Now for the rest of the world, this may seem like a rather stupid thing to do but it’s a fairly common way out of a tricky career crisis in India – have blind faith in your best buddy and take the plunge because what good is an employment without pals. That’s precisely the metamorphosis that Karan undergoes when he takes a plunge into the world of the Indian Army, purely following up in his friend’s footsteps. The best of movies take such a character and have him undergo a journey that seems impossible on paper, and yet is presented with such conviction that a belief in it inspires hope. Casting the financial background aside then, writer-father Javed Akhtar and director-son Farhan Akhtar present us with a protagonist trapped in a situation that nearly each of us can connect with.

That last part notwithstanding, it’s pretty much every one of us at an early stage in our lives. He spends most of his time loitering around the college campus, consuming pop-culture and cushioned in the comfort of a steady relationship. Born filthy rich, ambition is the last thing on Karan’s mind. Lakshya at its core is a poignant story of a man named Karan Shergill, who struggles with one of life’s most fundamental issues that the youth grapple with during their teenage years: aimlessness. These are the movies that do not do as well upon their initial release but go on to acquire cult followings and win posthumous appreciation once the audience has matured enough to fully absorb the said film’s contents.

Every once in a while though, a movie takes such leaps with its storytelling and filmmaking prowess that it takes a while for audiences to catch-up. And when cinema imparts that lesson with a near-universally identifiable character and a story that resonates so hard with audiences that it strikes a chord near-impossible to demolish, it wins laurels. In the chaos of life’s mundanity, we often look up to movies to provide us with entertainment, hope and a life lesson or two.

Lakshya bollywood movie