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Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
Critic reviews and ratings
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Director Vasan Bala's mind is a field of dreams where spotless childhood memories come alive alongside visions of quirky ingenuity.
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...is an ode to joy, an ebullient celebration of the cassette-tapes its maker has been brought up on. It is an action film, about fights and villains and the importance of pain, and Bala serves up chopsocky goodness not only with directorial flair, but with the benevolence of a friendly neighbourhood ‘Chinese-van’ cook, drowning chowmein in soya sauce and vinegar.
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There’s an innocence and transparency, a steadiness of tone and tenor, a perpetual energy and the delectable thread of whimsy that knits the film through and through.
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...director Vasan Bala retreats to that primal feeling of fantasy, and performs a touching reversal: he stacks up the imaginary outtakes of his own childhood and returns them to where they belong — in a movie.
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MKDNH’s strength lies in its clever, political screenplay, funny, crisp dialogue and the film’s goofy disposition to have fun.
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...Vasan Bala manages something rare: a delirious pastiche with a heartbeat.
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There’s no forced humour or slapstick, just weird thoughts and weirder execution. The film is made in a certain space and once you surrender yourself to it, it’s an outrageous journey that you won’t regret taking.
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...is packed with delightful surprises, not the least of which are the ways in which it turns the genre on its head.
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What makes Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota more endearing, is that it is strewn with Bollywood clichés, like separated childhood sweethearts, good-and-evil twins, and the hunt for a locket. It is both a celebration and a gentle mockery of Bollywood’s usual tropes.
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...there is nothing unfeeling about Vasan Bala’s retro tribute to the small, silly and lasting ways in which the movies leave an imprint on the soul.
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A homage to everything we grew up with: kung fu flicks, Bollywood revenge dramas, love stories, reality shows and yes, superhero movies. You will have a smile pasted on your face to watch this very different offering...
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Some of the fight sequences in the film are reminiscent of Stephan Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle — magnifying the aesthetic and theatrics of every blow for maximum impact. The two films also share a common agenda — to tickle you where it hurts.
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...the film’s gags don’t travel well outside the context. It’s one of those -- ‘you’ve to be there’ -- kind of films. But within those two hours, you’ll surely laugh your head off.
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The humour here is infectious, but doesn’t hold throughout. This is a film more suited for OTT viewing, which you can enjoy during a Sunday brunch with a group of buddies.
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...is a fanboy’s ode to the movies. Writer and director Vasan Bala goes back to his childhood and summons up the films he grew up loving – from Hong Kong martial arts movies to Manmohan Desai.
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...rests on an interesting idea and is well directed and performed.
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...the film remains watchable throughout, despite all its shaky foundation, precisely because it gives us an experience we rarely see in Indian cinema. It is stylish and cool and silly all at once, which does work in its favour as well.
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Quite a bit of fun while it lasts even though it is predictable at most times. Just good to see an attempt by Hindi films in the pulp genre.
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Vasan Bala hits the high notes frequently, even if the film doesn’t quite fall into a seamless symphony.
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Mard works best when it is klutzy and bouncy and light on its feet, and those are the parts which help us go past the occasional flatness: many people in the theater where I saw it were laughing out loud.
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It’s classic masala, and Abhimanyu Dassani’s impressive performance mirrors the director’s vision: a mix of affectionate mocking and serious homage.
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This movie starts off with an interesting script idea and then jumps into the deep end of the dead pool. Were the film stylistically made, it might have worked, but it is so poorly mounted and shot, ‘B’ grade vibes are given off by the end of it.
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