Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara

Once an English film director was reported expressing surprise why so many Bollywood films come out every year and almost none of them carries a story except filmy romance and skin-show. Here is the answer- Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara, a film by renowned director Jahnu Barua. With Anupam Kher and Urmila's superb acting and Barua's excellent direction the film deserves to be a must see. Bollywood industry should produce much more films of this kind instead of its tradition of producing rubbish films. Direction: 10/10; Acting- Anupam Kher: 10/10, Urmila: 9/10; Story: 9/10; Photography: 10/10; Dialogue: 9/10; Music(Background): 10/10.

I've never seen Mr. Bahru movie before, neither Mr kher's saanrch. but one thing that really struck me is that if u combine the finest people from Bellwood you definitely something spellbinding. this movie is surely one of the best in performances/story/screenplay and even background music. kher is disturbingly fantastic and we cud compare him with amitabh's performance in black. he played his character with utmost perfection leaving us shocked and shattered in the end. Urmila, on the other hand, is the most underrated actress of Bellwood. i don't want to describe how amazingly she performed because we all know that her performance is always 10 by 10 right from Pinjar, bhoot or Ek hasina thi. this year i sincerely hope she gets her long delayed national award as she acted on the level of shabana azmi & smita Patel. MGKNM succeeds in capturing father/daughter relationship which an over hyped movie called YAADEIN miserably failed to do so. even the kavita is like satisfying your soul.

Subtlety is rarely seen in Hindi movies. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara has plenty of it. The humor, the score, the acting and the story, all come together to make this wonderfully understated film. Yet this movie shows so much depth and understanding of human nature that its able to elicit from the viewer, genuine regard for its characters.

A lot of other reviewers have already talked about how excellent this is. So I will only urge you to watch it. The highlight is certainly Anupam Kher's performance which is layered and brilliant. The day that the Indian audience and critics are able to recognize performances and films like these is the day India can once again be proud of its cinematic history.

In "Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara", Jahnu Barua has presented a different subject -- Alzheimer's and possibly the associated dementia -- which is itself a deviation from the trashy theme-of-the-decade stuff turned out by Bollywood.

Barua has shown how at least some doctors (usually the young guys fresh out of med school) will try experimental, unproven and risky therapies, while going against the mainstream. Also, the universal tendency among medical personnel, especially the mental health community, to 'keep the status quo' until SOME result is obtained, be it positive or negative, good or bad for the patient, has been very well-documented.

While it may be true that the late-onset dementia was triggered by long-suppressed childhood memories based on some incident related to Gandhi, the 'Speechifying' at the end was totally unnecessary. The court drama could've been edited for greater effect.

Both Anupam and Urmila come across as somewhat high-strung and a tad one dimensional. The professor is retired but has absolutely no neighbors, friends or colleagues that drop in or visit once in awhile. That is highly unlikely even in modern urban India.

Anupam Kher produced this movie (that is also a trend nowadays), as the fine folks at NFDC either turned down Barua's request for financing or were too busy cavorting at Cannes.

Somewhat slow-paced at times, it is nonetheless a well-made drama about human relationships. 7 out of 10.

Anupam Kher & Urmila Matondkar totally pull their respective characters together. It is because of them, accompanied by a good plot, that I rate it a 7.8/10.

Directly getting to the point in less than 10 minutes keeps the viewer hooked on to what might be the cause of happenings in the screen. A sense of suspense grows and even though the screenplay feeds us constantly, another revelation towards the end does make sense. The courtroom drama at the end is worth a watch.

What the makers fail here is to keep away from boring sequences wherein the characters are speaking/enacting something, while the actual plot is narrated. It does turn off the experience. Dialogs are just fine, while the character building is very good. Not going astray, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara is a engaging watch.

BOTTOM LINE: Cinema aficionados & critic will love it alike. Once again, great performances, I have to mention.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

Profanity/Nudity/Sex: No | Violence: Mediocre | Gore: No | Smoking: Very Mild | Alcohol/Drugs: No