A shining tribute to The Flying Sikh

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2013)

"BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG" is biopic inspired by the life of Indian Olympian Athlete and Padma Shri Milkha Singh is a tremendous work and does more than justice as a tribute and commemoration of his shining athletics career. As a young boy, I read about THE FLYING SIKH and heard several tales of his wins from elders. Thus, the sports-drama serves as a visual treat to all who know of him and as an essentially major history lesson who don't. The USPs of the film are the portrayal of the athlete by Farhan Akhtar who gave an enviable and "flying" performance inspiring awe followed by the exemplary direction by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, cinematography (Binod Pradhan) and production design. The film traverses through the life tale of Milkha Singh who came in as young orphaned refugee into India to live with his sister, shuffling through small time robbery and finally joining the Indian Army as a Jawaan where he polished his skill of sprinting and finally achieved international acclaim including breaking a world record. The film reaches its highest point when he races in a sports meet held in his birth country Pakistan, where he not only wins gloriously but also makes peace with his turbulent past and is given his famous title by the then Pakistani President. It gives goose- bumps by its culmination, such was the beauty of this scene. Screenwriter Prasoon Joshi outdid himself in adapting the auto-biography of the athlete and breaking it down in altering timeline to give a more vivid description of the events. The music (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy) does well. Divya Dutta was picture perfect as the elder sister along with Pavan Malhotra as the army coach and Sonam Kapoor had a decent guest appearance as the love interest. Rather, the ensemble cast was quite a hightlight (Art Malik, Yograj Singh, Rebeca Breeds, Japtej Singh, Meesha Shafi). To summarise, this may be one of those films that may inspire masses to think differently about a lot of things and may even be celebrated over time. Definitely, not a film to skip.