Ajay Devgn and Kajol starrer Bollywood movie “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior” which released this Friday across the country is roaring at the box office and has impressed the audience with its visual grandeur and cultural pride. The historical movie has received positive reviews from most of the movie critics and audience. However, the usual suspects comprising of “liberal-secular” forces have yet again found discrepancies in the movie and have resorted to nitpicking in the movie.
A historical drama set in the 17th century and directed by Om Raut, Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior is based on the Battle of Sinhagad, fought between the Maratha army led by Tanhaji Malusare, the trusted commander of Shivaji, and the Mughal forces led by Uday Bhan Rathod, the Mughal fort-keeper of Kondhana fort.
The Wire:
The ultra-left wing rag – The Wire, taking a break from its anti-India propaganda on Saturday strangely decided to review the movie “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior”. Unsurprisingly the reviewer has not liked the Ajay Devgn starrer historical drama.
The most bizarre part of the movie is not the anti-Hindu propaganda but the mastery in which the reviewer has managed to correlate the movie with PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah as he declared the movie to be a ‘propaganda and mediocre’.
Tanul Thakur, who reviewed the movie for the Wire seems to have kept his masters happy as he described the movie as ‘less of a feature film and more of a presentation to Modi and Amit Shah’ to realise their deeply egregious ideas about India. ‘Tanhaji’ tells a deeply divisive story when the country is on the brink of getting torn, he wrote.
Read: The Wire uses the language of the enemy, terms Kashmir as ‘disputed’
Thakur declared that Om Raut’s Tanhaji, starring Ajay Devgn, Saif Ali Khan and Kajol is a thinly veiled tribute to Hindu Rashtra.
The Quint:
The Quint also reviewed the Tanhaji movie and also went an extra mile to put out negative reviews for the movie. Interestingly, the Quint members seem to have got two free tickets, as they have reviewed the movie twice and discredited the Ajay Devgn, Kajol starrer historical drama both times.
Read: ‘Secular’ media portal The Quint and its headlines during Hindu festivals and Ramzan
The first reviewer outrightly rejected the movie by claiming that the movie is the latest in the slew of Islamophobic period films. Similar to the Wire reviewer, the Quint reporters somehow manages it to link it to the ruling BJP.
This Hindu-Muslim narrative for the war has been repeatedly reinforced through the film, both subtly and overtly, the reviewer claims.
“The underscoring of the characters’ religion, however, occurs most prominently during the songs. From ‘Maay Bhawani’ to ‘Shankara Re Shankara’, the songs picturised on Tanhaji and his wife Savitribai Malusare (played by Kajol) seamlessly integrate religious positivity with the side of the protagonists. By association, therefore, Tanhaji and those fighting with him receive divine sanction in the minds of the viewers. They are righteous. They are the ones fighting the good fight,” wrote Quint.
Another review Stutee Ghosh, who seems to be a historian too, claimed that the movie was another period drama that does not vouch for its historical accuracy. Ghosh, who plays the role of the historian in her movie review opines that if we make peace with the ‘creative liberties and some not-so-well hidden biases and prejudices’, Tanhaji is actually visually stunning.
Indian Express:
The reviewers at the national daily Indian Express, who is habituated to low budget movies of Swara Bhaskar, for which they often throw six stars out of the five, seems to have felt uneasiness after watching high-budget movies like “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior”.
Read: Indian Express communalises road rage incident, says Muslim youth beaten up for being a Muslim
After watching the historical thriller, perhaps for free, Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express wrote, Tanhaju was just ‘A simplistic, dressed-up slice of the past’. Gupta wrote that she enjoyed Saif Ali Khan’s maniacal bad guy, which according to her came off as yet another variant of the flesh-devouring, diabolical, ruthless enemy that Bollywood currently delights in.
Live Mint:
Uday Bhatia. the movie critic too suffered a meltdown similar to other ‘liberal-secular’ creative icons after watching “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior”. Bhatia called the movie Tanhaji as a ‘cartoon history’. The reviewer claimed that its view of history by the makers is ‘slanted and broad’.
NDTV:
A treat for the eye, if not for the mind, wrote NDTV – the bible for leftist ragpickers, as it reviewed “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior”. Perhaps, out of the whole movie, NDTV seems to have got impressed with one line, which they have quoted in the first paragraph. The line reads, “The makers of the film do admit as much in an upfront disclaimer upfront to cover their tracks and assuage any outrage that might be caused by the liberties that they have taken”.
Read: NDTV’s Sabarimala Debate: High on Anti-Hindu Bigotry, Low on Content
“The proto-nationalist is Hindu, a pious, God-fearing family man who thinks nothing of putting the empire (equated facilely with the nation) before self. The antagonist is Hindu, too, but fights on the side of a Muslim emperor, which makes him worse, a traitor beyond redemption,” Saibal Chatterjee wrote for NDTV.
The big-budget historical drama “Tanhaji – The Unsung Warrior”, despite facing contempt from a certain section of influencers has scored big on the first day of its release. The Ajay Devgn movie released alongside Bollywood entertainer Deepika Padukone’s Chhapaak on Friday. As per a Boxofficeindia report, Tanhaji has scored big on the first day of its release while Chhapaak despite the PR stunt faltered at the box office.
Reportedly, Tanhaji – The Unsung Warrior starring legendary actor Ajay Devgn has done well on day one at the box office as it has collected in the Rs 16 crore on an opening day.
However, Chhapaak – the film starring Deepika Padukone, has faltered on day one itself as compared to Tanhaji. Chhapaak managed to rope in merely Rs 4.75 crore on day one even after her PR stunt at the controversial JNU.