Reviews & Ratings for
लूटेरा (2013)

Based on O' Henry's 'The Last Leaf', Lootera is nothing but a visual poetry. Not everyone's cup of tea, as it's a classy film and that too, slow paced. But, that works for the setting of the film. A masterpiece.

Lootera is a masterpiece based on a short story " O Henry story" . Well I had read that story but never ever in my dreams i had imagined that the story can be modified to make a movie. Indeed Vikramaditya did what is beyonds anyones imaginations.. hats off to him and his extraordinary view.

The short stories by O Henry have always amused us and they are specially lauded for their unexpected endings. One of the most renowned short stories on the theme of life and living, 'The Last Leaf' has been translated on screen by 'Udaan'-maker Vikramaditya Motwane. The basic plot has been changed to focus on the active character and based on his actions the film has been titled,'Lootera'. Severely slammed for being slow and unappealing,Lootera is a beautiful movie once you consider the shots and sensations that has been captured in the limited screen-time.
The story is set in Bengal of late 1950s,while the Zamindari system was gradually receding into oblivion. Pakhi(Sonakshi) is the daughter of a Zamindar who is distraught at the sudden loss of possessions with the act of abolishment of Zamindari system. Pakhi is well educated and a modern woman who is not shy to drive a car or have tea with strangers. Sonakshi pulls the role off with confidence and elan. It is surprising how beautifully convincing she appears,playing a bengali woman . Pakhi suffers from frequent asthma attacks.And once while tremendous suffering,she finds her love,Varun(Ranveer). Varun Shrivasta enters their village,disguised as an archaeologist with hidden intentions. Romance brews between the young people. But Varun,due to the illicit nature of his job cannot afford to settle down and flees on the day of their wedding,after stealing the family possessions. Ranveer makes us go spellbound with his serious act. It is hard to imagine Ranveer expressing himself with just a twitch of few facial muscles and scanty dialogues. But he performs it perfectly. Without a doubt,he will be seen as a powerful actor henceforth.
The story takes a major leap post the treachery, and we find Pakhi as a lonely woman,suffering from Tuberculosis,residing in Dalhousie where Varun happens to reach on a purpose. The police is after Varun and he seeks refuge in Pakhi's property. The chase becomes a dangerous one and Pakhi is torn between her love and her duty. She tells Varun how she is going to die and she has invested all her remaining breaths on the few remaining leaves of a tree beside the window. The most complex emotional turbulence occurs when Pakhi refuses to inform the police about Varun and then they confront each-other and talk about the past. Without letting too much melodrama dilute the narrative,the emotions on their faces do the talking and how! One of the most brilliant scenes recently filmed in Bollywood! The camerawork,the minimum usage of dialogues and capturing every little flutter of the eye and flaring of the nostrils,the film tells it all through emotions and expressions. The pace is slow,but definitely engaging. The simple background score,the pale palette of colors,the sound of respiration and the dominance of silence makes it a different kind of movie-watching experience. Vikramaditya wows us in his second venture.

The greatest love stories are the ones that make you root for the lovebirds, however, contrasting their destinies may seem to you. Romeo and Juliet, Laila and Majnu, or even Rose and Jack from Titanic, all the three love stories make you pine for the central characters to live together happily ever after. Joining this list is Varun and Pakhi, the central characters of Vikramaditya Motwane’s epic period romance, ‘Lootera’. Lootera is a rare gem of a film that mingles all the aspects of filmmaking seamlessly to give us a beautiful and scathing romance.
Set in post-independence India, Lootera is about Varun Srivastava, a charming young man who claims to be an archeologist, who knocks at the door of an aristocrat named Soumitra Roychaudhary in search of an age-old attic. There he meets the daughter of Soumitra named Pakhi. Slowly over evening walks and painting lessons, Varun and Pakhi fall in love with each other. However, their destinies take them to different places. The story is simple but the screenplay beautifully merges the simplistic story with beautiful and dignified details that makes the film all the more beautiful. The film focuses on the inner dilemma of the characters rather than stuffing the narrative with external information. At the surface, Lootera may seem like a simple period romantic film, but there’s a whole treasury of emotions and nuances stuffed inside it. The film thus asks its viewers to peel its layers to find greater meaning into each characters’ motivations. There’s a proud aristocrat whose heart breaks into a million pieces, a loyal friend, a cocky inspector, a sympathetic manager and at last a hanging leaf. With a beautiful screenplay by Vikramaditya Motwane, Bhavani Iyer, and Anurag Kashyap, Motwane makes another winning film. Each frame of Lootera appears to be a painting and each shot speaks volumes. Lootera has been scored by yet another genius whose work seems to be getting better with time, Amit Trivedi. He weaves beautiful songs into the narrative which elevates the experience of watching the film. Coming to the performances, Ranveer Singh as Varun gives a beautiful and subdued performance, speaking more with his body language and pained eyes than with dialogues. Sonakshi Sinha gives her best performance as Pakhi, a torn writer struggling with respiratory disease. With all this, Lootera is on its way to becoming a cult classic in near future.
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The movie is based on o.Henry's short story 'the last leaf'.It stars Ranvir Singh and Sonakshi Sinha in lead roles. The acting has been the major plus point of the movie. The movie's USP is the silence .Here the silence speaks for itself. It has been set up in the backdrop of post independence era of 1953 .The music given by Amit Trivedi provides appropriate background score for the movie . The cinematography has been excellent along with the direction.
A Must Watch

Vikramaditya Motwane has managed to fascinate us yet again. I could not take my eyes of off the screen, nor did I glance at my phone even once (that's rare, right?), I belonged entirely to the screen throughout. It is inspired from O'Henry's The Last Leaf. Ranvir's class and Sonakshi's elegance will have you fan-girling about the movie for weeks after. It is like poetry on celluloid!