Moviw Review- TAHAAN (2008)

We recommend this movie, Ratings - 7/10

TAHAAN, the story of a boy with a grenade, is a beautiful 2 hr movie, which will definitely take you back to childhood....Its a must watch for all the kids and MOMMIES and DADDIES, coz there it is a story with a very good moral messages.....The story is very very simple and mixes the two extremes, horrifing TERRORISM with innocent CHILDHOOD.....

Tahaan, is a 8 year old kid whose best buddy Birbal is a DONKEY....

He spends all his time talking and playing with him, and a life without BIRBAL is just something impossible for Tahaan to even dream of...Born in a very poor home, with his DAD missing for over 3 years and his Grand father (Victor Banerjee, in a guest appearance) dying early, the family faces extreme financial crisis, and is forced to sell all the belongings including Birbal....The kid is devastated to find out that the donkey has been sold to the local merchant (Rahul Khanna) as payment of interest to their huge loans....The merchant in turn sells the donkey to Anupam Kher (Saif Baba) who is a local trader, makingc ommercial goods available at far off places in Kashmir.....Tahaan, follows Saif Baba everywhere and even works for him to convince him to return the donkey....Rahul Bose (playing the role of a moron, as a helper to Saif Baba) is just awesome, and has played his small part beautifully.....Tahaan realizes that Saif Baba would not return Birbal to him, falls in the hands of young terrorist (Itriz Bhai) who uses Tahaan to transport Bombs across the the valley to blow a army contanment....Tahaan, an innocent 8 year old does all this to get his Donkey back....
The story does not have much to offer other than the freshness and beauty of childhood, and the climax of the movie wid a kid carrying a BOMB in his pocket everywhere and hiding it in his house is just awesome....Itriz bhai even teaches the style of using a bomb and TAHAAN is given a last task by him before BIRBAL would be returned to him.....The end keeps you on the edge, and hatred towards TERRORISTS and TERRORISM is only aggravated by such motives....

Performances, well Purav Bhandre as TAHAAN is as convincing as the kid from Taree Zameen Par, and Anupam Kher and Rahul Bose with their small role provide the right kind of tone to the movie....Rahul Khanna and Victor Banerjee appear on the screen for just 5 minutes each and look good playing their part well...The USP of the movie is the kid and the amazing LOCALES.....Kashmir should be used more regularly in Bollywood, and i think a lot of cost can be cut by not resorting to the foreign locales....

All in all, a story beautifully told, with small roles for each character without the acrlights being taken away from TAHAAN in any of the scenes.....No songs and no item nos can however make the movie commerically non profitable but such a beautiful story deserves to be told and i expect it to be a hit in urban citites and towns atleast...

LUV

SA