 Saiyaara Movie Review: Mohit Suri and his Forbidden Romance Drowns in a Sea of Cliches despite the Best of Efforts by Ahaan Panday
The projector flashes on as the India-Pakistan border gradually appears on the screen – an exhausted, tired analogy of what only could have been a successful homecoming on the part of Mohit Suri to the romantic drama genre. Instead, Saiyaara caves in on itself, and dispenses with the kind of film that may enter the annals of cross-border romance Bollywood-style, as opposed to a superficial about-list of Bollywood tropes. Even when credits went on at PVR Juhu, in Mumbai, the applause that one heard had the ring of a pity party rather than the one of appreciation.
The Premise: Romeo-Juliet on the LOC
Ahaan Panday is Veer, a withdrawn Indian Air Force pilot whose jet fighter crashes close to border of Pakistan. In comes Zoya (Aneet Padda), a hot blooded Pakistani med student who saves him. Their illicit love dances through the background of:
Border patrol pursuit on a level of 90s thrillers
Awful Urdu vs Hindi jokes
Elders in the village who are supposed to just disapprove
The obligatory song in the fields sequence
“It is Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak combined with Gadar, but without soul groaned Priya Mehta who is a film student during interval.
Mohit Suri Identity Crisis
The director of Aashiqui 2 appears to be in two minds:
Parading in a outspoken anti-war declaration
Providing commercial potboiler with item songs
Launching star-kids using heroic close ups
The result? A car crash when heart-warming beats of family disunity are instantly followed by a cringey appearance of Pulkit Samrat as a rapping soldier. Tags on the theatergoer Rajiv Malhotra, the one minute was crying over two separated siblings, and the next, he was staring at a TikTok dance fight at the border.
Sunlights of flashing Brillience
The movie is not completely bad:
Cinematography: There has never been a more ethereal look to Kashmir valley The filmmaking: It makes one glad that the film making never looked better
Sound: The sequences of the fighter jet jolt the cinema seats
Symbolism: Severed time in the symbol of a heirloom clock
Supporting Cast: Zarina Wahab in her wordless motherly grief has gone beyond script
Sadly enough, though, these jewels are lost beneath mountains of melodramatic coal.
The 5 Deadly Sins
Historical Amnesia: Uses the relationship between India and Pakistan as an event to be discovered History
Chemistry: Romantic ‘″></🥰зан sources less heat than a wet matchstick Panday-Padda pair produce
Pacing: 158 minutes with second half that trots like a soldier which is injured
Line: Tumhari aankha meri F – 16 se bhi tez utti hain (actual line reversed)
Predictability: You will predict 30 minutes earlier each twist made by the characters
Music When Good Composers Go Bad
The only redeeming feature of the film is A.R. Rahman soundtrack:
Title Track: Saiyaara: The song that was haunting and should have shown something better
Rishte Katra-Katra: Lost in a run-of-the-mill wedding procession
Rap-rock atrocities such as “Borderline”: which kills the seriousness of the film
Stating that it is akin to Rasheed Rahman scoring another film was music review writer Anirudh Varma.
The Killer Question Is Who?
Patriots? Integrates rather black-and-white geopolitics
Romantics? Chemistry between leads is not combustible
Families? Too much violence in act III
Cinephiles? Blunts down audience intelligence
The only victors will be those who create memes and will eat up Vikram Gokhale who started to act with eyebrows and helicopter rescue scene that is impossible to recreate.
