Namrata Joshi

in The Hindu

Floats along swimmingly and perches promisingly well at the interval till the curse of the second half gets to afflict it severely.

in The Hindu

The film is essentially be a re-imagination of the legend of chudail (witch) with the twisted feet as a devi with a cause and a mission but I was swept away by the overwhelming romance — unexpressed but implicit, fulsome in its tacitness. Like a simple conversation towards the end of the film, between Bulbbul and Sudip, over a shared bidi (cigarette). The oblique talk of hope, boundaries and the unreachable between them even as their eyes stay transfixed on the other. The gaze of love, or something like that. “ Kahani poori kaise hogi ,” weeps Bulbbul at one point in the film. No, some love stories don’t ever come a full circle to a conclusion. And that makes them all the more beautiful.

in The Hindu

A certain ennui begins to set in, in the middle, despite the grand scale and execution. However, things do come to a head effectively again in the climactic sequence. The scaling of the steep hill fort of Kondhana, Tanhaji’s kinetic combat with Udaybhan and that last strike at victory. It does work itself to some kind of collective catharsis and adrenaline rush. The hero and villain sit on convenient extremes. Devgn is suitably efficient as the one who can’t do anything wrong. But Udaybhan (Saif) gets interpreted a la Alauddin Khilji, perhaps just because of his association with Aurangzeb. Saif Ali Khan plays the manic, unhinged character who’d chop off an elephant’s trunk without so much as blinking and eats crocodile meat.