Watching movies is one of my favorite pastimes. I have a particular liking for movies based on real events. Watched a hindi movie 'Paan Singh Tomar' (2012) yesterday. Had been hearing a lot of good things about this movie since its release, which I guess was a few months back. But was not able to watch it due to other commitments. And I knew a movie which had Irrfan Khan in the lead OUGHT to be good. He is one of those actors who excels in no matter whatever role he portrays on screen. He even is awesome in those Vodafone ads he's seen doing on TV.
I had kind of forgotten about this movie until few weeks back when I came across news stories about how India had sent another movie 'Barfi' (2012), as its entrant for the 'Best foreign language movie' at the Oscars, and this movie was one of the contenders. I downloaded a dvdrip, it was not hard to find, as is the case for recently released movies. Finally watched it yesterday. And all I was left after watching it was Woww!! A huge respect for Paan Singh Tomar, the army man, the athlete and the dacoit or 'baghi' as he calls himself in the movie. Irrfan Khan does a great job once again. Even Mahie Gill, one of my personal favorite actresss in bollywood since 'Dev D' days, performs well in the small role she has as Tomar's wife.
I was really surprised to know that Tigmanshu Dhulia, who was brilliant as 'Ramadhir Singh' in the movie 'Gangs of Wasseypur' (Another awesome movie that I watched this year), is such a brilliant director too. Really liked the way the director has brought up this movie as a tribute to 'Paan Singh Tomar' and other similar unsung sports heroes, in a cricket-obsessed nation like India. Tomar's journey from his tiny village in Madhya Pradesh to Indian Army, to national steeplechase champion, to a dacoit is really touching. The land feud among brothers that led to Tomar turning into a dacoit can be found even today in rural India as well as Nepal. The movie shows 2 sides of Indian police in Tomar's story - the first being a futile cop, who doesn't want to interfere until someone has 'died' in the fights due to land feuds and the other being a competent cop, who traps and kills Tomar and his gang at the end, following a tip off from one of the villagers, where they were taking refuge.
Like 'Gangs of Wasseypur', 'Paan Singh Tomar' can also be seen as a story of one man's revenge against those that destroyed what he had. These 2 movies, both released in 2012, quite easily make into my list of best movies of 2012. Though I would personally prefer 'GoW' over 'Paan Singh Tomar', quite simply because of Anurag Kashyap, the director of 'GoW', of whom I am a big fan and have watched almost all his movies. And partly also because it is a longer story that keeps you entertained and busy for a longer time :) 'Paan Singh Tomar', highly recommended!!
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