Who has not heard or spoken about him? I too, heard a lot before venturing into watching this guy in action. I must say, I loved the ending dialogues in Devil's Advocate - more for the content than the grasp held by the deliverer, Al Pacino. Honestly, I am not that impressed with this guy.
Watch Scent of a Woman, I agree, he did well. One look at his face and we know he is blind. Appreciated that role. But watch any other movie (from what I watched ;P), say Insomnia, he is pretty much the same. He has the same huskish, hoarsy voice, same way of dialogue-delivery, walk; a frequent 'Aahk' - thats Al Pacino. I am not against him neither am I completely disappointed. He is definitely one better than many around. But, maybe he doesnt deserve the hype he gets!A school of thought says, hype increases one's expectation leading to disappointment later. I may be one such person to have lived this thought in this guy's example. Similar thing happened when I marketted the latest movie 99 of Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha, Soha Ali Khan. I went and watched it in Cinemax without any expectation. Came out utterly satisfied for a good choice of watch. But after marketting found it didnt live upto the expectation of its new audience, who had a tinge of adoration even before they saw 9 of 99!
Coming back to Al Pa, my simple anology was this. Watch Amitabh and watch him. People can imitate Amitabh and yet sound hollow. The presence that hits the spectators with Amitabh on
the screen delivering is phenomenal.
Al Pa? One can deliver his dialogue and still get away with it. One can imagine some one else there with similar dialogue delivery (possibly with lesser credit). But, one cannot expect same intensity being thrown from the scene if some one else was to deliver Amitabh's dialogues. Look at The Last Lear. Life which Amitabh gave to the words might be even more than what Shakespeare imagined while writing! No doubt, the comparison is a folly on my part, but after the hype, my expectations of this guy were somewhere close to what I would expect from Amitabh. Amitabh is a legend. Surely, Bollywood and for that matter the whole Film Industry owes him for the excellence that he has got acting to.
the screen delivering is phenomenal.
Al Pa? One can deliver his dialogue and still get away with it. One can imagine some one else there with similar dialogue delivery (possibly with lesser credit). But, one cannot expect same intensity being thrown from the scene if some one else was to deliver Amitabh's dialogues. Look at The Last Lear. Life which Amitabh gave to the words might be even more than what Shakespeare imagined while writing! No doubt, the comparison is a folly on my part, but after the hype, my expectations of this guy were somewhere close to what I would expect from Amitabh. Amitabh is a legend. Surely, Bollywood and for that matter the whole Film Industry owes him for the excellence that he has got acting to.Undoutedly, Amitabh is one of the finest ever and has just shown how old wine in a new glass is any time better than a budding new wine in an ultramodernized glass. His movies after his come-back are the classics, not the angry-young-man ones. Sure, many will agree with me on this. He shall live as a legend in this world and the world after him.
Al Pa, if you are reading this, you are one of the actors I admire. But you have a long way to prove yourself better than legends from Bollywood :)
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