We deciding against reviewing the film not only because it was an assault on our senses, but also because of the stifling atmosphere that was created inside the theatre
MSG 2: The Messenger movie review
MSG 2: The Messenger
U/A; Action-drama
Director: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Jeetu Arora
Cast: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
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This is not a review of MSG2: The Messenger. Two reasons why it isn’t:
1. No point in reviewing something which is clearly intended to be a video of self propagation.
2. We walked out of the theatre at interval. No, not just because of the assault on our senses, but also because of the stifling atmosphere that was created around us in the theatre.
We deciding against reviewing the film not only because it was an assault on our senses, but also because of the stifling atmosphere that was created inside the theatre
A day before the release of MSG in February, we were invited to watch the press show and it was at this show that we were encountered by two burly men (presumably Baba’s devotees) demanding that we give out our names and numbers in a threatening tone just before the movie was shown.
This time for MSG2, no press show was arranged. We booked our tickets for the early morning show (9.30 am) at PVR, Phoenix, Lower Parel. As we entered at around 9.40am, the theatre was fairly empty. Soon, suspiciously, hordes and hordes of people started entering the theatre, and suddenly it was packed to the gills. Soon, the national anthem played, but not many of them even seemed to be aware that one has to stand up in respect. This was not our regular movie-going audience for sure.
Even as we squirmed in discomfort, Baba Ram Rahim was busy flying in the air and doing random acts of ‘kindness’, like saving kids from a burning building, trying to turn adivasis into ‘Insaans’ by giving them a bath, and making arrows and elephants behave themselves (I am still scratching my head, wondering which part of it was the truth and which was the fiction).
And then we saw a bunch of women patrolling the theatre, aggressively monitoring the audience. A fellow reviewer sitting next to me had just about fished her mobile phone out to check a message when, within a moment, a lady swooped in on her from behind to warn her against looking at the phone. Five minutes later, a young man in a row in front of us was ‘caught’ looking at his phone, when another lady rushed towards him, treading on our collective toes to sternly tell him to keep his phone in his pants. By now, partly worried for our safety, and partly tired of the disciplining around us, we decided to flee after the interval.
The behaviour of the devotees is not really as much alarming, as the thought that the PVR management allowed a bizarre thing of this sort to happen in their premises.