Reviews

Dharmaveer Movie Review: Pravin Tarde Manages ‘Class & Mass’ Combination Perfectly With Prasad Oak Shining Like There’s No Tomorrow!

It's a roller coaster of emotions!

image source- YouTube | image by- Zee Studios

Dharmaveer Movie Review

Cast- Prasad Oak, Kshitish Date, Makrand Paddhye, Shruti Marathe, Gashmeer Mahajani, Vijay Nikam & others

Director- Pravin Tarde

Release date- 13th May 2022

Popcorn score- 7 out of 10

What’s the basic storyline?

There’s one reporter who is frustrated as her chance of covering a Bollywood party is missed and instead, she is sent to cover the news of late Anand Dighe’s death anniversary in Thane. Earlier, she feels it is senseless to cover such an event and thinks the large crowd is being paid to gather and pay tribute to a political figure who died 20 years ago.

But later she gets to know who was the phenomenon known as Anand Dighe and why he still rules the hearts of Thanekars (residents of the Thane district).

The film reveals the mass hysteria of Dighe, layer by layer through real-life incidents.

Performances

Prasad Oak as Anand Dighe has done an outstanding job. He has perfectly encapsulated the mannerisms. His pauses and intense eyes look gel well with his character. This could be easily termed as Oak’s best performance to date.

Makrand Padhye as Balasaheb Thackeray does an excellent job as he avoids mimicking the late Shivsena supremo and leaves his own impact. Kshitish Date as Eknath Shinde looks convincing and so do other actors including Shruti Marathi and Gashmeer Mahajani.

Screenplay, direction & other departments

The screenplay is written by none other than Pravin Tarde. The film is lengthy with a duration of 2 hours and 58 minutes, but not a single scene will cause boredom. The film uses flashbacks as a style of narration and it works really well. In the second half, especially towards the end, the film feels a little bit stretched which could have been avoided.

Tarde shines yet again in direction after giving a masterpiece like Mulshi Pattern. He has handled the subject so well that there are ample moments for the mass audience and without going over the board, there’s enough of a treat for the class audience too. Situational humour works well, but the highlight point is emotions which will leave you teary-eyed. The brother-sister angle and Dighe’s emotional scene with Eknath will move you.

VFX work is not-so-good with scenes involving blood looking too graphical. The music is good and very well maintains the pace of the film. Ashtami and Dharmaveer’s theme music stand out the most.

On a conclusive note…

Dharmaveer shows many unknown or lesser-known events from late Anand Dighe’s life and it’s worth a watch. The rise from a normal party worker to a messiah of a common man in Thane is still not known to many and is narrated in a well-deserving manner.

Late Anand Dighe is a man who is worshipped by many as their god, and if you want to know why, this film is an answer!

This post was published on May 13, 2022