Let me clarify from the word go, though this article talks about the movie Talaash, it is not a review. Simply because to review a movie one needs to be fair unbiased and being an Aamir Khan fan I am definitely biased towards most of what he does.I watched Talaash this friday, at the unearthly show timing of 8:10 AM (First Day, First Show :)).I found Talaash everything that I expected it to be or more precisely everything that I expect from Aamir.
I became an Aamir fan when I saw Sarfarosh and have never been disappointed since. He keeps on surprising me with this consistently outlandish choices and equally consistent great quality work he does with everything he takes up.
The thing that I like with him, is that he can see beyond bollywood formulas, sample these one line summaries of his previous body of work:
Sarfarosh: Young IPS officer working to curb cross-border terrorism
Dil Chahta Hai: Stories of 3 friends discovering themselves
Lagaan: Village plays a cricket match with English rulers to get a tax (lagaan) waiver
Mangal Pandey: Story of the first indian freedom fighter
Taare Zameen Par: Story of a dyslexic chid
Rang De Basanti: 5 people fighting against corrupt politicians
Ghazni: Revenge story
3 Idiots: Life and times of 3 engineering students in India
I guess you would realize that except Ghazni, none of Aamir's movie would fit a prevalent bollywood formula. He did it because someone wrote a beautiful script and he liked it. With the onslaught of inane movies that I see so often, I guess a movie where a script has been written before going on floor, is promising from the word go.Talaash is no different, it is nothing like what would supposedly work at box office, but it is definitely well written. Apart from that you can clearly see that this movie is a labour of love, where people have taken great pains to deliver what they believed in. The sheer visual appeal of mumbai's dark underbelly, the finely etched characters, the brilliant acting, it's all there.I don't expect Aamir to do what I think would entertain me, I expect Aamir to do what he believes in. It is for the simple reason that there are many "entertainers", but there is only one Aamir.
His singleminded focus means that every time we go to see his movie, we are assured of one thing: Quality. You can safely assume that everything that could have been done to make a movie better would be done. You would know that Aamir would do the best job he could do.He doesn't care that much about "typical" audience, which every director/producer claim to know so much about (case in point: the Golmaal franchise, Son of Sardaar, Ra.One, Don2 and last but not the least Jab Tak Hain Jaan). These people know that lots of cars should be blown up and it should be painted in gaudy colours, item numbers are a must, the angle of SRK head tilt which is just enough to make ladies swoon, the dance step which will just click and the funny gags which will make people laugh. Whether you admit it or not, you would agree that in the above list of movies,except Golmaal part 1, it needed someone to write a script before starting to film them.
I agree that movies are for entertainment and hence these movies have their takers, they may not be discerning viewers but are enough in numbers to make the cash registers ringing. However, movies are also about telling a tale, a tale you would not listen to otherwise, of people who you will never come across, of locations you will never go to and of emotions you may never feel on your own. In this mayhem of entertainment focused movies, Talaash is a movie with a story to tell. Is this story particularly entertaining ? No. Is this story makes financial sense for mainstream cinema ? No. However, it is an interesting tale which have been told competently by the Director. It is about grief and mourning, it is about regret and remorse, it is about people without identity hoping for dignity, it is about two people in love who are too burdened by their own pain to help the other, it is about their catharsis and eventually coming back together.
Talaash is brilliantly written and despite of its somewhat outlandish ending, works for me. More importantly, it brings the real star of a movie into focus, the script. Remaining true to its core, it spends plenty of time in building up the characters so that you understand them and hence feel their emotions.
There is no other mainstream star who would dare to star as a cop in a movie who cries more than he fights. Surjan Sekhawat is another addition to Aamir already impressive repertoire of memorable characters.
In an interview Aamir had said that for him to do a Taare Zameen Pe, he has to do a Ghazni once in a while. I guess now we know why he is doing a Dhoom 3 :).
