Toofan - Review

Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, the director of Bhag Milkha Bhag, brings another Sports Drama film Toofan. It's good to see Farhan Akhtar and Rakesh Omprakash Mehra team up for another sports drama. Despite having the same director and main lead, Toofan isn't in the same league as Bhag Milkha Bhag, but still a good movie. The movie feels realistic and grounded with real-world scenarios, but there are a few exceptions. You do get to see characters face the consequences because of the choices they made. The training montage is one of the best things about the movie, it gets you pumped up and motivated, and Farhan Akhtar knocked it right out of the park with his physicality; he looks the part.

Moving on to the performances in the movie, Paresh Rawal is outstanding as the prejudiced coach, whose glory days as a boxer are in the past. I have never seen Paresh Rawal give a bad performance, and his performances usually get overlooked, but not in this movie. I loved seeing him going into rage mode and slapping Farhan Akhtar's character, by far the best scene in the film. Mrunal Thakur, who plays the role of Dr. Ananya Prabhu, did a pretty good job. I'll be looking forward to her future projects. Vijay Raaz is also in the film, but it's a blink-and-miss appearance. I wish there were more scenes involving him.

To talk about the issues with the movie, and there are quite a few. The first one being the pacing; There were scenes or parts that felt were unnecessarily long, and there were scenes that should have been longer but are kept short. Another issue being the gangster aspect of Farhan Akhtar's character. There is no doubt that Farhan Akhtar is an excellent actor, but he didn't sell the Bhai (gangster) aspect of his role. And part of the reason being before establishing how bad of a person Aziz Ali is, the movie shifts towards establishing that he is a victim of his circumstances and has a golden heart. I get it that it was to make the character more likable. But had the Bhai aspect of the character explored a bit more, it would have made Aziz Ali a much more compelling character. There is a narration issue as well, and so the movie does not feel cohesive. The bits and parts of the film are enjoyable, but as a whole, it suffers. Talking about the cohesiveness of the movie, one can easily spot the chronology of the scenes shot just by looking at Farhan Akhtar's hair and body. The movie run-time is 2 hours 49 minutes, which is relatively shorter than Bhag Milkha Bhag, but still feels longer because of its pacing.

A teacher's greatest gift to his student is his lessons. This part of the movie felt a bit weaker. It is not shown in the film how Nana's lesson help Aziz win a fight. For instance, in the movie Fighter, Dicky is the coach and teaches his brother the head body head technique that we later see Micky put to use in his final fight. That moment was missing from this movie. I wish there were more interactions between Nana and Aziz where Nana is teaching his philosophy to Aziz, and paying it off with Aziz putting it to use. That would have been a cherry on the top.

Watch The Full Movie Here: https://amzn.to/3kTVYdy

Score - 7/10

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