GUL MAKAI movie review is here. Directed by H E Amjad Khan, the movie is based on the life and struggle of a Pakistani teenager, girl-education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai. The movie marks the debut of Television actress Reem Shaikh who plays the lead role of Malala. The movie also has the legendary Om Puri in his final appearance along with Divya Dutta, Atul Kulkarni, Mukesh Rishi and Pankaj Tripathi. The film has released today – 31st January 2020. Has the movie given justice to the incredibly inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai?. Let’s find out in the movie review of GUL MAKAI.
Immediate reaction when the end credits roll
What was this Mr. H E Amjad Khan? What we wanted to see and what you showed us?. How can such an incredibly inspiring story of education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai could turn into an unwanted and unaccepted showcase of the Pakistani Army’s struggle in tackling Taliban.
The story of GUL MAKAI
Accounts the life of 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai (Reem Shaikh) starting from her humble upbringing in the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan to her becoming the champion for free education to all women.
GUL MAKAI movie review
When Swat Valley was under Taliban control in 2009 and Sharia law was imposed upon its people, Gul Makai was the name under which Malala expressed her feelings and spoke for the rights of education for girls. Malala blogs on the BBC Urdu website under the pseudonym Gul Makai, gained attention. The feisty girl continued despite threats and when she was hunted down and shot by a Taliban gunman on her head, she became the talk of the world and the poster girl for right of girl education and more.
Malala miraculously survived, and when she came back from her treatment done in UK, she rose to new heights and inspired millions. Malala was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi in 2014.
I am writing all this facts known to the world because the director H.E. Amjad Khan and the person credited to have done the research of this movie Bhaswati Chakrabarty have failed to show those highly inspiring moments.
The movie instead focuses on the aghast/pain/suffering and helplessness of the Pak army in handling the Taliban.
Such an irony the movie that could have created more respect for Malala ridicules her for being a nervous teenager who weeps and gets scared by nightmares. Reem Shaikh plays the girl next door instead of the string willed teenager and the movie further goes down the hill when committed actors like Atul Kulkarni and Divya Dutta are trying hard and infusing life into a screenplay that is counting its final moments in the ICU in the ventilator or say already dead but just kept under the ventilator to say that it will get better. No way.
It’s so saddening to see the legendary Om Puri in such a disaster. Seasoned actors like Arif Zakaria, Mukesh Rishi, Abhimanyu Singh, Pankaj Tripathi and Sharib Hashmi seem to be in the competition of whose beard is weirder. For some relief Kamlesh Gill brings some feeling of normalcy.
Final words
Somebody please courier the DVD of David Guggenheim’s 2015 documentary “He Named Me Malala” to H E Amjad Khan ji