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PK - Movie Review

Watched PK today on Sony TV; I hadn't seen the movie when it was released. Firstly, I haven't been watching new releases of late anyway, secondly I had gotten bored of patronizing tone of Raju Hirani's movies. But on watching the movie, here are my thoughts. Overall, an average movie for 3 reasons:

1. Predictable story: the movie takes the same twists as Munnabhai MBBS, all the way down to the style and positioning of the climax.

2. Poor and unrealistic storyline; blatant directorial missouts. This is surprising as Hirani's previous productions have never had directorial missouts. The movie also lacks the depth of Munnabhai series; the sub-plots are poorly researched and realism which marked earlier ones is missing.

3. Blatant copying of the core concept from Paresh Rawal's "Oh My God!".

Before I end, a praise for Anushka Sharma for her work; Amir doesn't need praise - he played the part well; the others were all cast in the same type of characters they have portrayed in earlier Hirani movies - starting from Parikshit Sahni to Amardeep Jha; only Boman Irani gets downgraded - Saurabh Shukla's role ideally belonged to him.

Final thought: Raj Kumar Hirani now needs to liberate himself from the ghost of his own success and his successful formula - and start making fresh movies. He can take a leaf out of his mentor Vidhu Vinod Chopra who has managed to remain experimental even after delivering several hits with formulae which could have been repeated but were not.

Postscript: In retrospect, I am surprised at the reactions the movie elicited from Hindu religious groups who found the movie against their religion. This is surprising because the movie makes several attempts to remain 'secular' in its caricature or posturing against all organized religions. So much so that the climax of the movie gets triggered by a fictional act of Islamic terrorism and not by a Hindu riot. Looking holistically on the screenplay also, all religions are targeted - Sikhism is spared at best; but Christianity and Islam are targeted as much as Hinduism. So it beats me as to why the Hindu groups got so psyched up.

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