Paa - Movie Review

When I saw the promo of Paa, it looked like the the director (R Balki) had seen the Curious Case of Benjamin Button and had decided to copy it.

Turns out I was wrong.

Amitabh Bachchan portrays a person who has progeria – a rare genetic disease due to which people age very fast. So while Amitabh’s character looks like he’s 70 years old, his biological age is actually 13-14.

Abhishek Bachchan plays a upcoming politician who’s an MP

Vidya Balan is a doc and is the mother of Auro. Junior B is his biological father.

Junior B and Vidya Balan “do it” without protection and thus a baby is on the way. Junior B does not want the baby, so he asks Vidya to abort. She refuses; Auro is born and cared for by her and her mother ( whom Auro calls “bum” )

Junior B is shown as a straight-faced straight-talking up and coming politicial – a typical Hindi movie stereotype.

Junior B goes to a school – meets Auro – likes him – they hang out for a while – Junior B later discovers that that Auro is his biological son – Junior B is sorry – he tries to “patao” Vidya – Auro is dying – before he dies he gets Junior B and Vidya together

That’s essentially the story

There is another story arc ( towards the beginning of the story ) where Junior B is trying to do good for the slum wallahs – but that has nothing to do with the story at all!

The politician angle is complete unnecessary  and has not bearing to the story at all – I was puzzled to see why it is included.

The ending is pretty crappy

Verdict

Positives:

1. Big B’s makeup and performance
2. Big B’s dialogues and punch lines are really good.

Negatives:

1. Weak performances by Vidya Balan and (surprisingly ) Paresh Rawal
2. Bad direction and bad editing
3. Junior B’s role is weird especially the politician angle.
4. Lousy songs.

In a nutshell:

See it, if you want to , only for Big B. Junior B is a let down – especially since I expect so much from him after his performance in “Sarkar” and “Sarkaar Raaj”