Monday, June 9, 2014

Highway - Movie review

It's visually enchanting. Alia Bhatt is a wonderful actress. Randeep Hooda is pitch perfect. A kidnap romance of all things. But Imtiaz Ali's penchant to pick up these paradoxes and drive them home comes through - here's a girl who is more secure and happy with her kidnappers than her family which is full of fake, abusive cowardly pretenders. How true is that paradox that who we are closest to supposedly become strangers and perfect strangers seem to have more sympathy, belief and trust in us.

Alia gets kidnapped by accident on the eve of her marriage to a rich NRI. She is the daughter of a rich and powerful man. Her kidnapper, Randeep, does not know her powerful connections and he is stuck with her. As they drive around without being stopped by police (hey, what about the powerful connections) Alia finds herself enjoying the ride, the freedom, the security that her kidnappers seem to offer her. The police do find them finally and end it rather abruptly. No fairy tale endings here.

It's nice. But like 'Rockstar' it left me thinking that it was just short somewhere. Unfinished, if only slightly. I rate Imtiaz Ali highly and like his sensitivity and themes and ideas but it still has this discordant tone. The entire movie was rebellious as hell and true but it kind of ended rather predictably and not in tune with the rest. Almost like the audience came into the picture then. But my nitpicking apart it must have been a great watch on screen with its visual grandeur. The music is good, the leads and support cast are fine. Nothing to complain about really. Go watch.

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