In a conversation recorded by the news magazine Tehelka, Maria claims that Azhar had "a criminal bent of mind"Ĩ. Azharuddin's involvement in match-fixing was also accepted by Rakesh Maria, the former head of the Crime Branch and Commissioner of Mumbai Police. M A Ganapathy the former Superintendent of Police in CBI who was the chief investigating officer in the match-fixing case has refuted the movie's clean chit to Azharuddin claiming that his confession is on tape with the CBI. The film has generated controversy before its release over a storyline that absolves the protagonist Mohammad Azharuddin from charges of fixing matches in return for money. Pakistani actress Urwa Hocane was earlier offered the lead female role of Sangeeta Bijlani, however, she refused to say that she didn't want to do bold scenes.ħ. For example, Sourav (Ganguly), Kapil (Dev), Manoj (Prabhakar), Navjot (Singh Sidhu), Sachin (Tendulkar), Ravi (Shastri), and the actress Sangeeta Bijlani.Ħ. In this film, all characters that were playing cricketers and the Bollywood actress were addressed by their first name and not their full name as it was based on the real cricketers and the actress. The scene in which Pakistani batsman sleds Azhar during the Indo Pak test match is Venkatesh Prasad and Aamir Sohail's fight which took place in the quarter-final of the 1996 world cup in Bangalore.ĥ. Tony D' Souza considers Akshay Kumar as his mentor and hence he was given special thanks in the beginning.Ĥ. This is because Azhar is the third film of director Tony D'Souza, his first two films being Blue and Boss, both featuring Akshay Kumar in lead roles.
At the starting of the movie we see that Akshay Kumar has been given special thanks. The song Oye Oye is a compilation of Sangeeta Bhijlani's hit songs from Tridev as the character is based on her.ģ. This is Emraan Hashmi's third movie concerned with cricket.Ģ. Nope, this ‘Azhar’ doesn’t hit it out of the stadium.1.
This could have been a great cautionary tale about a great sport at a time when it was just becoming the arena it has grown into-full of big money and glamour, bigger endorsements and never-ending temptations : it is, instead, an inept ‘tamasha’, not very different from the stuff Bollywood churns out, the cricket just the superstructure for tired song-and-dance and melodrama, in living rooms and court-rooms. Prachi Desai is rouged and demure and distressed, Nargis Fakhri as Sangeeta ( not, never, Bijlani) is pouty, Lara Dutta as the lawyer for the cricket council ( not, never, BCCI), is svelte but miscast, and Roy Kapur struggles with a bad wig and exaggerated accent, and Sharma as the bookie who makes the advances, is perenially oily. But Hashmi is earnest, and the only saving grace here. Watch: Here’s what audience has to say about Emraan Hashmi starrer Azhar on Day One:Įmraan Hashmi, usually so watchable, is buried under the inept script, which hints at shadowy dons and the guilty parties in a fuzzy, indistinct manner. Not only is there a parade of Kapils and Sachins (no, gasp, Dev or Tendulkar), the eponymous hero is not, double gasp, Mohammad Azharduddin but `Azhar Mohd’ who just happens to be a Hyderabad lad, whose affections for a Bollywood starlet lead him to abandon his first wife, and whose accidental dealings with a bookie leads him into abyss. Oops, sorry, this ain’t no bio-pic, ‘coz, look momma, it names no names. The film remains strangely ambivalent about its hero while mouthing ‘seeti-maar’ dialogue about ‘desh’ and ‘qaum’: to have made the point the way it needed to be made, the film needed to have been braver and sharper. You can also see that it’s been made to clear the real player’s name: a court did over-turn the ban but the whole process took so long that it became besides the point. (Also read: Azhar impresses viewers on Day One of release) ‘Azhar’ was presumably made because it had such a controversial figure at its centre, arising out of the fixing-maches-for-money controversy itself, which had such a deep-seated impact on the game not just nationally but internationally. Such is the extent of craven-ness on display that one of the most gripping cricketing stories of our time, featuring one of the most colourful captains of the Indian cricket team, is turned into a dull, dispirited tale. Using only first names as a dissembling tactic while referring to actual events and dates and places and times, is silly enough.