No offence to the real hero who actually invented the first flight, but the movie Hawaizaada based on the real life story of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade is a stupid creation. A movie that is supposed to tell us the story of an unsung hero of India, who made the first airplane ends up as an immature attempt to create an inspiring movie soaked in very lame commercial flavors.
Shivi was not so great with his usual academics but was smart enough to understand the Vedas. The young man who continuously failed in lower classes stopped going to school and was living an ambitious life without a clear goal. Meeting his guru Pandit Subbaraya Shastri gives an aim to his life to build the first aircraft. As it was the pre independent India and the craziness level of the idea was high, both of them didn’t get much support from the society in the beginning. The struggle they had to overcome to make their dream come true is what Hawaizaada talking about.
After watching the movie I was pretty sure that the director Vibhu Virendar Puri had only a one liner idea about the things that actually happened. I am saying this because the subplots and the characters in the movie are so filmy that you won’t feel the quintessential inspiration and patriotism. Making an airplane is more of a scientific process and the movie looked like an art director’s struggle to build a pirates of the Caribbean set. Even after collaborating with Hollywood tycoons for grand visual effects oriented projects, Reliance failed to bring quality to that segment of the movie.
Ayushmann Khurrana occasionally scores with certain style of acting but there were flaws in his portrayal. Mithun Chakraborty did well in his guru avatar. Pallavi Sharda was also nice as the character which apparently spoiled the real feel of the movie. Naman Jain who earlier mesmerized the audience in the Zoya Akhthar film in Bombay Talkies once again performs smartly.
The director has treated the movie in a very filmy way taking away all the possible charm. The patriotism is at a cheesy level and the largely displayed romance is also unconvincing. The script as I said develops a one line thread using the used out ideas of romance, conflict and challenge. Charmless dialogues and poor quality visual effects take the movie to an inferior level. The music was hugely disappointing and Monty Sharma’s background score lacked the x factor. Art direction is too artistic making the sets look like the remains of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film.
Overall Hawaizaada is a flawed attempt to make use of an idea which could have been executed in a far better way. My salute to the first independent man of pre independent India, but the rating for the movie is 1.5/5. It’s a tiring watch.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
Unlike the other biopics like ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’ or ‘Mary Kom’ Ayushmann Khurrana had denied ‘Hawaizaada’ being a biopic. He called it a film based on a true story and not a biopic. However, after watching ‘Hawaizaada’, one would definitely know the difference and appreciate the greatness of those biopics and the hollowness of Hawaizaada! The movie is no where even close to those great movies, in true sense it is disheartening and a lethargic movie….
Rather than an inspiring individual Shivkar Talpade seemed like a confused soul who had been battling between his love life and his parents and then completely relocates his attention to fulfilling his mentor’s last wish. In simple words he was aimless! Withal, in the end I would just like to say, Hawaizaada could have been a masterpiece with the incredible and profound story, but sadly Vibhu Puri failed awfully..