‘Malik’, the Fahadh Faasil starring gangster thriller and ‘Toofan’, the Farhan Akhtar starring boxing thriller released directly on OTT on 15th and 16th of July respectively, on the same streaming platform – Amazon Prime Video. Both were highly anticipated and they were expected to release in theatres – which unfortunately is not possible in India in this current corona-climate. Still, the film producers did the brave thing and released the movie digitally and we are glad that they eventually took that step, after a year of waiting. But now, the films are out and have been streaming for almost four days – just enough time for a film comparison. Why compare them now, you may ask?
We have not had a proper Nation-wide, theatrical release in the past 15-16 months – let alone, an old-school clash of films at the box-office. And that’s what prompted this comparison – a clash of films on the same OTT platform. Normally, we would only compare the clash of films from the same film industry only but since both films are available on Amazon Prime Video and they are two of the biggest films to come out of their respective film industries in some time, let’s pit them against each other – for the sake of the box-office clashes of the old.
Story & Themes
‘Malik’ follows a young man, Ali who rises to power in his village and becomes a powerful leader in his community. The movie has a few plot-holes and a couple of lengthy sequences that makes the feature drag a bit, but an overall decent story. The film also shows a rare Muslim-Christian conflict on screen which was dealt with a touch of nuance by the scriptwriter.
‘Toofan’ follows the rise of a gangster, Aziz, who discovers boxing by watching Muhammad Ali videos and finds out that he has found his calling. Aziz then decides to dedicate his life to achieve excellence in this sport. The premise and the story was promising, but the stretched-out film plot, cringey dialogue and the major lack of actual boxing sequences itself makes the film quite boring. The movie also shows us a few Hindu-Muslim tensions on screen, which comes out of nowhere and also portrays one of the main characters as an Islamophobe – which doesn’t gets addressed towards the end of the film.
Cinematography, Editing & Direction
Both films have some excellent cinematography. But that’s where the similarities end. ‘Toofan’s’ editing is shoddy, which becomes obvious very quickly. In fact, the editing is one of the worst parts of this film and we feel that the director, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, could have done a better job while working on plot devices. ‘Malik’, on the other hand, is a well edited film that features a couple of decent single camera long-takes. The director, Mahesh Narayanan, does a good job, but he could have done well to reduce the film’s length.
Music
‘Toofan’ has 9 songs in the films which took up almost 33 minutes out of its 161-minute runtime, quite a few songs repeating multiple times in the movie. A majority of the songs does little to push the plot forward and serves as a break from reality. However, in the case of ‘Malik’, each song plays a part in pushing the plot forward. The film is already quite long, so we are glad to see that the song sequences push the movie forward, usually in the form of a video montage (during the songs).
However, among both films, one song stands out at the top – the title track for ‘Toofan’. Quite catchy, the song listener is likely to go for a run when the song starts to play. Special mention goes to Theerame from ‘Malik’ as well.
Supporting Cast
This is no contest. Paresh Rawal is the only actor worth talking about in ‘Toofan’ – and that is because the actor manages to have a few good scenes despite the script working against him. ‘Malik’ has an excellent supporting cast, with Nimisha Sajayan leading the way for the older, more experienced cast members. Vinay Forrt and Dileesh Pothan make the movie worth watching, while Indrans and Joju George bring their experience to play smaller, yet crucial roles.
Fahadh Faasil vs. Farhan Akhtar
The one we have been waiting for – the battle of the film leads.
Fahadh Faasil brings his A-game to ‘Malik’. The actor’s presence is felt from start to finish and his larger-than-life portrayal of a South-Indian Godfather alone is worth streaming this movie. On the other hand, Farhan Akhtar isn’t all that memorable for his acting. However, this is not the actor’s fault in its entirety – the script is bad and the dialogue is atrocious.
Fahadh Faasil and Farhan Akhtar both go through body transformations for the role. However, Fahadh Faasil only reduces his weight gradually (around 8-10 kgs), for the role, while Farhan Akhtar has to have a fighter’s body at the beginning of the film itself. Farhan then goes on to gain weight, to get a “full-on dad-bod” and then lose all that weight and gain back muscle mass, all for the same role. ‘Toofan’ may not have been Farhan’s best acting performance, but it has been one of the best onscreen transformations ever shown in cinema. And Farhan does it in 18 months. Wow.
Since this is a category for acting performance – we think Fahadh is the clear winner.
But we are not discounting Farhan’s hard work. That much work for a movie is something we can all get behind but the effort behind the body transformation would have been much better if the movie was even slightly good.
Overall
‘Malik’ is a far superior movie to ‘Toofan’. Full stop.
‘Malik’ is like a day-old cream bun – not bad, could be better but still pleasant to eat, while ‘Toofan’ is like a five-day old loaf of bread – stale, unappetizing and good enough to be trashed.
Both films are available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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