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List of City Of Gold Movie Reviews
Ratings:2.5/5 Reviewer:Rajeev Masand Site:IBNLive
Visit Site for MoreCity of Gold, directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, is one of those films that had the potential to be better than it ultimately is.Manjrekar extracts credible performances from his actors, but sadly there is no one to rein in the director himself. So there are parts of the film that flit between exceedingly melodramatic and impossibly exaggerated, and after a point the director's grim, cynical and utterly despondent perspective fails to ring true. The film is watchable for the most part, and might have worked perfectly as an honest slice-of-life drama if it weren't for the filmmaker's tendency to go over the top. I'm going with two-and-a-half out of five for Mahesh Manjrekar's City of Gold. Watch it because it makes some disturbing yet important points. Watch it also to understand just how compelling it could have been!
Ratings:4/5 Reviewer:Nikhat Kazmi Site:TimesOfIndia
For all those who thought Vaastav was Mahesh Manjrekar's signature film, it's time for some revisions. The film-maker completely reinvents himself with City of Gold: a hard-hitting, intense, unapologetic, yet heart-warming documentation of what the changing skyline of Mumbai has actually entailed. The film looks at the tumult in the industrial belt of Mumbai through the gritty and gruelling experiences of the Dhuri family that is essentially a microcosm of the entire chawl where life is a daily struggle against hunger and poverty, yet hope -- and family ties -- never perish. Manjrekar's expansive canvas dares to capture this entire socio-economic battle that scarred the soul of the city in the 1980s. And it does it with a deftness and an intensity that completely rattles you. We've heard a lot about the euphemistic `spirit of Mumbai'. Now, go and watch it come alive before your eyes in mesmeric form. Kudos to Manjrekar for creating a post-modern Deewar.Visit Site for More
Ratings:3/5 Reviewer:Taran Adarsh Site:BollywoodHungama
CITY OF GOLD is as stark and real as a gash or an open wound. Of course, I am no one to comment on whether CITY OF GOLD is a true and complete representation of the mill workers' plight, but as a moviegoer, this film worked for me at several levels.CITY OF GOLD has several watchable moments and also the grip, so essential for a film that's about to tell you a story that you aren't aware of. But there's a flip side too. The story seems stretched.Yet, when you weigh the pros and cons, I'd say, the positives overweigh the minuses in this case. This Gold may not be 24 karat, but is 22 karat nonetheless. On the whole, CITY OF GOLD is a heart-wrenching and violent journey that has the stamp of a gifted storyteller, Mahesh Manjrekar. Recommended!Visit Site for More
Ratings:2.5/5 Reviewer:Anupama Chopra Site:NDTV
Mahesh Manjrekar’s City of Gold is a frustratingly inconsistent movie. Some scenes have immense power. There are a few strong performances and at the film’s core, is a well-intentioned rage at the plight of Mumbai’s mill workers. But Manjerakar’s take on this critical era in Mumbai’s history is diluted by uneven writing, excessive melodrama, feeble attempts at comedy and an inane ending, which undermines everything that has gone before. It feels like the director can’t decide whether he wants to go for hard-hitting realism or over-the-top exaggeration and so he gives us generous helpings of both.City of Gold had the potential to be a far better film than it is.Visit Site for More
Ratings:2/5 Reviewer:Preeti Arora Site:Rediff
The title maybe a bit confusing but then so is the premise of the film. The makers claim the film is about the textile strike in Mumbai and the consequent changes in the socio-political scenario.The characters are real, credible and likable despite their flaws. Like most typical families they tear each other apart most of the time, but rally together during moments of stress. And the script is well-etched out especially during the first half. The film moves forward at a brisk pace.It is in the second half that Manjrekar decides he must give his audience a gut-wrenching experience. Less is more is obviously not an adage Manjrekar subscribes to. Do watch this film if you enjoy slice-of-life films. Or you would like to know what debris is buried under the huge commercial complexes we find in Dadar-Parel-Lalbaugh area today. But if candy floss cinema is your cup of tea, then it's best you keep away.Visit Site for More
Ratings:3/5 Reviewer:Gaurav Malani Site:Indiatimes
Mahesh Manjrekar’s City of Gold takes a neo-realistic look at the downfall of the textile mills and its workers that reigned supreme three decades ago in Lalbaug-Parel (that’s the title of the Marathi version of the film), the heart of Mumbai. But what could have been classic cinema ends up being commercial celluloid. While Manjrekar persuasively highlights the piteous and penniless plight of millworkers, he touches the politics of the plot only peripherally thereby losing on the immense potential of tapping the capitalist corruption that led to the collapse of an entire culture. Staying true to the neorealist treatment, the film doesn’t offer any solution to the issue, essentially because there wasn’t any resolution or conclusion to the problem. Unless for the final sequence, which gives the film the shade of regular revenge drama and simultaneously glorifies the underworld. This ludicrous sequence was absolutely avoidable in the otherwise engaging film.Visit Site for More
Ratings:3/5 Reviewer:Shubhra Gupta Site:IndianExpress
you see that it’s been made by a man who knows this life not from the outside, but deeply, intimately. It builds up so slowly that you start getting impatient, and then post interval, it becomes the film it set out to be: a stark, moving picture of working class men and how their machines fell silent on them. There’s a texture to films whose characters are completely in sync with their settings that can’t be faked. Every single character in `City Of Gold’ feels right, and while Manjrekar doesn’t go for too many subtleties in the way he portrays his people, he also shows a surprising delicacy of touch here and there: this is a film that grows on you. You only wish that Manjrekar had made this old story new in the way he comes at it: there’s little startlingly fresh about it. But what there is has power, and absolute conviction.Visit Site for More
