CAST: Salman Khan, Aayush Sharma, Mahima Makwana, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sachin Khedekar, Jishu Sengupta.
DIRECTOR: Mahesh Manjrekar,
THE BLUF
Antim-The Final Truth is based on the movie ‘Mulshi Pattern’, a Marathi film that was released in 2018, which was directed by Praveen Nardi and was liked a lot by the people of Maharashtra.
It tells the story of the adversities faced by farmers that sell their land to builders not having the foresight of investment only to take up blue-collar jobs around corporate buildings and residential properties set up on their own land.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
The deprivation of the state of the farmers due to urbanization, the exploitative ways of capitalism lead simple-minded into a sense of aimlessness within the agro-based economy in India. The journey of Rahul is played exceptionally well and with real conviction by Aayush Sharma.
Rahul takes part in extortion as a projection of the sorry state his family is in only to regret it later when he becomes a monster he never intended to become. The film was a huge success in the state of Maharashtra and set the stage for Mahesh Manjrekar’s narrative.
The film uses that superstructure to give Aayush Sharma a chance to change his lover-boy image, cemented in the 2018 ‘Loveyatri’, and to give Salman Khan’s fans, pining for their Dabangg idol, a chance to reunite with him.
Those twin objects are fulfilled with a great deal of zeal and enthusiasm, because from the start, not a moment goes by without the school dropout Rahul/Rahulya (Aayush Sharma) glaring and flaring up at those who have grabbed his arrow-straight father’s (Sachin Khedekar) ‘zameen’. The moments that are leftover are filled up by clean-and-mean police officer Sardar Rajveer Singh (Salman Khan), all macho in a turban, having replaced his beloved azure bracelet with a ‘kadaa’, and doing what he does best– stripping to his 56-inch chest, slinging out one-liners, and annihilating the baddies.
Salman Khan’s role takes more of a center stage with an extended screen
IN THE KNOW
The movie essentially is a re-launch by Salman of his brother-in-law and he has an extended cameo in it only to assure that people will flock into theaters quite contrary to the outcome of what happened when Loveyatri ( his failed debut) was released.
The music is horrible and lays bare the awareness of the lyricist about how things work currently. The words and the concepts are outrageously silly. However, the director has done a good job integrating the background score.
It’s weird also when a movie that is a story focusing on gangsters and the role of the police suddenly has characters showing their perfect abs and muscular moobs, albeit digitally enhanced. Why?
Who is pining for photoshop?
The supporting cast put for the commendable performances in their respective roles. Jishu Sengupta’s unpredictable and unintentionally hilarious performance was an enjoyable addition to the film. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance with Mahima Makwana. It was great to see a female character in a male-dominated world stand up for herself and put a lead character in his place as he tries to stake his claim. Mahima really puts forth a genuinely grounded and real performance Mahesh Manjrekar playing himself from the original film and the brilliant decision to cast certain characters in the father’s role really made me believe that Manjrekar had an idea of how to adapt this in the Hindi language and make it work.
The biggest surprise was Aayush Sharma. Sharma has performed his role as Rahul as unhinged, bordering on psychotic with great precision. He slowly warms up to the role after initially being uncomfortable but it was honestly really surprising to see him on how comfortable he was in the second half his eyes full of rage, his demonic laughter, his scream into the sky as if he’s made his father proud, all brilliantly performed so much so that we really almost forgot his debut film.
Salman Khan gave a measured impactful performance after a long time. It genuinely was exciting to see the several altercations and back and forth that he has with other gangsters and especially his cynicism with a gangster’s lawyer, his enjoyment of the cover-ups, and his physical ability when shit hits the fan really does make for ingredients of a mass commercial film that simply works and I believe it took a creator like Mahesh Manjrekar to get that out of him.
WHAT WE LOVED
Salman
Aayush
Plot
WHAT WE MISSED
Music
Better edits.
