AZHAR

AZHAR: is a 2016 Indian biographical sports drama film directed by Tony D'Souza featuring Emraan Hashmi, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Prachi Desai, Nargis Fakhri, Lara Dutta, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rajesh Sharma.Based on the life of Indian cricketer and former national team captain Mohammad Azharuddin.

PLOT: Azhar (Emraan Hashmi) is an introvert who's instilled with only one aim in life by his grandfather (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and that is to play 100 test matches for his motherland India.Azhar impresses the selectors, sealing his place in team India and soon becomes national hero by scoring 3 consecutive centuries in his first 3 test innings.In his personal life Azhar ties knot with Naureen (Prachi Desai) and they both start a happy married life. At peak of his career, Azhar's personal life takes a twist when he meets a bollywood actress Sangeeta (Nargis Fakhri) during an ad film shoot and falls in love with her.After his 99th test match, he faces a match fixing allegation due to his name been linked with a London based bookie. The India cricket board slaps a life ban on him from playing cricket and in his quest for clearing his name and the ignominious life ban, Azhar decides to take the battle to the Court where he's represented by his under confident lawyer friend Reddy (Kunal Kapoor) while the prosecution lawyer is the fiery Meera (Lara Dutta).

Will Azhar win the case ,will Azhar be able to prove his innocence....forms rest of the story.

PERFORMANCES: Emran is good but this is not his best performance.Prachi Desai is delightful as the simple Naureen.Nargis Fakhri is a visual delight for she is a glam doll,fails to impress.Kunal Roy Kapoor as the bumbling lawyer friend is a major highlight of the film. He ensures genuine comical moments in spite of retaining the seriousness of certain key moments in the film.He performs very well.Lara Dutta is loud.

MUSIC: composed by Amaal Mallik. Pritam and DJ Chetas .DJ Chetas recreated the song "Oye Oye" originally composed by Kalyanji–Anandji."Bol Do Na Zara" stays on in the mind

Storyline is not so engaging that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats till the end ,script is also weak & feels strangely stretched.The courtroom drama in the second half is almost unbearable.

In what could be one of the worst cases of casting, the director doesn't seem to have even bothered to waste any thought over the peripheral characters around Azhar. While they are happily named after the real cricketers of that time, Manoj, Ravi, Sachin, Kapil, Anil etc., not one actor looked like the original players of that time.

Overall,Azhar is not up to mark film & couldn't perform as it was expected.