Yesterday I watched ‘Student of the Year’ on TV, except songs and climax I didn’t liked anything else, and I was thinking whether I should write review on that, but then I thought, film is already hit, and every person for whom the movie was intended have already seen it, so why to waste my time in telling the readers to avoid the movie, so I reached the consensus of telling my readers about one movie which was a worth watch and not only once, but n number of times. The movie’s name is ‘Bruce Almighty’ and it was released in 2003, and it had one of my fav stars in it “Jim Carrey”. I remembered about the movie yesterday when Mazhar sir @maaz_nawaz asked about the best movie in his poll, and so I decided why not write a review then?
I was sad; I had given many written exams during my stints at Centralized campuses held in different colleges during my 7th-8th sem. I had lost hope of getting any placement in companies, but then I watched ‘Bruce Almighty’ in Feb 2006 on TV, and went for one more try at Alwar, and I not only cleared written, but given 1st interview of my life and cleared and got selected. After that I went for 2 more companies, selected in them too. So, I cannot forget this life-changing movie. It is the original on which someone has made a pathetic inspiration/copy in Hindi called as ‘God Tussi Great Ho’.
Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a TV reporter but he wants to become a successful anchor like Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), but he always fails, he always makes blunders, everybody makes fun of him, and he always curses GOD for his failures. One day he even lost his job because of his blunders, cursing God even further for his bad condition. But one fine morning he receives a message in his pager stating about a new job. He rushed to the told place and found the place extraordinary as the place seems magical and totally white. There one person who is also GOD (Morgan Freeman), offers him a job of becoming God. Why? Because Bruce thinks that it is God who is responsible for all bad scenarios. But he will be given all powers on only two conditions – he can’t tell anybody and cannot use it for his personal problems. Bruce turns God, only to find later that it is too hard to perform God’s role, he start receiving many prayers at a time, and he don’t have enough times to listen to everybody. As a result he devised a technology which will issue all grants of all prayers. Whole city runs in chaos and apocalypse God approved everybody’s prayers. Bruce even lost his girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston). It is then he learns a lesson of his life that it is he himself who is responsible for his condition, not God, and he must perform nicely in whatever role he has and try to solve all problems one-by-one by his own hard-work. And then he alongwith his girlfriend live happily ever after.
A nice thought, and story, and it is a common phenomenon in us all, we use to always curse God for our bad fortunes, even we offers money, prasads to God so that he would help us in our life, but it is always we who can improve ourselves, and as the saying goes “God helps those who helps themselves”. Well, this movie is in the format of the Hindi movie ‘OMG’, though both are different but both tell about the correct existence of god, not what interpretations we have made of him. The teaching of a life is imparted by this movie which is directed by Tom Shadyac, who himself was a comedian, and has given us movies like ‘The Nutty Professor’ (Bollywood inspiration ‘Badhaai ho Badhaai’), ‘Liar Liar’ (Bollywood inspiration ‘Kyo Kii.. Main Jhooth Nahi Bolta’), ‘Patch Adams’ (which inspired ‘Munnabhai MBBS’), ‘Accepted’ (which inspired ‘FALTU’ & ‘Admissions Open’), ‘Dragonfly’ (Bollywood’s ‘Saaya’), ‘I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry (‘Dostana’), and ‘Evan Almighty’ (Sequel to this movie). So it means Tom Shadyac is a very useful resource for Bollywood, as his movies find a inspiration in bollywood! And he is a good director; he makes his characters full of life. And then the actors who play them are wonderful. Like here, Bruce is incomplete without Jim Carrey. He makes the character comic and lively. And this movie owes to him, other than him, Morgan Freeman looked good in his short but Godly role, he looks a perfect choice, while Steve Carell also flourished in his irritating role of self-appreciated high-fi anchor. So, the performances work well for the movie, but that’s not all, everything works for this one. The story (Steve Koren, Mark O’Keefe) for e.g. is good, with good screenplay (Steve, Mark, Steve O’Edekerk) to go with. And dialogues are also suited to the situations, well as of now, I don’t remember them, but I remember them as inspirational ones. Though movie got only 49% fresh rating on RT but it was a BO hit. Later a sequel came with Steve Carell as lead actor, I have seen that one too, and it is also a good watch but if you compare it with this one, you’ll always find this one’s much better. Movie also found controversy at its door, but that happens with many good movies. The movie has many comic scenes, which make you laugh and many scenes which actually make you feel important in your own life.
Everything’s perfect for ‘Bruce Almighty’, and you will thoroughly enjoy this one, just don’t go for ‘God Tussi Great Ho’. My take 5/5. So if you got time and in a mood fo watching a good and healthy comedy, you can opt for this one.
GRuchirG.
Jai Raam ji ki :)