STARRING : Darsheel Safary, Atul Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta, Ziyah Vastani and others.
DIRECTION : Priyadarshan
STORY
The story of the flick revolves around the characters of two kids Pinu (Darsheel Safary) and Rimzim(Zia), who are brother-sister, living in a terrorist infested area with their poor parents – Khogiram(Atul Kulkarni)-Rituparna Sengupta.
Though Khogiram is a poor man working in a tea plantation to survive the harsh life, he does manage to send his children to a good school. But unfortunately, he is not able to meet the high standards of school and that includes dresses, shoes, books, etc, for children.
A tricky situation arises when Pinu misplaces (while going to get it repaired at a shoe shop) the only pair of shoes that Rimzim had. Now, to solve the problem of school, Pinu and Rimzim decide to use the same pair of shoes that Pinu had.
However, whenever Pinu tries to help Rimzim with his shoes, either he is late or is the victim of something else, with the result that Rimzim suffers without shoes.
Luckily for Pinu, an interschool Marathon is going to take place soon and the third winner will get a pair of shoes. The young boy wants to gift this pair of shoes to his sister, who does not have shoes at this point of time. Pinu does not want this opportunity to slip from his hands and starts preparing for the same.
What happens to Pinu’s desire to win shoes and whether his father comes to know of this, is the subject matter of rest of the flick.
PERFORMANCE
Darsheel Safary, who rocked in Aamir Khan’s ‘Taare Zameen Par’ and plays the part of Pinu in this flick, carries his part well but somewhere misses the spark of that award winning flick. Nonetheless, the young lad keeps his basics of acting right and does not falter on them.
However, Darsheel wearing orthodontic braces in some scenes of marathon and missing in others seem a strange thing. Even, during the preparation and running of race, the enthusiasm seems to be missing from the sequences.
Ziyah Vastani, the gril who plays Darsheel’s sister Rimzim in the film, looks so cute. She is so natural in her acting that the audiences would find it hard to take their eyes away from her.
Atul Kulkarni, who plays the character of Darsheel’s father Khogiram, comes out with a winning performance. Every nuances of his character has been carefully enacted on the screen with the result of making it most realistic.
But same can not be said about Rituparna Sengupta, who enacts the part of Darsheel’s mother in the film. However, to be fair to her, it must be said that her role was not author backed and she had hardly any scope to showcase her histrionics.
Direction of Priyadarshan is top notch in the first part of the film but he loses the grip in the final sequences, which is lackluster, to say the least. Another factor, which mars the film at the box office, is its slow pace in this fast paced modern society. The music of the film is good and cinematography top notch.
VERDICT
Darsheel and Atul Kulkarni have done great job but movie lacks pace and solid climax to make it endearing at the box office. Overall an average fare.