Shriram Iyengar
Mumbai, 26 Nov 2021 18:07 IST
Mahesh Manjrekar's recreation of Mulshi Pattern (2018) has none of the subtlety, subtext or socio-political commentary of the Marathi film.
The curse of stardom is that the longer one is engulfed in it, the harder it is to relinquish it. With his own production house backing the project and friend Mahesh Manjrekar at the helm, Salman Khan has quietly slipped into his second lead role of the year in Antim: The Final Truth. The story was supposed to be about a gangster played by Aayush Sharma. Unfortunately for him, there can only be one Bhai.
A remake of Pravin Tarde's 2018 film Mulshi Pattern, Antim: The Final Truth revolves around farmers who are forced to resort to the drudgery of daily labour after being forced to sell their land. Having seen his father's desperation, Rahul (Sharma) takes matters into his own hands and joins the land mafia. As he starts to rise through the ranks of the underworld, he gains the attention of Rajveer Singh (Khan), a wily cop who decides to cut down the mafia using its own weapon.
Mulshi Pattern review: Om Bhutkar emerges as a powerful leading artiste
Manjrekar's film has all the slickness, glamour and packaging of a mass entertainer. Sharma, though sincere in the film, lacks the presence, rawness and intensity of a roughneck from the interiors of Maharashtra. The performance of Om Bhutkar, who essayed the role in the original film, had a realness to it. Sharma is all chiselled abs, intense close-ups and smoky montages set to rocking background music. This is packaged entertainment, with little focus on the story.
The film is treated with all the subtlety of a masala entertainer from the 1980s. This applies to the dialogues, scenes and background score.
Masala entertainment can be fantastic if delivered effectively. Manjrekar, who appeared in the original film, knows this better than anyone else. Besides boasting of fantastic performances, the Marathi film threw light on issues such as the rise of the land mafia in Maharashtra, the disfranchisement of the sons of the soil, the loss of age-old identity, delinquency, and the rot in the system.
Of course, the original also had the fantastic presence of a smiling Upendra Limaye as the cop who is more dangerous when he speaks softly. Khan, who plays the character in the Hindi version, has the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Where Limaye could convey the workings of his brain with a look, Khan has to spell it out clearly for his audience. He finds it difficult to go through even the first half playing an officer restrained by the system without one slow-motion action sequence. To be fair, his fans wouldn't have it any other way.
The supporting cast is more troubling. Sachin Khedekar slips into the old cliché of the good father with a bad son, while Manjrekar as the drunk philosopher adds some melodrama. Jisshu Sengupta has the unfortunate burden of playing a Marathi gangster who vies for Rahul's post. If Sharma lacks the rawness to play a gangster, imagine, if you can, Sengupta in the role. Mahima Makwana's role is diluted enough to give her the authentic experience of being in a proper Salman Khan film.
The film does have some positives. The background score is impressive. But the occasional odd editing in some portions damages the narrative. The intensity of the original story keeps you glued, but the remake lacks the emotional depth that good performances might have brought. While Manjrekar manages to translate the story, he is unable to recapture the intensity of the emotions and the crispness of the Marathi dialogues.
Antim: The Final Truth is a Salman Khan film. For Bhai fans disappointed by the debacle that was Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai (2021), this is just the film to remind them his star power has not waned. For everyone else, we would recommend watching the original.