Our nation has been witness to numerous wars over the centuries & it's not different even now as well with political parties in their greed to satisfy their agendas have created animosity between people over religion and economic disparity. If one is to dig into history, we will be surprised to know that the tactics employed by the shrewd administrators of yester years is still very much prevalent & one such event happens to be the Panipat battles. Last week, Ashutosh Gowariker released his latest creation "Panipat" & I was more than keen to check it out being an aficionado of history. So was he able to do justice to the historic event???
The Maratha supremacy was virtually completed after they had defeated the Nizams in 1760. Expectedly, Nana Saheb Peshwa (Mohnish Bahl) was proud of his commanders especially Sadashiv Rao Bhau (Arjun Kapoor) who steadily rose up the ranks for his valour & bravery. However, his immense popularity created unrest among a few & one of them happened to be Nana Saheb's wife Gopika Bai (Padmini Kolhapure). On her behest, Sadashiv was asked to step down from his military duties & take up the financial responsibilities of the state. It soon became evident to him that despite the Maratha kingdom being huge, their revenues were far less primarily because many kingdoms in the North including the Mughals refused to pay their dues. When Sadashiv decided to enforce stricter measures, Nijab Ud Daula (Mantra) of the Mughal court sought the help of Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt), the Afghan ruler of Kandahar. Left with no options, the Marathas marched towards Delhi in the hope of stopping Abdali & the two armies clashed in what was known as the Third Battle of Panipat.
More than a decade has passed since the impressive "Jodha Akbar" had released, after which Ashutosh struggled to capture the attention of the audience with three duds on the trot. With "Panipat", he seemed to recapture some of his form as the script written in collaboration with Chandrashekhar Dhavalikar, Ranjeet Bahadur & Aditya Rawal definitely indicated that they had researched extensively. However, Ashutosh failed to execute it convincingly onto the screen as the VFX were rather shoddy & even the choices of artists also seemed questionable. The visuals were fine though it wasnt quite upto the caliber of C K Muraleedharan while Steven Bernard could have easily chopped the length of the movie.
There is no doubt that Arjun Kapoor & Sanjay Dutt fitted the role in appearance as well as performance, however when it came to the action sequences they just werent light footed or agile as the character demanded. Kriti Sanon was impressive & slowly but steadily cementing her place as one of the actresses to look out for in the coming years. As for the rest of the cast, they were so many that it's hard to remember all of them but most of them did their parts aptly.
Verdict: Ashutosh's woes at the box office continues & for obvious reasons since he failed to do justice to the well researched script. To add to his troubles, even his choice of artists werent quite the smartest either & one could only hope that he comes up with a better movie the next time around!!!
Rating: 2.5/5
Regards...Ben
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