Freedom post Independence day : My quick take on ”1947 August 16th” (Tamil Original)
In the continuous debate on ‘Pan India’ movies being churned out from the southern movie industry, here comes one more attempt in form of a period action drama “1947 Aug 16th”. AR Murgadoss was my sole reason to sit through this 2 hour-plus ordeal. I could conclude the following,
1) all period drama cannot be the next “RRR”.
2) if one wants to make a pan India product, then he has to be mindful of dubbing songs. (dasara committed the same mistake)
3) vIsual storytelling is a skill and not everybody can emulate a master storyteller like Rajamouli.
However there are some positives about the movie, like the art director was able to create the rustic locale beautifully, unfortunately this is the only positive. Rest everything is a usual trope such as brutal brit officer and his son, local zamindar who is in hand in glove with gora, class and caste divide, brutal atrocities on villagers, corrupt British police, and a love story which blossoms between a village orphan and zamindars daughter, all this taking place around the eve of declaration of Independence.
Story had a potential to be a desi Django but the newbie directors poor execution ने पानी फेर दिया. Ironically the plot is all about the rich cotton grown in India which Raj officials used to cart it to London, i only wish the director was able to spin out a rich yarn out of this rich cotton.
On the performance front, I could identify only the Titanic actor Richard Ashton who hams his way as evil Robert Clive, he hamming will remind you of our own Bob Cristo. Rest cast remains unidentified (by me).
Overall Mahi’s CSK can give more seeti podu moments than this period drama. I also feel that it's high time to apply ‘period’ to forcefully making a ‘pan-india period’ movie 😜
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