Creates a Long-Lasting Impression !!!! Amazing....

Rating: 7/10 (17 July 2013)

Today's Hindi film industry observes that the movies related on lives of famous personalities, which are termed as biopic are attaining fast recognition and acclaim. Dhulia's Paan Singh Tomar, Luthria's Dirty Picture, Legend of Bhagat Singh and Chak De India are illustrations of such highly acclaimed projects. Considering this ongoing trend, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Director of Rang De Basanti and Delhi 6) decided to encompass the real-life episodes of the athlete Milkha Singh in this film 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag'. The film happens to be a sweeping and stirring biography of Milkha Singh entitled as 'The Flying Sikh' about his uphill struggle, apprehensions and his path towards glory. Three hours and 8 minutes of this Farhan Akhtar starrer keeps u hooked to your seat from commencement to conclusion.
The starting scene of the film is based in 1960 in Rome, Italy showing Olympic sports meet where a sprinter Milkha Singh starts the race being ahead of all but slowly loses speed and agility as the past memories of his childhood begin to haunt him amidst the race dropping him to the fourth position. The main reason for this loss happens to be a shout given by his coach saying 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' which triggers these past memories. This is the point where we know that this athlete has gone through some tough depressing days in his childhood. However, generation of past memories only by mere ushering by his coach for a highly experienced athlete seems very unrealistic.
After the unfortunate loss in Rome, Jawaharlal Nehru announces sports meet between India and Pakistan to be held on the Pakistani land and Milkha refuses to be the part of this meet. The movie goes back a few decades where a child Milkha is seen having his happy time in a village of Punjab until one day, due to India-Pakistan partition, war commences there leading to all his friends and relatives getting massacred with only few survivors.
Milkha comes to Delhi, India in search of his elder sister thereby leading a life of misery and unstoppable agony being a local goon stealing coals from passing-by trains with his local friends falls in love madly with a Punjabi girl (Sonam Kapoor) and decides to transform himself into a gentleman to win her hand for marriage. He joins Indian Army and ends up being an athlete due to his running capabilities and agility. A sprinter running for the Indian army, starts representing his own country India in Olympics, thus fulfilling his own ambition of doing so. The film shows some of his glorious and triumphant moments as a successful sprinter. Some of the episodes in film show his intimate moments with an Australian girl Stella as the film slowly starts unnecessarily deviating from its genre. The film happens to be respectful but unreasonably long.
Farhan gets the golden opportunity to portray one of the most iconic characters hence delivering his most phenomenal performance till today. Right from a sculpted physique, body language to his look, Farhan has extended his capability beyond his limits. Dilip Tahil also delivers a convincing performance as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while Divya Dutta captures the viewers emotionally.
The music director trio Shankar-Ehsan-Loy captures every beat with mastery uplifting the background score of the film, making the soul of the film more beautiful. Along with some splendid music, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra takes care with his shots, zooming in and using slow-motion to make a body travelling through a finish line.
The film would have been totally flawless should the director have pruned some unnecessary scenes only to have made the film short and sweet. The story oscillates abruptly from Milkha's personal and professional life and also displaying the flashback memories again and again. The race scenes are too much in slow motion but there is sufficient dramatic control by the director and grace in Farhan's acting.