#MovieReview- Padman

Director: R Balki 

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, Sonam Kapoor

 

The nation has been taken by a storm ever since the Padman decided to begin their promotional activities. Even before the film released, people started talking about menstrual problems and how using a pad is as normal as wearing a piece of cloth. Padman in terms of making a film on such an essential topic had won the war even before the film had released. 

 

I entered the theatre with not a lot of expectations, to be honest since I am personally not a very big fan of R Balki’s style of direction ever since he made a mess out of an amazing topic with Ki & Ka. But we all knew how fantastic this story is, all the director and actors needed to do was pull it off earnestly and that has been achieved with a few glitches.

 

The first half is extremely slow with a lot of preaching happening. Akshay Kumar and Radhika Apte share an amazing chemistry but the writing seems too lazy and a bit too melodramatic at times. The second half however starts making much more sense but Sonam Kapoor’s role seems to have been forcefully fit in as her character sketch (with an introductory scene as a tabla player to a top notch CEO aspirant) seems highly disconnected. 

 

But the context and story of the film is so strong that you want to support this film despite of its flaws. The cinematography and editing is absolutely poor. Apart from a few picturesque drone shots, the shots are extremely jerky. And the color correction artist was maybe overpaid to make the already green Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh to look gaudily green.

 

Akshay Kumar with his end speech at United Nation Conference steals the show. He manages to connect as a grounded man who belongs to a small town and yet dreams of changing the world. I salute this effort made by the entire team of Padman, because only an A-list actor’s film (not films like Phullu) can get the country talking about women’s menstrual problems. 

 

I give Padman 3 out of 5 shors!