KARACHI: The Legend of Maula Jatt is this year’s most fervently awaited Pakistani film, primarily because of the hype which had been generated for the last few years given its stellar cast — Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Gohar Rasheed, Shafqat Cheema, Ali Azmat and Humaima Malik — and partially because of its sharply cut and astutely presented trailer that came out last month.

As soon as the promotion for the project began, social and mainstream media was abuzz with activity expecting an eventful release on Thursday (today).

This is the reason that a big number of journalists turned up at the premiere for the film on Monday evening at Atrium Cinemas. But the invite that was sent to them had a caveat: reviews of The Legend of Maula Jatt should not be published before Wednesday. Therefore, when they reached the venue for the special show, they had to sign an agreement on that count.

Also, the main feature at premieres, the red carpet razzle-dazzle, was missing since no star of the movie was to make an appearance — it was just a movie screening. Talk about keeping things simple!

Bilal Lashari-directed film is set to be released today

Once the almost three-hour-long film ended, a majority of the media persons stepped out of the cinema hall praising it profusely. There were some who mentioned the excessive blood-letting in it, without cribbing too much. Detractors? Answer: only one or two. But what would the world be without detractors?

This means that The Legend of Maula Jatt is likely to be a hit. Perhaps a big hit!

The film, directed by Bilal Lashari, is a contemporarily-shot, but not contemporary, version of the 1979 iconic Punjabi box office blockbuster Maula Jatt starring Sultan Rahi as the eponymous character. Its texture is dark and the use of modern technology imparts an anachronistic touch to it, which in turn imbues it with a Gladiator-like feel (don’t be misled by this comment, it’s nothing of that sort).

Basically it’s a gore-fest. There is a lot of bloodshed in it. Understandable. Modern-day Pakistani film-makers have grown up on watching movies made by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Anurag Kashyap (the latter is closer to our geographical borders). Nothing extraordinary about it.

Now since technology is the name of the game these days — even when a stream of blood gushes out of a severed neck — one was expecting the film to have some visual depth. After all, what is the fun of watching a movie full of violence in a cinema hall without visual depth and hundreds of extras, that too in a story which is belligerent in tone from start to finish with negligible moments of respite?

The casting in general is on point. Fawad Khan has done justice to his part of Maula Jatta and Hamza Ali Abbasi as his arch-enemy Noori Nath is impressive. However, if nit-picking was allowed, one would say there’s a tiny problem with Mahira Khan. The way she speaks Punjabi in the film (and you can tell even if your mother tongue isn’t Punjabi) sounds like as if a dainty ghazal writing poetess has been forced to write, and then recite, a prose poem in a mushaira.

The rest will work for cinema lovers.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2022