Hawaizaada Movie Review: Grand, But Lengthy

It is clear - first time director Vibhu Puri has a vision. He picks up an unexplored plot, decides to mount it big and then add on elements for universal appeal. However, what goes missing is depth to the plot, direction to the bigness and placement of the elements. What could well have been a terrific tale of an underdog making an airplane turns out to be a two and a half hour affair that boasts of wonderful grandeur but meanders into various directions while packs in too many things, quite of which seem unwarranted.

One can well sense that to begin with, the makers would have felt that this one was an epic in the making. No wonder, crores have been spent on creating a period feel for Hawaizaada. Right from the locations to the art design to the costumes to the props to the paint on the walls, everything has been assembled wonderfully well by Puri and his team to create late 1890s. The era is set well and you are indeed transported well into the time that carries its own intrigue.

In fact you quite like the first half of the film which has a good mix of core theme (that of building an airplane) being integrated well with the love story of Ayushmann Khurrana and Pallavi Sharda. Yes, there could have been more of the core theme and less of the love story but still you don't mind as there scenes play themselves well. As a build up, you do like to know more about Ayushmann's family background, his ideology when it comes to being free, his love for a nautch girl, his admiration for his mentor (Mithun Chakraborty) and his genius as someone with brains and common sense.

No wonder, you are pretty much attached to him and his antics right till a very well crafted interval point which has superb build up towards it. A wonderful background score only accentuates the impact further and though it takes a long time to reach this point, you like what you see, though well wondering if there is much left to be told in the second half.

Well, this is what turns out to be a problem are actually as the film drags, and how, in this part of the story. What could well have been an under-two hour affair (a genre like this could well have been restricted to such a duration), has an altogether different run of events from this point on as betrayal, sorrow, failures and disappointments make Hawaizaada an almost grim affair. Suddenly, the mood shifts to being somber and unlike that superb Marathi biopic Harishchandrachi Factory which had kept its momentum intact even in face of adversities that its central protagonist faced, Hawaizaada ends up losing its direction.

So while you find Ayushmann's desperate and impulsive act a little too sudden (which brings a twist in the tale), his love story with Pallavi turns out thanda too, despite them actually reuniting. His hunt for the perfect formula to run a plane gets so much extended that it turns out to be a major episode in itself. As for the climax, one would have expected a lot more build and euphoria. Now if only it would have carries the same energy (if not more) as the interval sequence, Hawaizaada would have concluded on a good note. However it doesn't turn out to be the case.

Now all of that still could have made a better impact if the songs would have been cut short by half, both in count as well as duration. There are as many as 10 in there and majority of them play their full length. Oh yes, a few of them sound good too but in the second half they come at so many junctures when in reality you want the airplane to be finally ready to fly.

This one drags instead of flying, and that is the reason why despite good efforts from the cast and the crew, Hawaizaada ends up emerging as a film that had its vision, but ended up meandering in many directions.