Paa - Surprises galore

Surprise Surprise and more surprise! What? Here are the reasons -

• Surprise starts with the name of the movie - Paa - It could have been Maa. Its clearly not a "father son, son father" story. It could be termed as "a mom son, son mom" story. But it was ABCL production and junior B was the Paa - thus came the advertising name & caption. But I feel that it was about relationship between lovers and the kid was just a pawn only.

• Did you notice that all the songs had the unusal words and the words repeted (mudhi mudhi, hicki hicki, udhi udhi, gumm gumm). Music and songs are good. Illayaraja and Swanand Kirkire score 8/10. The different and the short "Hal ke se bole…" is splendid.

• Kids are protrayed very well in the movie. The support they show to Auro when he suddenly falls sick, the entry scene of Auro, hospital wishes are good to watch.

• I am cazy about dialogues. And that’s the biggest asset of the movie. Though some of the dialogues that come from kids really surprised me. Vishnu talking about his father was funny but later I realized some statements could have been trimmed. Junior B's Doordarshan's speech is intense and complex. Probably it could have been simplified.

• The movie had clearly 2 unlinked parts. Amol (junior B), Paresh as polticians on one side and the Auro (Big B), Vidya, Bum (Arundati Nag) on the other. The 2 parts never meet, which is a weakness.

• Balki is insprired by AB's acting in Sarkar (remember AB's  intense eyes acting there). So he has concentrated on the closeups of AB's eyes. This was not so impressive here. It was also surprising when the makeup on the face was the USP, very less was shown about it.

• Amitabh did not act in Paa. Rather he had nothing to do. But for the repetetive monkey steps and dialogue delivery with false tooth, he can boast of nothing that was impressive. Vidya and Arundathi Nag steal the show with brilliant performances. Good to see Mrs Nag back on the big screen.

• The movie moves slowly and the ending is very predictable.

• Probably the promotion budget was more than the film budget. AB did a cricket show as Auro, makeup of AB was highlighted in the web, articles about Progeria in magazines, comparisons to TZP, twitter and facebook accounts for Paa - were some of the attractive promotional activities conducted.

Paa could be a good example of  - average movie being a hit because of excellent promotion.