Another Middling Story Of Its Kind That Doesn't Pack A Strong Emotional Punch.

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 2017)

Capturing a young man's Google Earth-assisted journey to find who he is and where he came from, Lion is a kind-hearted slice of a real-life story that handles its content with sincerity & compassion for the first hour but turns into exactly what one feared during the second hour to finish as another middling story of its kind.
Lion follows a young Indian kid who, in an unexpected turn of events, ends up thousands of miles away from home and finds himself lost on the streets of Calcutta. The plot covers his difficult time in the city and the many challenges he survives before being adopted by a couple in Australia and, after growing up, sets out to find his lost family.
Directed by Garth Davis in his feature film debut, Lion allots its first hour to a newcomer, covering the little kid's struggle in the unknown city with honesty & patience, and paves a solid platform for the remaining hour. But then it all goes downhill as it turns into a sappy melodrama that unfolds at a sluggish pace before concluding on a lame note.
Coming to the performances, Lion features a fine cast in Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham & Rooney Mara but the real star is Sunny Pawar who plays the young kid and carries the entire first half on his shoulders. Patel always reminds me of that massively overrated Slumdog Millionaire but does well here and is wonderfully supported by Kidman & Mara.
On an overall scale, Lion opens on a promising note but loses its momentum in the second half, for the way it connects the dots backwards is rather too uninspiring, and the emotional finale it then inches towards is overly exaggerated. While its heart is at the right place, the execution isn't as spot-on as it needed to be. In short, it has its share of impressive moments but as a whole, Lion doesn't pack a strong enough punch.