A wonderfully acted good movie. Definitely not the great!

Rating: 7/10 (24 July 2013)

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag has been one of the most anticipated movies of the year 2013 in Indian Cinema. They had created huge roar around the movie by doing extremely strong online marketing. Milkha Singh is definitely a legend on the Indian Athletics canvas, while he's the only one I had been hearing about from my dad other than PT USHA in women. The Movie has been a delight to watch, much due to the character of Milkha brought alive by Farhan Akhtar. He must now be regarded as one of the best actors (and not a hero) Indian Film industry has produced who can very easily be put in the league of Naseerudin Shah, OM Puri and Nana Patekar. The pain and effort he has taken to showcase the true spirit of Milkha Singh must have made Milkha mesmerized. Movie is relatively a long one even by Bolywood standards, who now has time to watch a 188 mins long movie. Editing was the weakest link of the movie, second to which are the songs. From a movie that involves Prasoon Joshi, such songs were not expected. The character played by Junior Milkha was the second best performance to Farhan's.
At some points, the story line looked like being dragged whenever it was taken on the backdrop of Pakistan. While I understand, making base around to depict story of a legend is important, you may sometimes take way the essence by exaggerating it for too long. The goosebumps which were about to happen were taken away by such long portrayal of the elements connecting movie to the mainstream.
For other actors there wasn't much to do except for the characters played by India's coach of Farhan and team played by Yograj Singh (father of cricketer Yuvraaj Singh) and Divya Dutta (Elder Sister of Milkha) and both of them did justice to their roles. Yograj for once will make you think that was he the real coach during that period when Milkha was made.
Bhag Milkha Bhag is definitely an amazing movie but clearly not the greatest. Farhan did a job way above any actor for the character of Milkha Singh but the movie looked more like an excuse book on legend Milkha citing reasons for all those races he couldn't win. Rising from the ashes was very well shown by Rakeysh but getting to0 deep and to0 long took away the very essence of the biopic based on sportsman's achievement around track & field.
Yes, it didn't give the goosebumps, but movie was beautifully sculptured by the beautiful acts of junior Farhan and FARHAN THE AKHTAR