One of the most awaited films of 2017, Rangoon has finally surfaced this Friday (24th February) and is ready to leave the audience enchanted. Director Vishal Bhardwaj and his team of amazing actors like Saif Ali Khan, Kangana Ranaut and Shahid Kapoor have made a larger than life film. The plot is set during the World War II where people are divided into the Gandhian belief and Subhash Chandra Bose’s thought of the Indian National Army. The movie commences with ‘Miss Julia’ aka Kangana who is the fun-loving-beautiful movie entertainer and is loved by the masses. A Powerful Parsi producer, Russi Billimoria (Saif) loves Julia with his whole heart and can do anything for her till his last breath. Julia, under some unforeseen circumstances has to go to Burma to entertain the British soldiers where she meets and falls in love with Nawab Malik (Shahid). And thus starts a love triangle which is mixed with the love of the nation as well. This amalgamation of these two strong feelings makes the movie a little hay-why in the middle. The super-intimate scenes in the movie will not offend you at all because it fits into the character so perfectly, and we don’t know why there was a fuss about it, seriously! Go for the movie if you are an absolute fan of a deep-dark story of love and war. All the actors have presented their career best performances in the film which will be so entertaining to watch. But if you don’t like lengthy movies, it’ll get a little too painful for you to sit because the plot really fails the make a mark at few instances.
It may be one of the most awaited films in recent times but Rangoon is a royal misfire. Within minutes of the movie’s beginning, you realise the promise of a heart-wrenching period drama was a farce -- a set-up to promote a self-indulgent film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. The director Vishal Bhardwaj has desperately tried to play to the gallery, and has miserably failed. The wild swing of story plays the spoilsport. The movie is picturesque. Colours come out of the screen and soothe our minds. Lighting and choreography are pitch-perfect. Every beat is nuanced, every frame caresses the bleeding hearts that keep waiting for the fire to ignite. Being a period film is another challenge for Rangoon as special effects lack authentication in war scenes. The elaborate costume planning comes to rescue though. It’s an ambitious film where Bhardwaj wants to merge two worlds: One inspired from Shakespearean tragedies and other motivated by the valiant lovers of the Indian cinema. In the end, neither comes alive on screen – on top of it a messy climax that topples whatever hard work was done building a world of romance. At 167 minutes, Rangoon isn’t only long but painful. And this isn’t the pain of love. And it doesn’t end in pleasure.
Vishal Bhardwaj's most expensive and, of late, his most accessible film Rangoon sails smoothly as long its hero and heroine are allowed to just be. Malik and Julia's romance is slow-cooked and the essence of every moment between the two is allowed to linger before the next moment starts. It feels like Nawab Malik and Julia are floating in their own dreamland, perfectly content with the scheme of things, and consequently, Rangoon appears to feel content with itself, devoid of any duties to formal narrative storytelling. There is no rush to fast-forward to the next plot device in this entire stretch where Malik and Julia's romance is built up. Therefore, in the second half, when Vishal Bhardwaj and Co. pull up their socks to tie all loose ends and ensure that all three protagonists - Malik, Julia and Rusi - find poetic justice, regardless of how laborious that pursuit might look on screen, Rangoon slowly, slowly bends and breaks its back under the pressure of Vishal Bhardwaj's narrative ambitions. Rangoon is gorgeous-looking with great cinematography (Pankaj Kumar, take a bow), fantastic sound design and marvellous choreography (Farah Khan, Sudesh Adhana). Love-making in mud has never looked (and probably, never will) this sexy in a mainstream Hindi film. Vishal Bhardwaj, caught with the duty to serve two movies in one (an old-school romance and a war thriller), doesn't really do a Casablanca though he does give Rangoon his best shot. Nevertheless, Rangoon comes off as probably 2017's most good-looking and well-made Indian film. Certainly, this year's most ambitious, with three great lead performances. Vishal Bhardwaj is in fine form, mostly. And yes, the National Anthem comes thrice in the film. What more do you want?
When, within a short while of the film opening, you start casting about for something to hang a peg on, it is never a good sign. It’s a heavy slice of history for anyone to unpack, and the film gets tangled in superimposing a love triangle on the time and place. Post-interval, it battens down and focuses on advancing the plot, such as there is, but overall Rangoon remains a patchy and disjointed effort. The intention of Vishal Bharadwaj’s ambitiously mounted film is clear: to weave the skeins of love and war in order to make a movie full of throbbing passion and grand statements. But the execution never quite matches up, the gap narrowing in just a few places, in the second half. The three lead actors are all a good fit for their parts — Saif Ali Khan in his uber-stylish suits, Shahid Kapoor in his muddy fatigues, and Kangana Ranaut in her dresses and curls; they all work hard, but break through only in bits and pieces, and the film rarely rises above its costumery and puffery. The best part of ‘Rangoon’ are its song-and-dances: there is no one quite like Bhardwaj when it comes to creating drama through melody and verse. But they are packed in too close, and while giving us more to watch, also causes a loss of momentum. Modelled on stunt queen Fearless Nadia, Ranaut’s is the stand-out performance. Her body language is spot on, and some of her action sequences are thrilling, even if you can see the computer graphics a mile off. And she gets one spectacular speaking moment, the camera tight on her face, when she speaks of love and desire and heartbreak. It is the kind of moment which will stay with you. If only the film did too.
Rangoon is an ambitious attempt to actually tell a triangular love story against the backdrop of war. The canvas is huge. Pankaj Kumar’s cinematography is exquisite. The narrative that marries Casablanca (1942) to Chicago (2002) — wish the music here was peppier — plays out interestingly in parts. You have grim war-scenes fading out to allow some naach-gaana. Then there is a good measure of romance thrown in, albeit without the fire. Also there is also an infiltrator angle that allows for intrigue. Bhardwaj, whose repertoire includes truly-fine works like Maqbool, Omkara, and Haider delivers, but not entirely. Some frames just hang, some scenes feel tedious. In his attempt to pack in too much on war, love and deceit, the maker ends up with some haphazard division of war scenes versus love games, leaving the viewer muddled. There’s a dialogue in the film where Saif tells a British officer, “We’re actors, we know how to convince people.” That isn’t entirely true here. Borrowing Julia’s oft-repeated phrase, “Bloody hell’, one wishes these three had truly dropped their guard. It would’ve certainly added more rang to this movie extravaganza.