Horseplay can never be a good idea when the deal is to launch the Bollywood careers of a star-daughter and A-lister’s nephew. Azaad, directed by Abhishek Kapoor, who has infinitely better cinema to his credit, indulges in way too much of it for its own good. Left scrambling for an elusive semblance of order, the film has runaway disaster written all over it.
It is not, however, such a bad thing that the horse – a handsome black stallion – steals the show. But a film cannot ride on the back of an equine creature alone, can it? Azaad is a saddle-less affair because the horse has all the power and the script has none.
A sloppy amalgamation of a rustic Romeo & Juliet, a poor man’s Lagaan and a watered-down Hidalgo that runs its two-and-a-half-hour course without an iota of horse sense, Azaad canters around aimlessly in search of pace and points that it could make about class and gender oppression, poverty and rebellion.
The weak and disjointed screenplay stymies the efforts of the two newcomers, Raveena Tandon’s daughter Rasha Thadani and Ajay Devgn’s nephew Aaman Devgan, to make an impression. They are enthusiastic enough to want to rise above the cinematic freefall that Azaad is, but they aren’t provided with the tools that they need for the purpose.
Aaman Devgan is at least granted the sort of screen time that could be regarded as recompense, but Rasha Thadani makes an appearance early in the film only to drop out of sight. She is allowed some play in the second half, by which point she is left with too much to do to make up for lost time. Both have potential but any judgment on them will have to wait until they find a better film to display their wares.
Sprightly stable boy Govind (Devgan), with his youthful transgressions, falls foul of a tyrannical zamindar in 1920s Central Provinces. When matters go out of hand, the youngster flees the village and joins a band of outlaws led by Thakur Vikram Singh (Ajay Devgn, at hand to lend the young debutant a helping hand).
Govind is drawn especially by the farmer-turned-brigand’s horse Azaad, which was once, a flashback reveals, a sickly, puny pony that was a pull of a trigger away from death. The sturdy, swift creature now literally eats out of the palm of Vikram Singh’s hand and stands the master in good stead when danger hovers over the gang.
The obvious allusion, made clear in a story that Govind’s granny tells him in the film’s first sequence, is to Rana Pratap’s steed Chetak and its role in the Battle of Haldighati. Azaad is a symbol of desire for freedom. But Govind is no Rana Pratap. To break the shackles of servitude that an entire generation of village folk have reconciled themselves to, the young man must find a way of getting Azaad off its high horse.
Large parts of the period drama are composed of neighs, nudges and nods of an intransigent horse. The young man tries to the animal in his charge – the only thing of beauty in the film. The silent four-legged creature is fond of country liquor, a habit that Govind wants it to kick. It responds only to firm orders, not to feeble entreaties.
Early in the film, the stable boy chances upon the zamindar’s daughter, Janki (Thadani). He starts off on the wrong foot with her. He is whipped mercilessly. It is his own father, a farmer who lacks the spine to stand up to the master, Rai Bahadur Shatru Singh (Piyush Mishra), and the latter’s son, Tej Singh (Mohit Malik), who wields the whiplash.
For good measure, the film has a typically boisterous Holi song that does not end well for the hero. He finds himself in a well. Later in the film, there is another song, this time a love ditty, that is in store for the young couple. They have now drifted close to each other, having surmounted the class and power barrier.
The lovers are on the back of two horses, a stallion and a mare, and as the young humans profess their love for each other through song, the animals aren’t left behind. Azaad and Bijli do a horse-trot in step with Amit Trivedi’s music.
Also part of the patchy plot is an unrequited love story involving Vikram Singh and Kesar (Diana Penty), who has forcibly been made a part of the zamindar’s household. She is the reason Vikram Singh reneged and formed a gang of dacoits. The rebel with a cause convinces Govind that he is a baaghi, not a dacait. When you fight for others, you aren’t any old outlaw, Vikram asserts.
No matter how hard Azaad – the film, not the horse – tries to impress with its stunts and the noises it makes, it is impossible to warm up to its banalities even if one is in a generous mood and contemplates letting this barely burnished bunkum pass for entertainment.
Azaad is about a black beauty who gallops like a dream but all his horse power cannot save this concoction about a disadvantaged lad who falls in love with a steed that, he begins to believe, can help him ride to freedom. When the young man is not with the horse, he is with Janki, who meets on the sly while her brother plots to steal the underdog’s ghoda ahead of the village’s “Ardh-Kumbh” race.
Yes, there is a full-on horse race at the end of the film. How original! Azaad cuts to the chase on a couple of occasions and, in the climax, cuts to the race, which is actually more a free-for-all rather than a fair contest on a level playing field.
It is a hundred years ago and the British are still around and the Indian zamindar and his scion are epitomes of evil. So, anything goes. When Govind decides against all odds to jump into the fray and try and save his people, the hurdles in his way multiply quickly and the film makes even less sense than it did at any other point in its attempts to make logical progress.
What pans out on the screen is unbridled torture for the equine creature who gives the film its title and the humans in the house who are expected to lap up this bundle of inanities. You’ve got to have the strength and patience of a horse to take Azaad in your stride.
