MIRZA which was the most hyped and awaited movie of the year 2012 in Punjabi Cinema, disappoints majorly in its other departments apart from the technical excellence and performances of both Gippy Grewal and Honey Singh. In real terms, Honey is the only person in the entire film who is able to generate both applause as well as laughter in the theater through his well conceived portrayal of a Gangster with a comic touch. And therefore he surely deserves to be featured in a solo hero movie soon in the lead role.
Now coming to the discouraging points of the movie, first of all it was a pretty bad idea of its producers or the company to make such a big movie with a huge budget on an already known story based on a famous folk tale. Secondly, right from the first scene itself, director Baljit Singh gives too much emphasis on his shot taking, camera angles, frames, slow motions, action and overall look of the project in order to make it a breakthrough film. And in this process he gives minimum attention to the other comparatively more important aspects of the film resulting in a big mistake. For instance, he perfectly makes sure that his characters look good on the screen but fails to generate any kind of chemistry in his love birds. It was strange to see that no one noticed that the girl Mandy Thakur looked more matured (in both body and looks) in front of the slim Gippy Grewal.
The next point is regarding the use of "A Deliberately Added" comedy track in the film which has no connection with the plot or story progression of the script from any angle. Fourthly the film progresses in a very slow manner which makes the viewer uneasy post intermission. In other words, since the viewer already knows what is going to happen next, so everything should have been shown in a fast and entertaining manner in order to keep everyone hooked on to the screen. But with a lazy kind of screenplay, its quite a lengthy film which required severe editing of scenes and less slow motions taking much time.
The music is another major disappointment in the film as we all expected much more from the team of Honey Singh, Gippy Grewal and Speed Records. Evidently they have earlier given us much better and enjoyable tracks in their individual solo albums than the songs featuring in the soundtrack of MIRZA. Truly speaking I really couldn't enjoy any other track apart from the one sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan in the entire film. Also the background score has been used aggressively, even in the places where it was not required.
Coming to a point related to the image of girl depicted in the film, I strongly oppose the way the writers and director have portrayed the girl's character in their film in a rather ridiculous and highly objectionable way. In this latest version of the story adapted for the big screen, the writers further enhance the negative image of the girl to many folds and don't make SAHIBA kill herself in the end (in a very silly manner). She silently takes out the bullets from Mirza's gun but does nothing after he dies. So her beloved closes his eyes forever and the girl returns to sweet home with her brothers. Now what kind of GREAT LOVE STORY was that remains out of my understanding? (May be the writers kept her alive in order to make a MIRZA-2).
Plus this also reminds of another highly ridiculous scene in the film, where a father is explaining his son about "A female's untrusting nature (Her Charitra)" while his daughter is standing right next to him. And I literally felt like laughing out loud on this "Well-thought of scene". In the performance section, Gippy Grewal acts well as per his written character and one cannot blame him for all the stiffness and rough nature of his acting. Mandy Thakur looks gorgeous in some selected outfits. She acts fine but is a misfit for this role of Sahiba as she looked quite older than Gippy. Binnu Dhillon and B. N. Sharmaare just there to do their job professionally. Rahul Dev again has done nothing new and all the brothers have overacted in their short roles.
Nevertheless the only winning soul of MIRZA is HONEY SINGH, who unarguably wins each and every heart in the theater whether one likes the film or not. He is a revelation as an actor and definitely has a long way to go in films too along with his HIT music. Technically the film is the first of its kind in Punjabi Cinema and director Baljit Singh Deo brightly showcases his talent of making it big.
But here Punjabi film-makers and Industry needs to understand one important thing mentioned below that, "The viewers watching a Punjabi Film are the same viewers who are regularly watching all the new Bollywood & even Hollywood films too. So its of no use giving them the same thing in the name of New-Age Punjabi Cinema, which they have already seen in all the new Bollywood movies."
So taking MIRZA as a major step on the road of making much better and big movies in Punjabi Cinema, I would like to call it "A technically well made film with less content". And I sincerely wish the makers had chosen another subject and script for their current major project.
