movie reviews

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Bringing Back Cinema Halls To Life In Akshay Kumar Style!

Rohit Shetty November 11, 2021

437 4 minutes read

Bell Bottom Movie Review Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars3.5

Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Adil Hussain, Lara Dutta, Vaani Kapoor, Dolly Ahluwalia, Zain Khan Durrani

Director: Ranjit M Tewari

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Bringing Back Cinema Halls To Life In Akshay Kumar Style! (Photo Credit:A Still From Movie)

What’s Good: This is like expecting Sachin Tendulkar to hit a delightful straight-drive at Wankhede; you know he’s anyway doing it

What’s Bad: The translation phase between ‘planning’ & ‘execution’ gets blurred, leaving some blank spaces in between

Loo Break: You’ll need a break, but from all these amazing performances by Akshay Kumar (pun intended!)

Watch or Not?: Yes, on the biggest screen possible & NOT in 3D (spoiler: it’s a gimmick)

User Rating:

Set in the late 70s & early 80s, we’re thrown straight into the mission of the Indian government trying to tackle the constant plane hijackings happenings around the country. Following the usual template, the story offers the ‘problem solver’ in RAW agent Anshul, who is codenamed Bell Bottom (Akshay Kumar), to keep his real identity intact.

Exploring his ‘personal’ connection with the hijacking, we are introduced to Anshul’s ‘almost perfect’ life. The second half takes a considerable amount of time to set up the plan. Bell Bottom & his team plan to permanently end the constant hijacking incidents. Slipping into the ‘execution’ part of the plan, the pace races towards the climax, where you get surprised by more than one twist.

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Bringing Back Cinema Halls To Life In Akshay Kumar Style! (Photo Credit:A Still From Movie)

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Script Analysis

Aseem Arora, Parveez Shaikh’s story doesn’t promise an all-new template but what it offers is a fast-paced, emotion-bound thriller with a reliable backing of Akshay Kumar school of humour. One thing which it does different, from the films seen before on similar lines, is having an uncompromising focus on developing the plan for a mission. We’ve seen multiple movies taking a different route of brushing through the planning process and focus on the execution. But here, the story takes you step by step to understand the process of the film & leaves you on a high note with the implementation.

This is what you’ll get if ‘Airlift‘ & ‘Baby’ has a baby & thankfully, this one contains the best of both worlds. For those expecting a great deal of action, it’s written in a way to let you down, barring a couple of sequences. With films like Gangs Of Wasseypur, Udta Punjab, cinematographer Rajeev Ravi continues to distinguish himself between genres. This being his first stab at a commercial period drama brings together his tips & tricks from his best attempts.

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Star Performance

We’re spoilt by choices as Akshay Kumar has given us memorable performances like Special 26, Holiday, Airlift & Baby. But even those four performances are distinctively different from each other. All of this, because one man decides just to get up and act well in films like these. The confidence of having a solid script translates to Akshay doing things that would be with us for a very long time.

Adil Hussain is overqualified for his just about alright character ‘Santook’. He owns one of the best dialogues of the film, but the narrator relies too much on Akshay Kumar to let Hussain flourish properly. Lara Dutta made the headlines for achieving the ‘Indira Gandhi’ look, and trust me when I say she has acted even better.

Vaani Kapoor adds nothing of value to the narrative. Dolly Ahluwalia’s connect with Akshay Kumar was well written, but a little more depth would’ve done wonders. Zain Khan Durrani as the deadliest terrorist does evoke hatred towards him throughout.

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Bringing Back Cinema Halls To Life In Akshay Kumar Style! (Photo Credit:A Still From Movie)

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Direction, Music

Post Lucknow Central, Ranjit M Tewari surprises with not only the best film of his career but also a valuable addition to the much-crowded genre-space. As-crisp-as-Chicken-crispy screenplay & oh-so-well balanced dialogues help to hide Tewari’s weak points while directing.

I have been screaming about how a good theme could change the whole perspective regarding the background score of your film & Bell Bottom proves the same. The thumping title theme goes extremely well with the cool sequences it’s paired with. Sakhiyan 2.0, thankfully isn’t a part of the film. A couple of romantic tracks are too forgettable. Climax’s sad song fails to touch the standard set by Teri Mitti, Ashq Na Ho, Tu Bhoola Jisse.

Bell Bottom Movie Review: Bringing Back Cinema Halls To Life In Akshay Kumar Style! (Photo Credit:A Still From Movie)

Bell Bottom Movie Review: The Last Word

All said and done; I couldn’t have asked for a better film to resume my big-screen journey with. You can’t even expect less than a ‘home run’ when Akshay Kumar plays on his home ground.