Movie Review: Mitti Na Pharol Jogiya - Do What The Movie Title Suggests (Pun Intended)

My decision to watch the movie Mitti Na Pharol Jogiya can be best described as a data analysis error. Are you wondering what has data analysis got to do with a movie? Let me explain...

When deciding whether I should watch a certain movie that I am not very sure about, I usually go by the Book My Show (BMC) ratings. If the cumulative ratings say that more than 70% of the viewers appreciated the movie, I go and watch it. In the case of Mitti Na Pharol Jogiya the BMS rating was a 93%. "Wow!" I thought to myself, "this must be an awesome movie!". The last Punjabi movie that I had watched was the classic Punjab 1984, so I guess the recency factor also influenced my decision. I was super convinced. So much so that I booked a 9:45 am show on a Sunday morning as no other show timings suited me well. Not only this, I did not even care that the multiplex was Movie Time - Raja Garden  ( for the information of the readers not familiar with Delhi, this multiplex is one of the worst in Delhi with the most unpalatable pop corns and nachos ever). All this for a movie that was not all all worth it. I somehow sat through the first half thinking that the "amazing" part of the movie is yet to come. But by the time it was interval, I could not hold my curiosity any more. I really wanted to know what was so wonderful about the movie that majority of the viewers appreciated it, when I thought it was shallow to say the least. To put an end to my curiosity I looked at the review section in detail, I found that only 4 people had reviewed the movie (I am guessing they must have been acquaintances of the director or actors and must have put up the reviews as a favor).  So now you know why I call the decision to watch this movie a data analysis error - the sample size was clearly too small to base a decision on.

Now coming back to the movie...Cinema-goers have seen such fantastic movies on the theme of partition in the past, that not writing a script convincing enough for a new movie on the same subject is like killing the movie in the womb. This is exactly what Avtar Singh did.

Though, a good direction would have anyhow not been able to bring the life back to the dead script; however, it is sad that no attempt to save the movie through good direction was made either.

Acting by and large was lifeless too. The actors who played the role of the family of the school-going boy who crossed the border and was later falsely convicted as a terrorist in Pakistan, were very unconvincing . It appeared that they had just left it to the imagination of the audience to fill up the missing emotions in their acting. Japtej Singh and Kartar Cheema acted well though ( Disclaimer: the drool-worthy looks of Kartar Cheema might have created an unconscious bias in my mind towards his acting :P). The only good thing beyond Kartar's looks in the movie was the song Dilbara.

Watch this movie that gets a 1/5 rating from me only if you are keen on seeing Kartar Cheema on the big screen looking Oh So Sexy! in Pathani Kurta Pajamas :-). Else give it a skip, even if you were to see it on TV later.