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Monday, December 24, 2018

OM or OMG??? is the star power of debutant Sara Ali Khan enough to recue Kedarnath at the box office… Let’s find out

Movie buffs around the country were pretty pumped up at the rumors of Writer/Director Abhishek Kapoor (Rock in, Kai Po Che, Fitoor) taking on a project about the devastating 2013 Uttarakhand floods, starring Sushant Singh Rajpoot and debutant Sara Ali Khan. Finally, after a plethora of legal disputes and a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) about the movie to seemingly promote ‘Love Jihad’ and a controversial kissing scene, it gets released country wide on the 7th of December, 2018. Unfortunately, the hype did not lead to the viewer’s satisfaction, whatsoever. A disaster movie is one in which the disaster holds and plays the central role with everything (plot, love, climax) building around it, in Kedarnath however, things took the opposite route, where the love story of the two main leads consumed almost the entire running moments of the movie where the disaster only played the climax of it, constituting for only the final few minutes. Now, all is not lost, as the director has most alluringly portrayed the love story of Mandakini ‘Mukku’ Mishra (Sara Ali Khan), a frank-flamboyant hindu (pandit) girl with the simple-humble Mansoor Khan (Sushant Singh Rajpoot), a pithoo (porter) at Kedarnath. What truly works for the movie is the innocent romance blooming in the stunning landscape of the pilgrimage of Kedarnath, Uttarakhand, coupled with brilliant background scores by Amit Trivedi and Hitesh Sonik. Debutant Sara Ali Khan shows promise as a leading lady and potentiates her position in the industry prominently. With nothing new in the plot, the romance between a wealthy Hindu girl with a deprived Muslim boy and the different social obstacles they have to overcome, becomes quite predictable by the second half. Special mention goes to the vfx team for the intense flood sequences which were very believable and done near to perfection. Kedarnath comes to us as a mixed bag of treats where viewers are both pleased and annoyed with certain aspects of the movie.

Final verdict: Kedarnath is a straight-forward love story without any extra bells and whistles, and the real-life catastrophic Uttarakhand floods in the backdrop. With commendable performances from the two main leads, and absolutely no help from the supporting ensemble cast, the movie seems to be a letdown for many. Apart from the vividly orchestrated vfx, the magnificent panorama of Kedarnath and excellent music, sadly the movie has very less to offer.

Stars: 2.5/5

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