It was year 1992 when a serial named Dhuwan was aired on PTV. Though PTV was famous for producing some top- notch plays in its time, Dhuwan was exceptionally different. It had such amazing elements in those days that still give us goosebumps even when we have watched the same play over and over. Its screenplay, dialogues, direction, background music, action sequences, acting, everything was beyond perfect. And biggest contributor to this gift to Pakistani viewers was Aashir Azeem.
This was the reason that when I heard that Aashir Azim was finally putting his creative persona on again after 22 years, I could not believe it. I waited patiently for "Maalik" to be released, and I watched it as soon as I could, i.e. today. But the thing that has made me write my first review on IMDb is the fact that the movie I have watched was nothing like Dhuwan. To even compare this movie to Dhuwan would be as big a sin, as to compare any Nicholas Cage movie to The Godfather.
This movie was terrible. In fact it was beyond terrible. It was so so bad that I remained physically and mentally in agony for the entire time movie ran. At times, I wanted to scream in between scenes and express my utter outrage on the level of incompetence the makers of this movie has shown.
The movie did not even contain an appropriate storyline. The beginning of the movie gave an idea if the remainder of the movie would be action-oriented. However after the action sequence in the beginning, it started developing on 3/4 story lines one by one, which did not make any relation to the main theme of the movie at all. And these story lines had sub-story lines too (like that Jihad loving guy's fight with bunch of lazy Russians) which did not benefit movie in any way except to make audience more confused. Even when I saw my watch for the hundredth time to know that we had to endure just another 30 minutes of this movie, I did not have a clue what the actual story of the movie was, or how it was supposed to end. The characters kept getting introduced during entire length of the movie, which were not appropriately developed, and which did not even had proper closures. And then there were some story lines which were ended abruptly (like giving Saeen's handyman 15 days to confess, but not telling what happened of it). Dialogues were at their lamest. Even the intimate scenes between a loving couple were written so so poorly that I literally wanted to punch Aashir Azim in his head and bring back his sanity. (The examples would be terming Aashir's kid as "Kuttay ka Bacha" in a supposed joke of Farhan Ali Agha or the discussion between the couple about their upcoming kid. Seriously Aashir, is this the way couples speak to each other when they have the biggest excitement of their lives in front of them?). I could not find a single loose dialogue piece in entire 13 episodes of Dhuwan, and here I couldn't even find one sentence worth being attributed to the same writer. And what about this strong language and crude scenes. Were those absolutely necessary? The jokes which contained such a language were mostly very crude and lame and the level of nudity shown in the movie was mostly of a dirty, third grade kind. Okay, we get that Saeen is a womanizer and he wants to have dance parties in his home every night, but do we really need to see so many girls dancing in cheap costumes every second scene or people lying naked in blankets to make us understand that?
Acting was disastrous. Nobody except Saeen, that Afghan father and the teacher did a marginal effort to make us feel any connection with any of the characters. Some were utterly horrible and made us constantly question why they were hired for acting in the first place. Even Aashir Azeem himself felt disassociated with the character at all places.
Yet the second worst thing in the movie after its horrible horrible writing was its editing. Have makers of this movie even heard of anything like editing? Even action sequences could have edited better, yet they still managed to pass. But most of the other scenes in the movie were boring and slow beyond patience.
I could go on and on and on picking and pinpointing such monstrous messups in the entire length but I feel giving this movie 3 hours of my life was enough of a mistake. Giving more time to think and write about the movie would just add to it.
In the last, I understand this is a Pakistani movie, and we as Pakistanies should encourage Made in Pakistan so that our cinema could be revived. Yet I also feel its our duty to duly criticize the final product so that this revival could eventually bring quality to the cinema as well.
Final verdict: anyone having any interest in cinema, or Pakistani movies, or having a general common sense and sanity should never ever go watch this movie. It would seriously hamper your senses and you would get out scolding the one guy who recommended this movie for you. 3 hours of sleep is much better option.
This was the reason that when I heard that Aashir Azim was finally putting his creative persona on again after 22 years, I could not believe it. I waited patiently for "Maalik" to be released, and I watched it as soon as I could, i.e. today. But the thing that has made me write my first review on IMDb is the fact that the movie I have watched was nothing like Dhuwan. To even compare this movie to Dhuwan would be as big a sin, as to compare any Nicholas Cage movie to The Godfather.
This movie was terrible. In fact it was beyond terrible. It was so so bad that I remained physically and mentally in agony for the entire time movie ran. At times, I wanted to scream in between scenes and express my utter outrage on the level of incompetence the makers of this movie has shown.
The movie did not even contain an appropriate storyline. The beginning of the movie gave an idea if the remainder of the movie would be action-oriented. However after the action sequence in the beginning, it started developing on 3/4 story lines one by one, which did not make any relation to the main theme of the movie at all. And these story lines had sub-story lines too (like that Jihad loving guy's fight with bunch of lazy Russians) which did not benefit movie in any way except to make audience more confused. Even when I saw my watch for the hundredth time to know that we had to endure just another 30 minutes of this movie, I did not have a clue what the actual story of the movie was, or how it was supposed to end. The characters kept getting introduced during entire length of the movie, which were not appropriately developed, and which did not even had proper closures. And then there were some story lines which were ended abruptly (like giving Saeen's handyman 15 days to confess, but not telling what happened of it). Dialogues were at their lamest. Even the intimate scenes between a loving couple were written so so poorly that I literally wanted to punch Aashir Azim in his head and bring back his sanity. (The examples would be terming Aashir's kid as "Kuttay ka Bacha" in a supposed joke of Farhan Ali Agha or the discussion between the couple about their upcoming kid. Seriously Aashir, is this the way couples speak to each other when they have the biggest excitement of their lives in front of them?). I could not find a single loose dialogue piece in entire 13 episodes of Dhuwan, and here I couldn't even find one sentence worth being attributed to the same writer. And what about this strong language and crude scenes. Were those absolutely necessary? The jokes which contained such a language were mostly very crude and lame and the level of nudity shown in the movie was mostly of a dirty, third grade kind. Okay, we get that Saeen is a womanizer and he wants to have dance parties in his home every night, but do we really need to see so many girls dancing in cheap costumes every second scene or people lying naked in blankets to make us understand that?
Acting was disastrous. Nobody except Saeen, that Afghan father and the teacher did a marginal effort to make us feel any connection with any of the characters. Some were utterly horrible and made us constantly question why they were hired for acting in the first place. Even Aashir Azeem himself felt disassociated with the character at all places.
Yet the second worst thing in the movie after its horrible horrible writing was its editing. Have makers of this movie even heard of anything like editing? Even action sequences could have edited better, yet they still managed to pass. But most of the other scenes in the movie were boring and slow beyond patience.
I could go on and on and on picking and pinpointing such monstrous messups in the entire length but I feel giving this movie 3 hours of my life was enough of a mistake. Giving more time to think and write about the movie would just add to it.
In the last, I understand this is a Pakistani movie, and we as Pakistanies should encourage Made in Pakistan so that our cinema could be revived. Yet I also feel its our duty to duly criticize the final product so that this revival could eventually bring quality to the cinema as well.
Final verdict: anyone having any interest in cinema, or Pakistani movies, or having a general common sense and sanity should never ever go watch this movie. It would seriously hamper your senses and you would get out scolding the one guy who recommended this movie for you. 3 hours of sleep is much better option.