In a scene, Aastha (Sharmin Segal) tells Shiva's (Meezaan) father that she is studying CA. Few scenes later we see her studying with a book of T.Y.B.A Economics in her hand. Further, in a song, she finally studies Financial Accounting, and that book has more close-ups than Sharmin's in the song. We wonder what made them do that. Well, this is just one of the flaws in Mangesh Hadawale's Malaal.
Malaal is a remake of 2004 release Tamil film 7G Rainbow Colony. I haven't watched that movie; so of course, Malaal is a fresh film for me. The biggest problem with Malaal is that director Mangesh Hadawale is clearly inspired by SLB's work. Though of course the sets are not huge like SLB's films and it is mostly shot in real locations, Malaal will remind you of many SLB movies, especially Saawariya. In most of Bhansali's directorials, the second half is lengthier than the first half. Mangesh tried to do that here as well.
While the first half of the film impresses us, in the second half the film goes haywire. There are too many romantic scenes in the second half, plus it takes a long time to come to the point. While watching the film, we think that Shiva's character does nothing apart from loitering around. But, in one scene suddenly they talk about Shiva's exams. By the way, Shiva is a 22-year-old guy and he is shown in F.Y.B.A. Mostly a student in F.Y.B.A is either 18-year-old or 19-year-old. Maybe he flunked, but then there are scenes in the film to show that he is not a duffer. Confusing right?
Moving ahead, the runtime of the movie is 2 hours 16 mins, but in the second half, you start losing your patience. As the film is about to reach the climax, you start predicting what will happen and believe us, one of your predictions would turn out to be correct.
Talking about performances, Meezaan Jafri and Sharmin Segal make a confident debut. Meezaan will remind you of Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh in many scenes. But they have to work on a few things like Meezaan needs to work on his emotional scenes and Sharmin needs to brush up her dancing skills. The supporting cast here doesn't have much to do.
The music of the film is composed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Shreyas Puranik and Shail Hada. The songs are decent, but none of them have the potential to be a chartbuster.
The only reason one would watch Malaal is because of the name Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The filmmaker has produced the film, but this one disappoints. Maybe he could have narrated the simple story in a better way.
Ratings: 2/5
Watch the trailer here…
