An Honest Review: Machine!

Movie – Machine

Director – Abbas-Mustan

Stars: Kiara Advani, Mustafa Burmawalla, Ronit Roy, Johnny Lever and Eshan Shanker

We just saw the Mustafa-Kiara starrer Machine. This movie stars the much awaited debutant Mustafa Burmawalla and the gorgeous Kiara Advani in titular roles. The end credits have rolled up, and now its time for a review. But first, let’s run you through as to what the movie is about.

The romantic thriller starts off with Kiara Advani aka Sara Thapar in focus, and soon and steadily she confronts Mustafa Burmawalla aka the mysterious Ransh. The movie is tied up with the help of clichéd events, tried and tested punch lines and the first half showed the chemistry growing in way too fast as it was already love at first sight and their love for adrenaline-pumping car racing brings them even closer.

Long story short, the first half of the movie was a super hurried up love story which progresses in a typical Bollywood style. However, you will be reminded time and again by the little twists and turns before the interval that you’re in an Abbas-Mustan film. Abbas-Mustan are the iconic directorial duo who directed Race and Race 2. You get the idea. The conclusion of first half reminded us of Baazigar, and that’s all we are going to say about it.

The real Abbas-Mustan style action begins post interval, and it is surely something to stick around for. Kiara and Mustafa gain a great amount of depth and it happens as they drift through jaw-dropping twists.

There are indeed a few punch-lines that you will surely enjoy, but however the overall dialogue delivery doesn’t pick up. We had interviewed Kiara Advani on her day 1 of promotions, and she had sworn by the fact that the twists will blow our minds. She was absolutely right!

We are not going to spill the beans on it for sure, but if you enjoyed the Race series, this is something that you might want to be glued to your seats for till the very end.

And now, here are the few hits and misses of Machine!

Hits:

The plot twists: This is indeed the unique selling proposition of an Abbas Mustan presentation, and they have surely out done themselves on this front. However, certain twists will remind you of popular soap operas, but they don’t get onto your nerves.

Johnny Lever: This guy is always spot on! It’s always a treat to watch him. He goes about playing a cop who’s trying to make sense of things quite beautifully. You definitely want to see him in action.

Ronit Roy: He is the ace at what he does best! Playing the angry parent. Although we might have given you a bit of a spoiler here. It is nothing like you have seen in Udaan, 2 States or even Kaabil for that matter. Do stick around for this guy too.

Misses:

1)Dialogue delivery : The set of dialogues, apart from being a pure cliché, are somewhat annoyingly repetitive. The dialogues are repetitive to the point that it quite clearly gave away what will happen next. There was a strong element of unpredictability in the Race series, which unfortunately Machine didn’t live up to.

The depiction of the love story in the first half which will surely make you say WTF! The love story is way too simple and predictable. Mustafa and Kiara do give in their best, but we felt that their tremendous potential could have been utilized in a much better way in the first half.

Overall verdict: When you cross-breed Baazigar with the Race series, Machine is what you will end up getting as the offspring. Although you might find yourself snoring in the first half, the second half is sure to take you on for a spin that you’ve been waiting for! A hit, we say!

Our rating: 3/5 Stars