Movie Review - Apne(aka Rocky 7)

Ok. So here we go. My second movie review. Saw there are no comments for the first one. Looks like no one is reading my reviews huh. Anyways lets talk about Apne or as I call it Rocky 7. Now why Rocky 7. Because it is our own desi version of Rocky which had Sly Stallone in the title role. Aur to aur here there are 3 Rockies. Yes 3. Dharam paji, Sunny paji and Bobby. Wow a perfect star cast assembled huh. Who else can play Rocky other than our 3 Punjab de Puttars. Ok jokes apart lets talk about the movie now shall we.

After jingoistic movies like Gadar and The Hero, Anil Sharma tries something different here. He makes an emotional saga about a father and two sons, with some action sprinkled as the topping. I dont want to go ahead and write the story here. I have given enough hints by calling this a Desi Rocky. I began the movie with lot of apprehensions, but to my surprise I started liking it. And the main reason for that was Dharam paji. He is in almost every frame of the movie. And boy does he deliver. He has shown to us once again that though we have given him the tag of He-man, he is at his best when he is playing with emotions. He showed us this in Chupke Chupke and Satyakam. I was little shocked seeing him perform this well, as he is not that young now. But he has not changed. He is in full form here, at his best. No kutte kamine dog blood sucking dialogues. But Drama. Nice emotional drama. Pain of a sportsman who has a shame under his belt. Pain of a father who wanted to make his son, the Best in the sports he loves the most. Pain of a human being, whose feelings are not understood by people around him. He is simply Awesome. If movie didnt had other two deols then also this would have been a nice film. Because of Dharam paji. But we got a better deal didnt we. We got two more deols with him.

Sunny Deol. Now what shall I write about this guy. I have always felt that this guy has not done justice to his talent by doing movies like Fool n Final and Big Brother. He is much much better actor than what we saw in these kind of faaltu movies. We still remember his Arjun, Ghayal, Ghatak, Damini, Gadar, Border. Whew!!
Then why in the hell he does these faltu movies. Ok I hope he understands this before he runs out of gas and we also hope that he soon starts working Again with Rajkumar Santoshi.

Apne gives Sunny a nice platform to display his range. In the most part of the movie he has under played himself. No shouting. No dhishum dhishum. An emotional son who wants love from his father. He shows us what he is capable of especially in the scene with Dharmendra on the roof, where his father says very harsh words to him. But I was missing the Sunny I knew. The gusse wala Sunny. I thought that the director screwed up showing him soft in the whole movie. Ohh wait but I was wrong. The director is a Genius. He saved this for the last 45 mins of the movie where Sunny gets into his familiar territory of Shouting and mukka laat. And boy he delivers. The last 45 mins are memorable because of him and him only. So nice to see sunny paji in good role after a very very long time.

I am not going to talk much about Bobby. I am not much fond of him or his acting. Here, he does a decent job(may be because he has very less dialogues). But he has his dad and big bro to support him. So we will not be too harsh on him. He really did an OK job. Not Bad.

Now the ladies. Both Shilpa and Katrina dont have much to do here. The real leading lady here is Kirron Kher, playing Dharmendra's wife. She does a fine job with her punjabi accent(already did that in Rang de Basanti) and shows a nice chemistry with Dharam paji.

Now lets talk about what was missing. First of all the music. Himesh's music is strictly OK and the title song coming after every 10 mins irritates sometimes. I also thought there was some space for humour. There were no light moments in the film. It could have only helped the film.

The boxing scenes are decent but in no way comparable with Rocky or Millian Dollar Baby. They could have done little better there.

Overall I think Apne is a decent attempt by Anil Sharma, bringing together 3 Deols first time in a movie. I enjoyed the movie for the most of the parts.So people just watch it for Dharmendra.

Chinmay's scale - **1/2