Movie Review Azamgarh
Starring – Pankaj Tripathi, Amita Wadia & Anuj SharmaWriter – Kamlesh Ke MishraDirector – Kamlesh Ke MishraProducer – Chiranjeevi Bhatt & Anju BhattProducer – Sanjay Bhushan PatialaOTT – Mask TVRelease – 28 April 2023Rating – 2/5
The brand value of actor Pankaj Tripathi in Hindi cinema can be gauged from the fact that all the creative heads of OTT keep queuing up for his one yes. He does a number of films and web series and has carved a niche for himself in the film world where characters are being written keeping him in mind. The newly launched OTT Mask TV has got a chance to capture some of the shine of this brand value of Pankaj Tripathi from his film ‘Azamgarh’ made a decade ago. The film is directed by Kamlesh K Mishra, a National Film Award winning filmmaker. He has made Pankaj Tripathi starrer film ‘Azamgarh’.
In the film ‘Azamgarh’, Pankaj Tripathi played the role of a Maulvi who inspires youths to become terrorists by alluring them. How Aamir, a resident of Azamgarh, joins a terrorist organization after topping 12th and takes part in terrorist activities, is shown in the film.
When there was a controversy regarding the hoarding of the film ‘Azamgarh’, Pankaj Tripathi, who played the role of Maulvi in the film, had said that his role in the film was very small and he had only five scenes in the film. And, Pankaj Tripathi’s claim turned out to be absolutely correct after watching it at the preview show of the film on Thursday.
The image of Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh has become such that on hearing its name, such pictures start roaming in the mind which are often associated with terrorist activities. Writer-Director Kamlesh K Mishra has rightly raised the idea for the film that it is wrong to consider people of a place or a community as terrorists because of some people. An educated boy who dreams of becoming an engineer, joins a terrorist organization and destroys the biggest terrorists of the world in one blast, proving that not every youth living in Azamgarh is a terrorist.
Talking about the entire film, it looks like a documentary film. Kamlesh got the National Film Award also for his documentary film ‘Madhubani’. An example of the film being old is that this film does not talk about terrorist activities after the year 2008. An attempt has been made to give the length of a feature film to a short film by showing footage of all the terrorist incidents that have taken place in major cities of the country in the previous decade. The focus in the film is less on the original story and more on the breaking news on TV.
As far as the performance of the actors in the film is concerned, Pankaj Tripathi was seen acting in his usual style. Although his role in the film is small, but the writer-director of the film Kamlesh Mishra has presented him as the main character. Anuj Sharma, who plays Aamir in the film, has tried to do full justice to his character, while the rest of the cast has been average. After a long time, a Qawwali has been heard in this film, the lyrics of which are ‘Kiski Lagi Nazar’ and it has been sung by the Nizami brothers. Sanjay Bhat, the promoter of OTT Mask TV, has promoted the film well. The film ‘Azamgarh’ has been shot at the actual locations of Azamgarh, Varanasi, Aligarh and Delhi. Cinematographer Mahendra Pradhan has captured the beauty of these cities very well in his camera. If this film was edited properly, then this film would not have been more than 30 minutes. Television footage of breaking news and terrorist incidents has been stretched too long. It must have been no less than a challenge for editor Biren Jyoti Monty to convert a 20-minute short film into a 90-minute feature film. But there is also a truth that if this film had been released only as a short film and not as a feature film, then its impact on the audience would have been more.
(Presented by Hungama Media Group)
