Azhar Movie Review – Commercial Chaos of Azhar’s Life

Bollywood biopics on sports personalities often end up in a very commercial treatment to gain mass audience and the real story of the athlete doesn't really get to the audiences. Same happens with Tony D Souza's directorial Azhar based on the life of cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin who was banned for life with charges of match-fixing.

The story tells us about the young life of Mohammad Azharuddin, how he became a great cricketer and Indian captain, how he gets dazzled with fame and money, his marriage and love life and how he gets involved in a match-fixing scandal followed by an 8-yr old court battle.

Direction wise, the film could have been executed much better. When you take inspiration from someone's life incidents and bring to life the same person on screen, you should keep things as real as possible. Tony D'Souza terribly fails at this point. The movie seems extremely long with the plot actually going nowhere plus the sleazy dialogues make for a boring commercial show. The songs are decent but break the flow of the film time and again. The potential was huge when it came to capturing the life of former Indian cricket captain Azharuddin, but it wasn't explored much. 

Talking about the performances, Emraan Hashmi plays a typical Emraan Hashmi character and except for the walk posture, he has not picked up a single trait of Azhar. His portrayal gives you a very filmy feel to the whole story. NargisFakhri is kept in the movie just for glamour and definitely doesn't make you go gaga over her acting skills. Prachi Desai is decent in her role of Emraan's wife Naureen. Even Lara Dutta is weirdly melodramatic in the film.

In all Azharuddin's story, the cricketing legend deserved a much better storytelling and the film is best skipped.

Rating – 1.5/5