Hell with the mixed reviews, Imtiaz, you nailed it once again!
To begin with, Imtiaz has progressed a lot as an artist with each and every movie. Sure, I liked Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met but I began considering Imtiaz as one of my favorite director after Rockstar. With Highway, he has made me proud of my choice.
Highway was a risky film due to many reasons; I would point a few:
-No songs in first half even when you have the best musician working for the film.
-Solid pace in first half, a quick unexpected interval(I am generally very good at predicting Intermissions) and a comparatively slow second half.
-Presumed casting coup of Randeep Hooda and Alia Bhatt.
-A risky genre of a road movie (without a solid love story).
But I love the movie due to the very reasons pointed above. If I begin reviewing the movie, I would probably loose the experience that I gained after watching it but Highway, to me is a picture perfect film (except about 5-10 mins in second half). It needs guts to make a movie the way Imtiaz does. He narrates story in cut-to-the-chase style in merely a couple of minutes and the screenplay keeps revolving around the central characters for the rest of the duration, which makes the movie an experience. And the way his actors behave in the situations, it is entirely upto the viewers to interpret what the characters are feeling because feelings are to be expressed and not to be spoken, characters in Imtiaz Ali movie do that very well.
The film has superb subplots and sidekicks. May that be Veera, Mahabir Bhati, M K Tripathi, Aalu, Goru, Vinay or Uncle, each and every characters are well defined and brilliantly portrayed.
Imtiaz may not be as technically sound as Dibakar Banerjee is (but Imtiaz is growing though, with each and every movie of his) or as much raw or gritty as Anurag Kashyap is(but not all movies should reflect anger, pain, violence, drugs and sex). Imtiaz makes movies straight from heart and the movies connect right from the first frame of the film.
To me, this is as much commercial as an art can be.
Anyway I have a message for Imtiaz:
Jaanta hoon duniya badal degi tujhe,
Namanzoor fitratein badalna logo ka dastoor hai,
Dua hai tu jaisa hai waisa hi rahe,
Aakhir tujh par bhi mere Ali ka noor hai.
Stay blessed!