Movie Name:
Antim: The Final Truth (Hindi Movie)
Release Date:
26th Nov, 2021
Synopsis:
Rajveer Singh is ready to fight Rahuliya to justify right from wrong. Who will win this fight?
Certificate:
U/A
Language:
Hindi
Director:
Mahesh Manjrekar
Genre:
Action, Crime, Drama
Cast & Crew:
Salman Khan, Aayush Sharma, Nikitin Dheer, ... more
Writer:
Mahesh Manjrekar
Screenplay:
Mahesh Manjrekar, Abhijeet Deshpande, Siddharth Salvi
Run Time:
2 hrs 22 mins
Cast and review
Shots of the superstar making his heroic entry, with a roaring background score to accentuate his big ticket presence and droll dialogues belted out in trademark fashion are by now de rigueur for any Salman Khan movie.
Yet, this remake of the 2018 Marati movie, Mulshi Pattern, helmed by Mahesh Manjrekar, has a lot more going for it that elevates it from being just another superficial mass entertainer that ‘Bhai’ is known to bankroll.
For starters Manjrekar has a tight grip on the script that confronts socio-political issues like land grabbing and the plight of farmers forced to work as indentured labourers in their own land amidst the rise of the multinationals and power-hungry politicians. Heavy-duty actors including Sachin Khedekar and Upendra Limaye add to the overall scale of the movie.
Cast: Salman Khan, Aayush Sharma, Rohit Haldikar, Upendra Limaye, Chhaya Kadam, Nikitin Dheer, Jisshu Sengupta and Sayaji Shinde
Director: Mahesh Manjrekar
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Do not let the tagline mislead you. Antim: The Final Truth, a gangster drama directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, isn't looking for either the truth or any sort of finality. If there is anything at all that it proves, it is this: even in a film in which Salman Khan deigns to share the limelight with another actor, it is he who inevitably hogs it all. For once, it works to the advantage of the film. Although the socio-economic realities of rural Maharashtra inflect Antim to a great extent, the film is cast squarely in the mould of a conventional crime saga in which a less-sinned-against-than-sinning lawbreaker is lionised only to be thrown into a losing battle against a tough policeman determined to wipe out crime and criminals.
The amalgam of multiple concerns - the plight of farmers, the greed of industrialists, the futility of crime and the policing of urban areas - is undeniably significant. It contributes to separating the film just a touch from run-of-the-mill cops-and-gangsters flicks. However, the approach that Antim takes is not only riddled with cliches, it is also, in the ultimate analysis, abjectly anodyne.
The line between the meaningful and the massy is indeed precariously thin in Antim. The film barely touches upon the former and leans too heavily towards the latter. That is a departure from Mulshi Pattern, the 2018 Marathi film from which it is loosely adapted.
The balancing act that the rejig attempts takes some doing especially because the overpowering presence of a superstar who is also the film's producer has to be factored into the script without altering the spirit of the story. The effort casts a shadow on the final product.
There is no dearth of melodrama in Antim nor is there a paucity of action sequences or dialogue-heavy confrontations between the man in uniform and the Pune mafia kingpins who force farmers off their land and rob them of their dignity. Especially in passages of the latter kind, Salman is in his elements. He preens and poses but delivers his lines with restraint.
Certain parts of the screenplay by Manjrekar, Abhijeet Deshpande and Siddharth Salvi touch upon relevant themes. Other portions gloss over the ticklish issues at the heart of the tale with the aim of softening the film's core for the benefit of the Salman Khan fan base.
A Sikh policeman's arrival in Pune coincides with the migration of a farmer's family displaced from the village of Mulshi. The patriarch, Datta Patil (Sachin Khedekar), once a champion wrestler, has been reduced to serving as a security guard at the bungalow that a builder has constructed on a plot land that the former was forced to sell for a pittance.
The one-time wrestler's hot-headed son Rahul (Aayush Sharma in his sophomore outing) clashes with the obnoxious real-estate tycoon before his father leaves the village with his family to work as a porter in the Pune market yard. The boy, impatient and always spoiling for a fight, vents his anger on a bunch of goons in the uprooted farmer's workplace.
In the process, Rahul and his childhood pal Ganya (Rohit Haldikar) earn the ire of one gang led by a corporator and the benign attention of another run by a politically powerful local don Nanya Bhai (Upendra Limaye, who was also in the original film in the role that Salman essays in Antim).
A turning point in the first half catapults Rahul to the top of the underworld heap, triggering fierce gang rivalries that Rajveer exploits to stage encounters and eliminate undesirable elements. The plot springs no major surprises but for the fact that it continually stresses the truism that crime does not pay.
The young gangster played by Sharma struts around as his stocks rise rapidly, but he is repeatedly reminded by the policeman that his days are numbered. Rahul is disowned by his own family, including his mother (Chhaya Kadam). The girl he falls in love with, Manda (Mahima Makwana in her Hindi big-screen debut), a tea-seller in the market yard, also gives the guy a run for his money.
Antim: The Final Truth is the kind of film in which there is no tomorrow in more senses than one. The protagonist does not have a future and that is asserted time and again. The film itself plays out in a manner that suggests it is desperate to pack in as much as it can without losing the advantage of Salman Khan's star power.
Antim occasionally slips into meta territory. Aayush's character declares ahead of a duel: "Main Pune ka naya Bhai hoon." Salman's Rajveer Singh retorts: Tu Pune ka naya Bhai hain, main toh pehle se hi Hindustan ka Bhai hoon." The line between the star and the character vanishes. This isn't the only time that the erasure happens in the 142-minute Antim.
With the spotlight trained understandably on Salman and Aayush, several of the characters, including the one that Mahesh Manjrekar himself plays - the alcoholic, perpetually slurring father of the girl Rahul wants to marry - get very limited play in an overcrowded script.
Sachin Khedekar does have his moments but Chhaya Kadam, an actress of proven substance, is a mere passenger. That apart, Jisshu Sengupta, Nikitin Dheer and Sayaji Shinde are stranded in a screenplay that has little space for them beyond fleeting appearances.
Aayush Sharma, who made his debut in 2018 in another Salman Khan production (Loveyatri) without creating so much as a ripple, makes a strong impression in Antim. The actor, playing a don in Kolhapuri chappals, does more than his bit as the conflicted, lonely, ambitious crime lord yearning for both domination and acceptance. What that means is that all the heavy lifting isn't left to Salman Khan. Yet, Antim is Salman Khan all the way.
Aayush Sharma, brother-in-law of Salman Khan, made his debut in the 2018 musical Loveyatri. The film was produced by Salman, but clearly that wasn’t enough. So now he must step into the ring. The role Salman has, in Mahesh Manjrekar’s Antim: The Final Truth, is a dual one: he must back Aayush up while also bringing him down. To decode the film’s logic, a family that bleeds together, stays together.
Aayush plays Rahul, a violent village boy who migrates to Pune with his family. There, his father takes up hard manual work at the city’s Market Yard. This is not a life Rahul sees for himself, subsisting on crumbs and letting middlemen and thugs push them around. “I’ll eat the whole thali,” he announces proudly. “With sweet dish.” So he falls in with gangsters, gladly – and gleefully – killing a few to become the Bhai of Pune.
That’s a title screaming out for a comeback. It materializes in the form of Rajveer, a Sikh cop played by Salman. The actor had last draped a turban in Heroes (2008), mostly in military green. In Antim, he gets to try on red, blue and khaki variants. What’s more touching, though, is his decision to swap out the bracelet, ditching it for a sharp, shiny kara. As for his accent, that’s just asking too much. He slips from Hindi to Punjabi without the slightest change in texture or pitch. “Oye tu fikar na kar” lands as flatly as “humare haath bandhe hue hai (our hands are tied)”.
Antim is a remake of the 2018 Marathi hit Mulshi Pattern, with the cop character played up. What is originally a gritty gangster story is dressed up as campy Bollywood fare. The film is concerned with big themes—land-grabbing, the abuse and exploitation of farmers in Maharashtra—but also plays as a bro-on-bro deathmatch. Its primary focus is Rahul, whose descent into crime and hedonism is held against the humble appeals of his father. Yet Manjrekar isn’t quite interested in a character study. He indulges Rahul throughout, giving us a villain to root for (Vaastav, Manjrekar’s first Hindi film, never tipped that way).
Aayush cuts an odd figure between Jesse Pinkman and a young Sanjay Dutt. This is his show, sprinting and snickering and shooting enemies in the chest. Salman, of course, knows this, and has to deliberately subordinate himself in scenes (it doesn’t work—since Manjrekar knows he’s making a Salman Khan film and has to at least deliver the goods). The ensuing tension leaves little room for anyone else. Upendra Limaye, who was the cop in Mulshi Pattern, is now a gangster — says something about Bollywood remakes — and Jissu Sengupta’s tapodi accent never leaves Tollygunj.
My favourite, by far, is Sachin Khedekar as Rahul’s father. Receiving his son after a hard day’s work, his hunched shoulders drop even further. Rahul says he’s changing his ways, that the future is looking bright. “I’m joining politics,” he informs. Sachin’s expression in the scene is to die for. “Go on, son!” he appears to scream. “Do me proud.”
Talking about the casting selection process he says,”Cast selection process is such as the producers hire me and then we sit and discuss about the project. They narrate me the story and their vision and the specifics they require in the characters they want. After hearing the briefings we sit with our team and research for the actors fit for the character briefs. As we ask actors to send in their introductions and details and then we check if there’s any resonance of them and the character brief and then we test them. This process goes on all over India to find the perfect actor for a particular part which we try to do with the director’s vision to put it on the big screen.”
Stating about when an actor rejects a part or role, he says,”Yes, it feels bad that what we were planning didn’t go well because the actor rejected the offer. It feel like now what because you think that this actor would be perfect for the character and you are framing him/her for it in your mind and then there’s a No from their side. But at last it’s the actors choice to do or not. Yeah overall it feels bad when the wishlist that the director and you create doesn’t work well.”
Antim The Final Truth, a remake of the Marathi film Mulshi Pattern, is Antim The Final Truth. It was released in 2018. Film Antim the Final Truth is the final Salman Khan film. It will be available in cinemas on Friday 26 November 2021. You can watch Antim: The Final Truth Full Movie by yourself or with your family and friends.
Watching on with a sneer and a swear is his son, Rahul (Aayush Sharma): the sneer because he’d rather have a full thali with dessert than the humble half-roti his father sweats for. The swear is that he’ll one day tie the landowner to two bullocks and make him plough the field, humiliate him in the same manner he insulted his father.
Watching Rahul swagger down the crime route is Rajveer Singh (Salman Khan), the Sardar in khaki uniform.
Shots of the whiz making his brave passage, with a thundering background score to accentuate his big-ticket presence and droll dialogues belted out in trademark fashion are by now de rigueur for any Salman Khan movie.
However, this remake of the 2018 Marathi film, Mulshi Pattern, helmed by Mahesh Manjrekar, has much more letting it all out that hoists it from being simply one more shallow mass performer that ‘Bhai’ is known to produce.
Antim is an all-around made film with a liberal portion of wonderfully shot action arrangements offset by some goofy discoursed that will make you grin midst of doom and gloom. Its strength lies in the fact it is a typical Salman Khan film that ends up being more than just another Salman Khan movie as well.
Salman khan, Ayush and all the other characters did pretty good in the movie. Personally I loved the character of Ayush. Ayush in the role of a gangster is very appealing and his acting was so real in the movie. When he is on the screen, it is delightful.
Salman Khan also raised his standard of acting in the movie and re-established his BHAI image again. Salman in cop role looks perfect. His most of the movie in which he played the police officer was amazing except few and in this movie Bhai killed it again.
The trouble is that the film, already shouldering the burden of Salman, soon dissipates into a head-swirling saga of guns and goons. The human cost of development, which was the key idea in Mulshi Pattern, is drowned out. At 142 minutes, Antim: The Final Truth also becomes a test of patience. I will say that this film is miles ahead of Salman’s last few ventures like Radhe and Dabangg 3. But that’s a pretty low bar.
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