By Madhu Raj

Awrite! I finally watched another Hindi movie. Thanks to the extensive promotions, even before I entered the theatre, I was totally aware that it is going to be a road movie.

When I go to watch a road movie, I either expect a Hell on Highway like how NatGeo documents it or a grotesque killer on the lose that pints up the thrill of the menace on a highway.

You expect so many things rather than just a bland plot which definitely involves driving through picturesque and virgin locations. That somehow works with the audience because it is indeed a treat to watch nature not getting molested by concrete and a filmmaker confiding in the platonic relationship between the nature with man.

However good Imtiaz Ali is, he has not trespassed the appropriate thrill to the plot. The storytelling just goes on a down-slide as he indulges in an expedition to inflammable childhood memories. It doesn’t do justice to the atrocious reality of exploitation that he has tried to depict in several disgusting ways. The transformation of the characters should have been poetic which is not the case here. If I want to see a descriptive voyage of scars, I would rather watch Kill Bill.

You will like the chirping of Alia Bhatt nevertheless. She is gorgeous and like a songbird coming out her nest, merges well into the scenes like a rainbow in the sky.

You will hate that your rowdy Haryanvi dude (Randeep Hooda) was not given due magnitude; the script would have kick started on some other level if Imtiaz decided to fuel Randeep’s innateness.

Nevertheless, some moments in the film attempted to trail into the past of Imtiaz’s films but there too, it seemed, that his vehicle had a flat tyre. It is very convenient to call a cul-de-sac when the plot fails to smoke up any adventure.

It was no motor science to pepper this movie with scenes of ‘road rage’. It ought to be clever and inventive. His deliberate inventions of situations only leads the film to a wrong but concurrent path.

It’s a yellow signal from me. Briefly stop by the Highway and get inspired to travel and transform yourself into somebody you are not. That’s all that is there in the package to motivate you.

My National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rating: You should not pay the toll to get on this Highway.

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