Since there must be a romance, Singh enters into an on-again, off-again flirtation with the beautiful village girl Biro (Sonam Kapoor), though she never quite materializes as a three-dimensional character and somewhat abruptly disappears in the third act. “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” is never quite as compelling in its straight dramatic scenes, many of which feel shoehorned in just to satisfy the pic’s epic designs. Bharathi, brings a lot of dynamism to the racing scenes, from the screen-filling wide shots that establish the lay of the land to the slo-mo closeups of spiked cleats - and, in one memorable scene, bloodied bare feet - gripping the track. Likewise, Mehra, working with regular cinematographer Binod Pradhan and editor P.S.
Much of the pic’s midsection focuses on Singh’s gradual evolution into a fierce competitor - familiar stuff made vivid by Malhotra’s fiery performance as Singh’s army track coach, and by Akhtar himself, who trained for more than a year to develop the lean, muscled physique and concentrated gaze of a sprinter in his prime. Still, the seed has been planted, and Singh has resolved that he, too, shall someday call such a blazer his own.
Even then, Singh is still something of a village bumpkin surrounded by more sophisticated city types, and Akhtar is especially good at playing this wide-eyed naif, who, in one spectacularly misjudged move, “borrows” the embroidered national team blazer of a visiting track star, who in turn gives Singh a brutal lashing.
(The title, which translates as “Run Milkha Run,” are the final words spoken to the 12-year-old by his father, well played by veteran Anglo-Pakistani thesp Art Malik in his Bollywood debut.) Circumscribing all of this is a larger framing story in which Singh’s two longtime coaches (Pavan Malhotra and Yograj Singh) travel across India by train to convince the dejected Singh, brought low by his failure in Rome, to represent India in the Commonwealth Games.Īlong the way, “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” devotes extended episodes to Singh’s post-Partition life in a Delhi refugee camp, where he is reunited with his devoted elder sister, Isri (the superb Divya Dutta), and to his years as an army cadet, where he first discovers his gift for speed. Pic’s fragmented structure continues to move back and forth in time, as events in Singh’s present trigger memories of the past, particularly the young Milkha (played by Jabtej Singh) witnessing his parents’ slaughter during violent Partition rioting.
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