Dangal ...An Honest Review

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2016)

I don't watch Bollywood movies...For obvious reasons.....The absurd stereotypes....The dramatics...the unnecessary songs and dance...The clichés...the unreal sequences...the bad acting....stupid scripts...
Having said that, every year or two, I wait eagerly for Aamir khan movies...This is the one actor who makes enjoyable commercial movies(3 idiot)..sometime real good ones (TZP, RDB, Dhobi ghat)..and I was eagerly waiting for this one.The critic reviews and IMDb rating of 9.1 put fire on that excitement fuel.So i went to see the movie last night 11 PM in Atlanta...
So was I disappointed?? is the movie worth 9.1 (Better than Moneyball, Fight club, Shaw shank, Forrest Gump, Inception??)
Well it wasn't ...and truly if people are going to rate a Bollywood movie in IMDb based on their knowledge of movies (of course Dangal is masterpiece when you compare it to the movies that Bollywood produce every year like Dilwale, Befikre, Sultan etc etc) , I would suggest IMDb to have separate page on Bollywood movies so that people like me, who are a devoted movie fan and do watch movies from all over the world , don't get deceived by the ratings
As I said its better than average Bollywood movie ..however its an average movie itself....The first 1 hour is good..its funny..its smart..its fast paced...and you connect to the character and their emotions....the struggle of those girls looked almost real....the dangals authentic....the film takes a flow thats rarely seen in Bollywood
However, the problem comes in second half...there is not much left to be told in the story.....so the film drags...drags to unnecessary wrestling game scenes...After seeing hundred of Sport movies,I can say the good ones never shows the actual games in the movie...the movie is not about showing those games but the drama around the sport...Dangal in the last 1 hour is essentially nothing but extended version of those wrestling games...So , eventually all the drawbacks of a Bollywood movie cripples the movie....the stereotypes comes back ..Conspiracy against dad, fight between coaching ideology, the Australian wrestler insulting Geeta in the press conference (which are factually never there or maybe false)...a grown up cousin who tries to be funny ..but not funny.... And finally the most grave mistake...the facts were distorted in the second half...you never do that in a sports movie based on real story ...none of the fights and scores were correct...they were fabricated to make the movie Bollywood style Dramatic (like winning a 5 pointer last second)..
So overall...good try..still a solid six, because we need a movie like this in Indian sport..However when it comes to a movie it just another average sport movie (similar to a coach carter or mcfarlad, etc).....So do watch it ...its a decent movie but be aware of the 9.1 rating here...its just over the top...people who don't watch any other movies but Bollywood movie are going ga ga over it because as I said earlier, if you watch Befikre, Dilwale all year..its a masterpiece to you..