Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer "Manjhi – The Mountain Man" has opened to average to good reviews. The film directed by Ketan Mehta tells the real-life story of Dashrath Manjhi, who is known as mountain man.
Dashrath, who was a labourer in Bihar's Gaya district, carved a path using only a hammer and chisel to reduce the travel distance between Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya town.
The trailer had garnered positive response, but the film has received mostly average reviews.
"Manjhi – The Mountain Man" features Nawazuddin in the lead role, while Radhika Apte plays the role of his wife.
Read the reviews below:
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTVsaid that the director brings the real-life story on a 75mm screens but with aid of dollops of drama.
"Manjhi - The Mountain Man pays a price for exactly the opposite - it errs on the side of excess. Its makers go overboard with the sturdy but rather stolid pieces available to them. A lighter touch might have made Manjhi - The Mountain Man a markedly more convincing biopic."
Pinkvilla in its review said: "This unusual gossamer moral-science lesson is largely appealing. The charming vignettes, stiffened with a captivating lead performance, Manjhi: The Mountain Man must be watched for Nawaz alone, who breathes magic into a character who would've easily gone limp without a steady hand."
Kunal Guha of Mumbai Mirror said that the biopic dramatises event to show an exciting story, but the director should have stitched it more seamlessly.
"A 124-minute film about a man trying to pull down a mountain could be like staring at a construction site while stuck in a traffic jam. But this one weaves in enough entertainment and thrill to be a lot more than that."
Deepanjana Pal of Firstpost said: "Somewhere along the way, when no one was looking, Mehta appears to have decided that he's going to make films that ignore subtlety, dismiss nuance and are all about broad strokes. Net result: a film that is so comprehensively artificial that you'll forget Dashrath Manjhi was a real man and that his is a true story."
Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express said: "Nawazuddin Siddiqui strains every sinew, and remains consistently watchable despite the shifts in tone. But even he cannot make the film soar."
