Well intentioned but Toooooooo Looooooooooonnnnnngggggggggg!!!!!

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2013)

The best thing about BMB is performance by one man, who gave his everything to it, quite literally. There is something really touching when an actor immensely transforms himself physically to fit a role and Farhan Akhtar does exactly that in this movie. And not only his physical transformation, but even his acting-wise performance is so sincere that I can not imagine what would have been the fate of this project if not handled in a manner that Farhan did. If you are not a Farhan-Akhtar-fan, which quite honestly I too wasn't before watching BMB, then this movie will surely make you one.
But a movie, even though it's a biopic, can not leave a lasting effect on you just because of a legendary performance by its lead actor. The movie is too slow, dipping into too much pointless information at various stages, while you will be left wondering- What was that scene for? Did this happen in real life with him too? What is the relevance of that character to the overall plot? After hearing Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's name, just as I did, you might expect a larger than life movie like RDB. But make no mistake, this does not even come close to that masterpiece. Neither plot wise nor in bringing out strong emotions out of a viewer like RDB did. And on a large part, this is to be blamed on a generously unfocused and clichéd constantly-on-verge-of-becoming-preachy kind of script by Prasoon Joshi.
Divya Dutta's character is well played. Sonam Kapoor does not do much to the plot, which I don't even think was expected from her character as it's not featured longer than 15 minutes. But one character, other than Farhan, who won my heart was Pavan Malhotra's character Gurudev Singh, who is heart warming and funny at times.
Sound track by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is okay, since I didn't find any song memorable enough that I would remember even years later from now, except for one really good one- "Zinda".
I am not saying the movie is not entertaining though. It does have its moments- funny ones, heart touching ones and seldom even horrifying ones too. But with a script so loose, they lack their intended punch.
It's true that a biopic is supposed to detail the main character's epic journey through his life, but showing it in the form of flashbacks into flashbacks, making it more than 3 hours long, putting songs when they are not necessary and giving useless information? Now that's overdoing it.
So if you want to know, in too much detail, who Milkha Singh was, only then watch this movie. But then expecting that you won't get bored, well, you can't have everything.