This is a film with one illustrious title predecessor (Azaad in the 1950s with Dilip Kumar in the title-role) and one quite successful 1978 film with Dharmendra. But this time, the title-role is given to a horse, a lovely steed indeed, who also “acts” well, never mind if a few shots might have been executed through VFX.
Govind (Aaman Devgan) is a young man who is the son of a servant (Sandeep Shikhar) who tends to the horses of an important Indian official, Rai Bahadur (Piyush Mishra) in the British government (the year is 1920). He gets flogged as a punishment when he dares to ride one of the horses. At one point, he also makes an impertinent gesture of applying color on Rai Bahadur’s daughter, Janki (Rasha Thadani), during the community Holi celebrations.
Scared of being punished again, he runs away from home, and encounters a royal animal, who he does not know is Azaad, in the countryside. Enamored, he pursues it and finds that it belongs to Vikram Singh (Ajay Devgn). Vikram has turned rebel after a back-story with Rai Bahadur’s son, Tej Bahadur (Mohit Malik), for he had dared to love Kesar (Diana Penty) whom Tej forcibly weds later.
Vikram takes a fancy to the young lad. He heads a rebel outfit that saves villagers from the British, who are known to herd them in large groups to foreign countries and exploit them as slaves. In one such enterprise, Vikram’s tribe is betrayed and killed, and a dying Vikram asks Govind to take care of Azaad, who he has raised since the animal was a weakling.
The rest of the story is about Azaad and his love-hate relationship with Govind. Govind also discovers that Janki is no spoilt brat but a nice soul who is quick-witted and is also an expert rider. Her British ‘suitor’, James (Andrew Couch) wants the horse and as per prevailing tradition, the horses impounded from ‘brigands’ (as Vikram is termed) become British property. Azaad’s continued rebellion makes the Bahadur father-son duo furious and there is a serious wager placed upon a race that Govind and Azaad must win: the villagers will suffer if they do not triumph, while they will free the villagers and forget their claim on Azaad should Govind and the horse win.
While the first half engages and amuses (with a few catchy songs by Amit Trivedi) with the horse’s tantrums with Govind and utter devotion to Vikram, the second half, which is always more vital in any film, dips alarmingly and the director probably finds everything overwhelming. Ergo, a Lagaan-like climax is his only option. But we also find loose ends like Kesar never taking action against her tyrannical husband for ill-treating her, the issue of forced migration is now forgotten, and the senior Bahadur does not even repent for his actions.
Never mind that Azaad, whose leg has been slashed by Tej, runs a marathon distance and wins the race and is not even affected by his injury and blood loss. As for Govind and Janki, we are only led to assume that probably their love story had a happy ending!
Director Abhishek Kapoor is known to flounder commercially as well as qualitatively in most of his movies (Rock On!! and Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui being the exceptions that proved this ‘rule’!) and makes cardinal slips here. His major faux pas is to reduce superstar Ajay Devgn’s role to a cameo. But the script falters on much more than that. What could have been a refreshing animal story after a long while goes haywire when unnecessary angles are thrust into the saga.
Amit Trivedi’s songs sound catchy but do not have a lasting quality. Thankfully, they are situational and used well. However, the alarmingly puerile song tributing O.P. Nayyar’s style is a disaster! The technical side is nice and the first half has more than a whiff of the earthy Raj Khosla actioners of yore.
Aaman and Rasha show overall confidence and thus promise, and the latter also shows her prowess at an item song. Ajay Devgn is in great form, all the more reason why he should have had an extensive and better worked-in role. Mohit Malik is an absolute ham, and the supporting cast is average to plain mediocre with one exception: Natasha Rastogi as Govind’s Nani.
But Azaad is a downer, and what always makes me sad is how promising debutants are let down in such cases by poorly executed debut films.
Rating: **
Guy in the Sky Pictures’ & RSVP’s Azaad Produced by: Pragya Kapoor & Ronnie Screwvala Directed by: Abhishek Kapoor Written by: Abhishek Kapoor, Ritesh Shah, Suresh Nair & Chandan Arora Music: Amit Trivedi Starring: Ajay Devgn, Aaman Devgan, Rasha Thadani, Diana Penty, Piyush Mishra, Natasha Rastogi, Mohit Malik, Sandeep Shikhar & others
(Used with permission)
