A review of the film Shiv Shastri Balboa, in which Anupam Kher turns his vulnerability into a source of strength in a movie that has a lot of heart.
Star Cast of Shiv Shastri Balboa
Anupam Kher, Sharib Hashmi, Nargis Fakhri, Neena Gupta, Jugal Hansraj, and the rest of the cast are the stars.
Storyline of Shiv Shastri Balboa
Shiv Shankar Shastri (Anupam), a retired bank officer, moves to Ohio so that he can spend the rest of his retirement life with his son, who has established his family in another country and is married with two kids and a daughter. Following the onset of monotony and the realization that his desire of climbing the stairs in Philadelphia that Sylvester Stallone scaled in the climactic scene of Rocky is highly improbable, he comes into contact with a woman who has been through a traumatic experience. They end up running away together once she makes the decision to do so.
How Stars Act in Shiv Shastri Balboa
Anupam Kher is a beast and has been in more than 500 movies, but he is still willing to try new things. Being so vulnerable on screen is not an easy job, but he does it with ease and skill the whole time. In this story, he is likable in every way. Even the smallest bit of magic he does has a big effect on the movie.
The way Neena Gupta plays Elsa warms the heart. Yes, she is stuck in trauma, but that hasn’t broken her. She works for 8 years to get money to run away from her forced employers. Even though she doesn’t sound natural when she speaks Hyderabadi, she makes up for it with her acting. In her new role, the actress is getting better and better, and we all need to see this. Sharib Hashmi’s role as Cinnamon is a fun one, and he works hard at what he does.
How is the Movie Script of Shiv Shastri Balboa
In movies, the wildness of youth is shown from every angle. We’ve seen enough of the excitement, the fun of eloping, and the complicated nature of it all. But when filmmakers show older people trying to break free, it’s always a breath of fresh air. There is more stuff to carry than any child. When they choose liberation over their normal life, they are giving up their whole lives. The same thing happens in Shiv Shastri Balboa, and you can’t say anything about it.
This story was written by Ajayan Venugopalan himself. It was likely inspired by his father, and it has a very personal feel. Loneliness is sad, but can a person who is suffering from being alone be saved if he or she is put with a family? Maybe not. In his first movie, Ajayan thinks of a man who has lived a full life. His dream to climb the stairs that Sylvester Stallone climbed in one of the Rocky movies is now the only thing he still wants to do. The idea that movies can not only give people ideas but sometimes even be the reason they live is reflected in a very clever way.
With Shiv Shastri Balboa, the author does a good job of showing how every aging parent is still young at heart but now has to take care of their children, even though they were never given that responsibility. All of a sudden, the kids are the adults, and the adults are told to move to the back seat. What if they don’t want to, though? Come, let’s watch Shiv Shastri and see how he does it. The man is made up of so much goodness that he has no evil in him at all. He is a good person, but he has some ideas that are hard to understand in today’s world. This is true of most of our parents, though. He just wants a friend, and since that can’t be his own family, he finds one in the lonely housekeeper of a neighbor.
Through these two warm-hearted characters, the movie shows many things, including how Indian immigrants live in a new country. The way brown skin is looked at, and how not all parents just want the comforts of a house, but some want to live a different kind of life. The most important thing I’ve learned is that liberation doesn’t have an age. It can happen at any time, and maybe someone’s liberation comes from seeing someone else get free.
Yes, this one does have some flaws. For a long time, the movie forgets about the Rocky angle that it so clearly supports in the first half and focuses on all of the other subplots. There is a whole sequence that is needed but doesn’t feel like it should be there. Nargis Fakhri plays a character that doesn’t do anything. But when an honest Anupam and a very determined Neena show up on the screen, they win it all.
