Pachino All the Way

Rating: 9/10 (19 July 2013)

I just dropped one point of the ratings only because there is no other actor in the movie to make Pachino rise above himself and deliver his career best performance. Everything else in the movie just fades and pales away. The drugged confused angry self of Pachino as the world he built for himself, the world he rules, implodes around him and sucks everything in, is one of the best performances ever to hit the silver screen. Now I know where Amitabh Bachchan drew his inspiration for Agneepath and Sanjay Dutt drew for Vaastav.
From the beginning of the movie, Pachino loads you with a sense of something being odd about him. He is someone who will change things, big time, wherever he goes. His passion, his fire is just too much for everyone around him. As the movie progresses, this fire just rages on and on, wildly and engulfs everything. Finally it engulfs its origin, destroys it and dies out. In some ways it is a bleak reminder of the fact that the final solution is the only solution for a certain brand of criminals. At times life deviates from its course beyond repair and can never be reinstated, no matter how much love you have in your life.