Cast: Emraan Hashmi(as Azhar), Prachi Desai(as Naureen), Nargis Fakhri(as Sangeeta Bijlani), Lara Dutta(as the respondent’s Advocate), Kunaal Roy Kapur(as Azhar’s friend and advocate)
Director: Tony D’Souza
Initial release: May 13, 2016(USA)
Music director: Amaal Mallik
Well, it is a perfect season for biopics it seems with movies on Dhoni and Sachin also in the queue.’Azhar’ was awaited for a long time and we finally have it in the cinemas. Plot is well known to the world and especially a cricket lover country like ours. What drives audience to the cinemas is to watch Emraan playing Azhar.
Plot:
Movie begins by Manoj Prabhakar(Indian Cricketer) planning to tell in public about Azhar’s involvement in match-fixing. Then we come to the controversy and selectors dropping him from the Indian team. Hansie Cronje(South-African Cricket team Captain then) had named him in the fixing row. Movie suddenly gets into flashback mode thereafter. We get to see Azhar’s family celebration of his birth and his nana giving name to him. He introduces him to cricket. We get to know that behind Azhar’s successful cricket career, there was his grandparent(Nana). He taught him to remain cool and focus on his talent. There comes a turning point when his nana was in his last moments and Azhar had selection going on. His nana asked him to play well to get selected and reminded that you have to play 100 test matches(an emotional quotient). Azhar, as we know, got selected for the team and hit 3 centuries in his first 3 test matches which later got him the Indian team’s Captaincy. He started living lavish and luxurious lifestyle thereafter. Meanwhile, he gets married to Naureen.
Movie takes a sharp turn when Azhar is introduced to a bookie in the guise of a businessman, namely, M.K. Sharma, and later on, he offered him money to downplay in the upcoming series. Though, Azhar took money but didn’t play bad and infact, won the cup for India. Now, this turns the table of fortune for Azhar as the bookie alleges him of match fixing. Azhar decides to fight this legal battle and asks his advocate friend to do it for him. He at first refuses to accept his brief for it was a big case for him and he knew the counsel on the other side is excellent at her job. However, he accepts the case when he found out that Azhar has come to him for a different reason i.e. trust. While, the other advocate played by Lara Dutta(who once had been a big fan of Azhar) tries to meet the bookie to strengthen her case. Whilst, Azhar was also personally disturbed as he got into extra-marital affair with a bollywood actress, namely, Sangeeta Bijlani(played by Nargis Fakhri). His wife tries to get him back but couldn’t. So, it was evident that this was the worst phase of his life. He also got no support from his cricketing colleagues as the charges were like a blot and nobody would want any bit of it in his career. People used to make fun of him, treat him badly and call him traitor on his face(Reminded me of Chak de). As the case progresses, his advocate friend makes wonderful arguments and finally, wins the case for Azhar. The final few minutes saw both the ladies of his love life together in the courtroom. So, the movie, like most of the Indian movies, ends on a happy note.
Message: Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. For greed, all nature is too little. Truth Alone Triumphs.