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Pataakha
Critic reviews and ratings
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...is very good but it could have been great if the plot was stronger than just a story about two sisters with dreams. However we are not complaining much since it is a full-on entertainer for the masses.
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The short story Do Behnein is six pages long, and starts only as Pataakha enters its second half. Bhardwaj takes these hysterical sisters at each other’s throats and turns them into a metaphor for India and Pakistan, locked in an endless cycle of sniping. It is an unsubtle analogy but effective in its crude directness, like a street-play.
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Simply put, with sparkling performances and a colourful setting, Pataakha shines on screen like a proper boxful of crackers!
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But for all its wonderful and creative touches, Pataakha still feels like a story that stretches a short concept, for a little too long.
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It's explosive but subtle; it's emotive but doesn't take itself too seriously as a film. It could have benefited with a tighter edit, but for the most part I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen.
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Fun, colourful, comical are adjectives you rarely use for a Vishal film, but that's exactly what Pataakha is.
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...has everything that makes it a perfect fit in Vishal Bhardwaj’s oeuvre: literary adaptation, feisty women, rustic hinterland, unapologetic use of dialect and free-flowing gaalis. Yet, the film doesn’t feel contrived or formulaic.
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...redeems Vishal Bhardwaj from his previous disappointments
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...can essentially be described as masterful storytelling feeding off an average story.
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...is a decent entertainer which has its moments but the post-interval portions are quite unconvincing.
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You laugh at the parallels drawn between the two sisters and India’s love-hate relationship with Pakistan. All the profundity about not being able to choose your relatives and neighbours works. But even that metaphor doesn’t allow you to ‘enjoy’ the violent nature of this destructive relationship.
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A crisper running length would have ensured a more explosive impact for Bhardwaj’s latest, and welcome, foray into black humour with a political subtext.
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I’ve always maintained that Bharadwaj is great with set-up and dwindles as a finisher. Happy to be proved wrong this time around.
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Almost every frame of the film tells you it is not about these two sisters, but there is a larger purpose here. Once you give in to this theme and adjust your hearing to its loudness, the film is engrossing while it lasts.
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Take it or lump it, Pataakha packs exaggerated flourishes of the kind that aren't all that common in Bollywood films that aren't strictly driven by mainstream impulses.
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Why do the sisters hate each other -- is the question that pops up in your mind time and again. Sometimes, there is no reason either to love or hate and that’s Bhardwaj’s approach as well as the sudden transformation of their feelings towards each other is just as inexplicable. But these brief niggles aside, Pataakha is a cracker of a watch indeed, total paisa vasool on the strength of the acting alone.
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Bhardwaj though doesn't delve too deep into making them agents of change, more inclined to return to the shenanigans that provides the laughs. Pataakha further succumbs to taking a clichéd route to create drama and conflict, one more befitting in soap operas.
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...has enough combustion to light up a night sky, but it fizzles out like a moist rocket. The crackers, like they say, needed more sunning.
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...feels inconsistent and never fully satisfying. It’s a lightweight offering that’s got its sparks, but doesn’t quite live up to its firecracker name.
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...more of a sparkler rather than a bomb.
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Hair pulling and name calling gets boring after an hour. And the story remains stationary until the last ten minutes, and the end is so obvious, you just groan as you exit the theater.
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...is a slim story stretched till it snaps.
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A similar nation state in India, with room for a myriad political innuendos to co-exist, allows Bhardwaj a lot of freedom in his Shakespeare adaptations. Most importantly, there are full fledged plots to interpret, instead of half baked ones like in ‘Pataakha’. Plus, there are 34 more plays he can still work on.
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The title promises an explosion. You get a half-damp squib.
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