Azhar: A mishmash of reality

Cast : Emraan Hashmi, Prachi Desai, Nargis Fakhri, Lara Dutta

Rated: 5.5/10

This week, there is a Pele on one side, and anAzhar on the other, both sporting icons though on opposite sides of the globe. One is about the rise and rise of a footballer from the poor underbelly of Sao Paolo, and the other, about the rise and fall of a cricketer par excellence.

Azhar comes with a disclaimer, saying it is only inspired by Mohammed Azharuddin and not a biopic on him. With this disclaimer it makes fun of itself and of the intelligence of its viewers. Every name, persona and depiction of Team India of the 1990s is for real. The incidents are for real. The situations are for real. Even the events and the court case are for real. But the disclaimer says it’s not all real.

Mohammed Azharuddin, the real one that is, has been associated with the film all through. He has even been promoting it with the cast and crew on various TV shows. On the screen, he has been given a clean chit with no grey areas whatsoever. There is Kapil, there is Jadeja, there is Ravi Shastri’s philandering, there is Nayan Mongia too, not to mention Navjyot Singh Siddhu and the great Sachin Tendulkar, but all with only first names, just in case there is a defamation.

Sangeeta Bijlani is called Sangeeta and does the Oye Oye (Tridev) every time she passes you by on the screen. So one wonders why the filmmaker would get cold feet over showing the real events. Perhaps, because in such cases, no one knows the truth — ever as also because there would have been too much research required to make a docu-film out of the subject.

Mohd Azharuddin fought a court case which he won after eight long years of struggle, by which time his real time cricketing career was over. Today, he is a politician who has dabbled in the matters of other federations like badminton (disastrously) and is still trying to find his real footing. He is separated from both Sangeeta Bijlani and his first wife.

All this and much more is not shown or discussed in the film as a result of which it becomes a mishmash of real, not so real, candid, not so candid film on a hero’s life. That’s what kills this film and its brave attempt around a star who is still alive and kicking and not some convenient hero from a long lost past, the raking of whose life may not have been such a brittle venture.

Emraan Hashmi gets the swagger of Azharuddin right though not the accent and seems to have practised his wristy shots to give you a believable characterisation. Yes, there is smooching etc but only as cursory as the rest of the story is kept. Nargis Fakhri as Bijlani is as overdone as Prachi Desai as Azhar’s first wife is underdone. And then there is this stupid coyness around boldness which even sounds ridiculous in writing. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 15 May, 2016