Love is simple yet complex! (Stockholm Syndrome). Review on Highway

Well I'm a week late but today I got time, hence writing a review of my latest Hindi movie watch in theater -'Highway', directed by Imtiaz Ali, who is well known for making love movies differently, each with different representations. All his movies has depicted love in a different style, this one's no different. It stars Randeep Hooda & Alia Bhatt as lead pair and they are playing the roles of Mahabir Bhati & Veera Tripathi.

Mahabir Bhati is a bad jat, and he just wants to earn money by bad means possible, but he's good by heart, and by chance he picked Veera on the highway when he and his gang was looting a petrol pump. He have no choice but to kidnap her and take her along with him over the ride on his truck to the whole of India, not to forget that Veera is daughter of a big business tycoon who can easily get him caught.

But the freedom-loving girl Veera who is not able to do anything freely due to her upcoming marriage falls in an unconditional love for her captor Mahabir, whom she find interesting. She started feeling the feeling which is called the Stockholm Syndrome. And hence an easy yet undefined & more-complex love story started, where both of them liked each other but didn't confess till the end.

As the name suggests, the movie truly was like always traveling on a highway. Imtiaz Ali has started with 'Socha Na Tha' and that day Bollywood had seen a seer, a seer of love, as we all have seen the various forms of love which has been shot and depicted in all his movies, love is the central theme for all his movies, its the different presentations which made us all say "this is a different film." He goes on simplifying love through his films but in turns make it a complex affair.

This movie is simplest in presentation and with very small of a story, a girl in captivity, a guy who is the captor & girl falls in love with her captor, but it's the beauty of that presentation itself, love is not expressed by words merely, but expressed well, and yet it is so complex, that you cannot decode it. Wonderfully directed.

This 2.5 hrs of act of kidnap & love was beautifully performed by the two leads - Randeep Hooda & Alia Bhatta and beautifully sprinkled by the music of A.R. Rehman. Tiny specks of good taste was the other actors who all did their role well. Randeep was at his best as a Haryanvi Jutt, and Alia the perfect damsel who wants to explore the world other than her own, and mind it, she's a rich & spoil babe. Should mention Sahasrsh Kumar Shukla as Goru, who was the cute character and who loves Alia's character like she is his own child.

The settings were so real, which made this movie a damn sure watch. All the locations, be it in Haryana/Delhi, Rajasthan, HP, Punjab are true to the character of movie and made the feel intact, also I must mentions the costumes, the perfect match of the setting & the characters and the costumes, matching to the setting.

A.R. Rehman has again gave good music, and the background score was also adding up to the feel. The songs which are already hits like "Patakha Guddi" & "Maahi Ve" are a must to your collection. The only thing which affect the viewer is its slow-crawling like length.

Its a long movie & if you want that your movie should show something every damn minute, you cannot watch this movie, since it's slow, but if you love good love story, and the style of Imtiaz's types movies, you should definitely watch it, and if you love travel, you should watch it, wonderful camera work, and good photography, serene locations beautifully captured on the camera, and its the treat to the eyes. One scene where Alia cries, that was not that perfect which I was expecting, she must try harder from next time for emotional scenes which includes crying.

I was earlier going to watch 'Gunday' but then I bypassed it and stuck on 'Highway', and now I think that I have chosen well. In the last few days I am watching many good movies, and wanted to write reviews of all them, let's see when I will get time. Do watch Tarantino's 'Jackie Brown' & 'Reservoir Dogs' if not, 'Pacific Rim' &'Captain Phillips.'

I rate 'Highway' as 3.5/5

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki. :)