Take my 21 Salutes Sir!. Review on Paan Singh Tomar

He God becomes powerful only when the devotees are honest. The same is true with almost aspects of life, all professions including the world of cinema. After a long time I felt that a devotee in the form of Paan Singh Tomar, has elated its God of Cinema in this country, making the world of cinema looked powerful, compelling, moving and absolute. This honest and perfect feeling I had felt last with 3 Idiots.so complete and mesmerising. Watching this movie gave me a feeling of visiting some Holy Shrine and meeting some divine force through cinema. The Glitz Multiplex at Dehradun today looked like a Holy Shrine, where one of the the best devotee of World of Cinema, Paan SIngh Tomar, was restoring back the lost glory of Hindi Cinema and elating the glory of world of cinema, rebuilding its respect, which is lost with almost every star studded "100 crore group joining movies" these days, the plenty of soulless and creatively hollow releases on Fridays, who call some "Glamorized BaiJi" to do item songs to thrive of the penile weaknesses and freaky tastes.

Somewhere I came to learn that when the movie was conceptualized my Tigmanshu Dhulia, they had the following things to start up:

1) A certain story that a dreaded Dacoit in Chambal existed, Paan Singh Tomar.

2) Lines of fore-tales that Paan Singh Tomar was more like a Robin Hood, born out of usual corrupt culture of India and its society.

3) A very limited budget, where the producer has given Dhulia two options: A) Either use money and promote the movies through usual publicity stunts and media, go to shows and create hype as movies of these days.hollow in content, full of promotion and hype, 3rd day declare it a hit and followup party with declaration of joining the so called " elite 100 crore club" OR B) Use the same money and do the thorough research over a dacoit's life who was once in Army, won medals for nation, broken his own records of hurdle races, and no official document was retained on him!

Storyline: Like a true devote of his profession, with full honesty Dhulia chose the harder but truer one, researching over Paan SIngh Tomar, bringing out the story of a national champion whose story and life was buried for the world, a man who existed, existed with absolute glory and won medals for your and my country, who was purely innocent and full of positive energy.our own social and working system made a rebel(mind it not dacoit) out of it. You must have watched several revenge based stories, several stories on Dacoits, and you must wonder then how could a movie based like this one could be different. Interestingly Paan Singh Tomar proves itself so sharply, so intensely, so lucidly and so strongly, that you forget all shots of Chambals based movies before, you forget all tales of revenge, all so called classics even like Sholay look pale before it. A big region for this triumph I could feel was the absolute honesty and pure heart the makers and every member of this team put on making this movie alive, who actually showed a level to understand even the minutest of details of human emotions, thought processes, the real India( which is still same once you go out of the 4-5 metros), the knitting and nature of our society and system. In this nation, if you are honest and love your profession out of core of your heart, it is declared that your are unfit to survive in this country, which is corrupt and characterless by core, where your acceptance for survival is only when you become party of the corrupt culture( or just culture?) and system. Because if you have to be here, working truthfully for your profession does not matter at all. you can get certificates, some appreciations on stage, some medals, but never the certificate "Fit for India". Coz for that you need to do something else, like the relatives of Paan Singh, Bhanwar SIngh and CO, expected, to quit army, return back to village and do a bloody fight to grab lands. According to him, Paan Singh, the man who was serving for Indian Army, a law abiding honest man, with ultimate respect for naiton and uniform, was an escapist, who escaped from a reality of life of India. This man pulled him into the mess, converted him into a killer, ruined his life and gave birth to a dreaded rebellion against the system. Man what a movie and what the way the story has been told.

Performance: Irrfan "Khan" says he does not like to use titles like Khan as with every character he lays he wants to know, what is life and who he is actually. But man, for me you are now the No. 1 actor of this country, no "Khan" or "Kapoor" is even an inch of your nail man. Your perfromance has given a new respect to the professon of actor and world of cinema, and for Making an unknown National Champion, Paan Singh Tomar, alive, even God will have to accept that through this role of Paan SIngh Tomar, through Irrfan Khan, the God himself performed on the silver screen. We all today know that awards are insults in these days, but if "You take any award for this performance" that awards will become highly coveted and really good one!

But praising only Irrfan for performance would not do justice. Mahi Gill as a village wife has done a highly restrained but hitting to the heart performance, which will put all these Kaif, Saif, Katrina Karina and Chopra on Shame. Her every moment with Paan Singh/Irrfan is blazing, even the last meeting. Watch the last scene where a drop of tear comes out of her eye, near the bank of Chambal.

Interestingly, this movie has not so many regular faces of cinema, but what a maveric and total natural performance they have given, that they made this movie a classic with performances too. One more thing to mind that all the cast including Irrfan and Mahi Gill have shown exemplary dedication by speaking exactly in the dialect of Morena, Chambal. Not an inch of performance any single character would look with any space of error. So perfect has been the movie.

Screenplay, Cinematography and Direction: From above you must have learnt what this movie is. This movie may have a tragic end of Paan SIngh Tomar, but in no way this movie wears any grim gloomy face . in fact not a single frame is out there which you feel drag even for a bit or bore you. Every frame is full of energy, excellent one line dialogues and array of top class dialogues, fully entertaining instead of being preachy and overtly intellectualism. Instead of Head the movie let you know that it has been made with "Art of Heart and Class of Head". The first half is full of jokes, laughs because Paan Singh Tomar's persona as a plain, honest and man driven from heart, before the power of heart who makes everything dwarf.

(Remaining in comments section)