Plot
Right before her wedding, a young woman finds herself abducted and held for ransom. As the initial days pass, she begins to develop a strange bond with her kidnapper.
Release Year: 2014
Rating: 8.0/10 (1,092 voted)
Director:Imtiaz Ali
Storyline
A girl. A city girl - young, full of life - is on the highway at night. With her fiancé. They are about to get married in four days. Suddenly, her life is swung away from the brocade and jewelery of marriage to the harsh brutality of abduction. Her life will never be the same again. The same night, the gang is in panic. The girl is a big industrialist's daughter. His links in the corridors of power make ransom out of the question. They are doomed. But the leader of this group is adamant. For him sending her back is not an option. He will do whatever it takes to see this through. But as the days pass by, the scenery changes, the light changes, the sun sets and rises and the air changes, she feels that she has changed as well. Gradually, a strange bond begins to develop between the victim and the oppressor. It is in this captivity that she, for the first time, feels free. She does not want to go back but she also doesn't want to reach where he is taking her. She wishes this journey to ...
Excellent... beautiful... superlative... three words i am very wary of
using when describing a movie... the rarer i do it, the more importance
it holds.
GET ON THIS HIGHWAY.
Ramesh Sippy had his Sholay, Alia Bhat has her HIGHWAY. This young
actress, i never thought good of (i gave her Student of the Year a wide
berth). Here she has kept me riveted for a good length of time with her
facial contortions... her voice, her silence, her eyes, her
dressing..... everything. her transformation from a cocooned girl to a
free butterfly during the course of the movie is sublime. ill give her
a perfect 12 out of 10. and she didn't have to resort to ANY skin show;
no T&A here, pure genes at play. She shines. the movie belongs to her,
and she excels.
the story is simple, the subplots un-complicated. be it the horny
accomplice (well its essentially a kidnapping story), the good at heart
sidekick, the adequately sinister/ curiously enigmatic randeep hooda
(more on him later, he deserves a separate writeup), the camera work,
the locations, the un-obtrusive soundtrack and music that grows on you.
i found very little to complain about in the movie. probably Alia's
Stockholm Syndrome kicked in too early into the movie, but im willing
to overlook it.
Randeep Hooda has the kind of brooding, lingering, intense screen
presence that you'd associate with say a Ajay Devgn. tough to find
fault. the way he hisses his expletives, the snarling of a person with
a repressed background, the slow unfolding of a soft core, the
endearing body language and sheer rugged sexiness. WOW. from the rustic
dialect, to the clothes, to the grime filled fingernails... the effort
to live the character is commendable.
the background score and the songs, the overall tempo of the movie is
very well complimented with the accompaniments. the purpose of good
music is not to make its presence felt, but to ensure that its absence
will hamper the narrative. That happens here. i don't remember a word
of any song sung in the movie, but i know it was essential to drive the
movie forward.
The locations depicted in the movie, the adept camera-work made me want
to whip out my cell phone and take pictures of the screen. the
mountains, the overhanging cliffs along the routes, the beautiful
countryside (kashmir/ rajasthan, lovely roads)... the lenses have been
taught to fall in love with the locations. Zero doubt about it.
watch the movie... Watch The Movie... WATCH THE MOVIE...
good acting, good direction, good camera-work, good story, a well
handled sensitive subplot, brilliant characters... what else do you
need?
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