Ketan Mehta's biopic Mountain Man tells this powerful story of a common man from Gehlaur village in Bihar's Gaya district. With a spirited story and talented actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte, Mehta has ensured that the film is true to its hero. Nawazuddin is definitely the most crucial and impressive part of the movie. Nawaz also has the most powerful and touching dialogues in the film. As they say, God lies in details and same applies for the art of cinema. Mehta's brilliant use of minute details of the socio-political milieu of Dashrath Manjhi's world helps the story along. The main themes that run throughout the movie are love, passion and the strength of a man's willpower. It's not that the film is without jarring points. Most of the character artists goof up with the accent while mouthing the dialogues in the dialect spoken in the region. In fact, except Siddiqui, Dhulia, Apte and Pankaj Tripathi, everyone seems to have put on a fake and forced 'Bihari' accent. The very Bollywood-ised romance between Siddiqui and Apte seems out of place as well. At best, this should have been part of dream sequences. Given the realism of the story, the flying sarees and Apte roaming around without blouses do not quite fit into the cultural milieu.
Director and co-screenwriter Ketan Mehta brings the stranger-than-fiction true story of mountain man Dashrath Manjhi to the big screen with the aid of dollops of drama. This approach, which liberally draws upon the Bollywood narrative idiom in structuring a tale rooted in harsh reality, might make Manjhi - The Mountain Man more accessible to a wider audience. However, the film's emphasis on stock conventions (obtrusive background score, overwrought melodrama, dream sequences, et al) undermines the sheer force inherent in the rousing saga of a man who brought down a mountain to build a road through it. Manjhi - The Mountain Man does have several moments that make for compelling viewing. It is in trying to squeeze every ounce of drama out of the biographical material that the film gets somewhat frayed at the edges. The script over-compensates by injecting high drama into the proceedings. Manjhi - The Mountain Man pays a price for exactly the opposite - it errs on the side of excess. Its makers go overboard with the sturdy but rather stolid pieces available to them. A lighter touch might have made Manjhi - The Mountain Man a markedly more convincing biopic.
Like many Bollywood biopics, Ketan Mehta’s film says it was ‘inspired’ by the real-life story of the ‘mountain man’ who toiled for more than 20 years trying to hack a path through hard rock with his humble tools, and indomitable spirit. It does not say ‘based on’, which would then strictly confine the film to the events that actually took place. The uneasy mix of the real and the imaginary, the trying to inject drama, and the swelling background music, renders the film less effective than it could have been, despite its inspiring subject, and its fine actors.
MANJHI IS ANOTHER FEATHER IN NAWAZUDDIN'S CAP. This is a faith-inspiring story of resolve and resilience. His portrayal of Manjhi is another feather in Nawaz's cap. The graph he brings to his screen character-- from a carefree lover to a burdened soul-- is the stuff that separates actors from many cardboard cutouts, loosely referred to as stars. Sultry Radhika shines throughout. Why this film that had so much potential doesn't deserve superlatives is because of the inconsistency in the story-telling. While some scenes leave you scarred and teary-eyed, others don't even scratch the surface.