Milkha Singh was no doubt an inspiring figure, but the three hours that Guruji takes to walk us through the runner’s story - and that too just 13 years of his life (the story of Singh starts around 1947 and ends by 1960, when he had turned 25), seems way too long.Įven a vibrant performance by Akhtar cannot save a film that attempts to be an epic like Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. If there is one person who knows the answer to this big mystery, it is Guruji (Pavan Malhotra) who is Singh’s first coach.Īnd so on a long train ride to Chandigarh, Guruji narrates Singh’s life to his companions and the audience. It is a mystery to Jawaharlal Nehru (played in a very straightforward manner by Dilip Tahil), his advisers and even to one of Singh’s coaches.
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I wish I could find any other reason to recommend Mehra’s three-plus hour film that attempts to be an epic, but is really thin in plot and goes in so many different directions before it finally solves the so-called mystery: Why would Milkha Singh not run in Pakistan? And I truly believed that Akhtar was a Sikh, well, barring a few times when he slipped and sounded like his poet/writer father’s Mumbai-bred son. It is very rare to see a Bollywood actor this committed to his/her role, to totally become someone else. If there is one reason to see BMB it is to watch Akhtar - how much he has evolved as an actor and the sincerity with which he immerses himself in the character. The sense we get from Mehra’s film is that Singh must have been a very likeable person - or at least that is the myth that BMB creates.Īnd Farhan Akhtar - the director of Dil Chahta Hai, the refurbished Don franchise and the actor in his sister’s two successful films, Luck By Chance and Zindagi Na Milegee Dobara - is very likeable as Singh, with a wide smile that shows all his teeth.
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I do not know what Milkha Singh sounded like in the 1950s, but Akhtar is totally believable as the eager, energetic, naïve, yet very committed runner in his early 20s who broke the national record for 400 metres, first represented India in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, and won gold medals at the Asian and Commonwealth games. Watching how he uses each muscle in his body - on his neck, chest, arms, abdomen, legs - as he runs in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, it is hard to believe that this father of two will turn 40 in exactly six months. Farhan Akhtar's Bhaag Milkha Bhaag does not offer anything new, says Aseem Chhabra.