Nowhere is this most glaring as in the scene where Akbar goes into the Agra market in disguise, to find out what the common man feels about his regime. Unfortunately, many scenes are bungled by extremely pedestrian stuff.
A merciless editor and a smart scriptwriter would’ve been able to ensure that.ĭialogue: There is ample scope for a movie like this to have some eloquent dialogue. Having your cast walk and talk slowly doesn’t count as earning it. Pacing: A three-and-a-half-hour movie isn’t necessarily a bad thing, provided it earns its running length. But this aspect is short-changed in favour of the love story.Īnd whose brilliant idea was it to have an ending where the fate of a kingdom is decided by a duel between two people? Listen, if I wanted to watch Gladiator, I’d buy the DVD, okay? The more interesting aspect of the story is how Akbar manages to eliminate his opposition and become the supreme ruler of his domain. It doesn’t help that there is little chemistry between the leads to elevate the material. Script: The movie is fundamentally about the romance between Akbar and Jodhaa, but whoever scripted that plot thought he was writing it for a daytime soap called Kahaani Akbarr Kii (Is the spelling numerologically correct?). Oh sure, it has big sets, elaborate costumes, some fight sequences, plenty of political intrigue, a love story about two people from very different cultures… Unfortunately, what the movie doesn’t have turns out to be crucial. In this case, my answer would be: not very well. Instead, I will regard this as a story, and comment on whether it has been told well. There has been much controversy about the historical accuracy of the movie, so I will, for once, not comment on something I know little or nothing about. If the above paragraph seems to paint history in broad strokes, you have gotten a sense of what the movie will be like. But it was also a path-breaking inter-religious one, and Akbar’s gradual understanding of Jodhaa had much to do with his image as one of the most secular kings in Indian history. The movie tells the story of Akbar as a young Mughal king on the way to greatness, and his marriage to the Rajput princess Jodhaa. However, it does fall distressingly short of being a good one. Let me dispense with the formalities first: Jodhaa Akbar is not a bad movie.