Padmaavat or Khiljivat

Highly Disappointed with Padmaavat!

The film starts with the story of Khilji, goes on and on with Khilji, Khilji and more Khilji and ends with showing that Khilji fails to get the queen of Mewar. I was confused whether the title was Padmaavat or Khiljivat.

This one has a pizza base of the Afgani Khilji with Rajput pride sprinkled as topings. Bhansali just went overboard with Ranveer. He didn't knew where to stop.

Okay, lets go a little slow…

I am not referring to the Bhansalification of history because lot of people have said and done a lot about it even before the film was released for public screening. Once they watch the movie they would know for themselves whether they were right or not. So lets not go there.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali lives up to his reputation of making these epic silver screen blockbusters but in my opinion he fails on several fronts. Here is why…

1. Padmavaat or Khiljivat: The director seems to be obsessed by Ranveer’s performance. No doubt Ranveer is a great actor and he gets into the skin of Khilji’s character. He makes the viewer hate his potrayal of Khilji on screen but that is where Bhansali goes overboard, he forgets that he is making a movie on Padmavaati and not on Khilji. Ranveer gets 70% of screen time and after a point his bad ass act seems to be unwanted.
2. Casting failure: Shahid tries his best but he doesn’t look like a heavy duty Rajput king. Even if he has six packs he doesn’t have the height or personality of a Sonu Sood, John Abrahm or Abhishek Bachchan who could have been a better fit. At best he looks like Deepika’s younger brother.
3. Similarity with Bajirao Mastani: First few scenes b/w Shahid - Deepika are very similar to the scenes b/w Ranveer - Deepika scenes in Bajirao Mastani. Alike in Bajirao Mastani, Khilji and Padmavati both get a solo dance number but the dance of Khilji is absolutely unwanted. Johar scene has stuff inspired from Nasir, Om Puri starer Mirch Masala and in the last sequence the door closes on Khilji exactly as it happened to Paro in Devdas.
4. The actors playing the role of Raghav Chetan and Malik Kafur are top notch but the Rajput characters of Gora and Badal don’t get enough space because the director is focused on Khilji’s character assassination.
5. How many scenes for Deepika? If you are making a movie on Padmaavati then how many scenes or dailogues are you giving her? Ranveer gets lion’s share and next big share is that of Shahid; thankfully Deepika gets some screen space post interval but that is too late and too little.

In summary: Film has been rightly appreciated for its huge canvas, production value, cinematography, direction, background score and performances but when you double click you note that Bhansali has made even better movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Bajirao Mastani, Devdas and Black to name a few. This is good but not his best.

Watch it for sure if you are a Ranveer, Deepika fan.

By the way, Aditi Rao Hydari looks stunning and at times better than Deepika. Why on earth did Khilji not realize it :)