He gets selected for service commission where he gets miffed and also gets beaten up by senior players whom he had defeated earlier, on the day before selection of Indian team for Olympics. In spite of being injured he still participates in the race, overcomes his pain and wins the race. His coach tells him that he has broken the national record.
In the Melbourne Olympics, he gets introduced with the granddaughter of his Australian technical coach. He gets attracted to her during the day long site-seeing and after a night in a bar he sleeps with her. He loses the race, beats himself up and on the way back to India asks his coach the world record for the 400m race is. He trains hard with a firm determination and wins in several places. Jawaharlal Nehru convinces him to lead the Indian team to Pakistan for friendly races. In Pakistan he misses the press conference and goes to his village where in a flashback it is shown how his parents were murdered and the last words of his father were "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag!" In the games, he overtaking opponents one by one, taking a convincing lead and winning the race and respect of both nation's people. The Pakistani commander then gives him the title "The Flying Sikh".
The role of Milkha Singh is been well developed and performed by Farhan Akhtar clearly demonstrating the efforts he put in that. Farhan is perfect fit for this role and he has given 100% justice to it. Farhan has groomed his physic accordingly and put lot of efforts to develop this role. The various interviews presented on television give information about the retakes done to get the exact shots of the various races Farhan runs in the movie. Full marks to him for his body building as a part of requirement of the role. This role proves that he is also a good actor like a good director. He has evolved as a good actor and the sincerity with which he immerses himself in the character.
The movie takes through all the important races of his life including his performance in 1956 and 1960 Olympics and other games Asian games and commonwealth games. The nice flow of various life events gives a full credit to the director which worked on this for more than 2 and half years before shooting. The film has been produced and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra on a script written by Prasoon Joshi. The film stars Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Divya Dutta, Pavan Malhotra and Meesha Shafi.
The music and the background score for the film were composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, their first film collaboration with Rakeysh Mehra. The soundtracks are written by Prasoon Joshi.
The movie also calls from some sexy scenes featured on Milkha Singh especially the scenes with the granddaughter of his Australian technical coach. Also the scene in the refugee camp of his sister makes unnecessary looking at the clean plot of the movie. The movie is been compared with “Chak de India” being a movie on sports but Chak de.. takes lead here due to these unwanted scenes. These scenes could have been pictured in the different way giving the similar message.
The role of Sonam Kapoor is too small and not developed with very few dialogs. Getting water and throwing the ball are the only two activities she does in the whole film. The other supporting roles make the film in the right tone.
Milkha Singh sold the movie rights for “one rupee” but inserted a clause stating that a share of the profits would be given to the Milkha Singh Charitable Trust which was founded in 2003 with the aim of assisting poor and needy sports people.
Overall, I will give 4 stars out of 5. The 4 stars are given for joint of performance of Farhan Akhtar and Milkha Singh in the movie and in actual life respectively.
Note: This movie is made TAX FREE by Maharashtra CM immd. after my above creation posting on facebook !!! So do watch and forward the same to your friends....
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