Machaan

Story

The drama-film Machaan revolves around the story of Bhola, who is an honest man from a small town of Sabalpur, who is diagnosed with AIDS. A fellow resident in the town named Madhav is jealous of Bhola’s good reputation, and hence he spreads baseless rumours about AIDS being a deadly, contagious illness which only affects immoral people. This fuels the villagers to desert and ostracize Bhola. When Bhola tries to meet his family in the midst of his dark times, Madhav along with a mob of furious and hatred-blind villagers attempt to kick out Bhola from their village, which results in disaster and chaos. Whether the villagers will open their eyes and accept Bhola, or will they drown in ignorance and hate, forms the crux of the story. 

Review

The movie Machaan at first glance seems to be intriguing, since it uses a seemingly controversial and thought-provoking topic like AIDS sensitization. But after watching it, the movie does turn out to be average and pretty bland. The story of a man getting ostracized from a village who didn't believe in contraceptives, and protective sex- surely it sounds like a social tragedy, but the execution to make it into one was slightly off it's mark. There were multiple plot-holes which could've been avoided altogether if there was a little more thought added to it. The actors put all their efforts in portraying the characters given to them, and they succeed. The cinematography is okay, and it could be better.  

Nitesh Tiwari, the director of this film demonstrated his abilities as a composer, but ended up adding unnecessary and cliche item songs like Saiyaan Ganjedi, Hothwa Ki Hamri, Badra Se Baazi, all of which were written by Prem Sagar Singh and composed by Nitesh Tiwari. The movie was a good venture, discussing about social stigma towards diseases like AIDS, but it lacked the proper execution and the efforts from the direction department. It is a movie which can be watched once, not twice.  

Verdict 

Since this film has a good concept to it, it is worth a try.