Rang De Basanti - Review

SPOILER ALERT - The following review contains brief and detailed references to certain plot twists in the movie Rang de Basanti. Prior knowledge of such plot twists may and will most likely lessen the overall impact of this movie.

Every so often, Bollywood unleashes a powerful movie which defies all expectations and compels the audiences to sit up and take notice. Rang De Basanti (RDB) is one such movie. Heaping accolades - "Great" and "It rocks" - would only sell it short, cos such accolades are most often associated with lesser quality movies and RDB deserves much more. It's Funny, Engaging, Stirring and Intelligent.

What is it that sparks a revolutionary? Regular people, who in ordinary cirumstances would've gone about leading their normal lives. driven by an almost indefinable rage or passion towards their cause at the risk of losing their own lives. Could there be any justifiable reason for such drastic actions? The movie focusses on these particular questions (amongst other themes) and the screenplay cleverly juxtaposes parallel tales of revolutionary Indian freedom fighters (Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad and co) and a present day disillusioned group of close college friends.
The story begins with Sue McKinley (Alice Patten), a british documentary film-maker who comes to India with hopes of making a documentary on those prominent freedom fighters (Bhaghat Singh and co) giving them the much deserved recognition to the western audiences. She is mostly inspired by her grandfather's journal who happened to be the jail warden at the facility where most of the prominent revolutionary freedom fighters were held. His journal provides for some of the conversations he had with these people and also functions as an informal guide to the history of Indian freedom movement. Sue's contact person in Delhi is Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) who assists Sue in her project. But things don't run so smoothly at first as both find it difficult to find the right people to essay the lead roles of the freedom fighters. Then Sue gets to meet some of Sonia's friends - DJ (Aamir Khan), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Karan (Siddharth), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) - a group of wild, carefree, college buddies. And almost immediately Sue recognizes they are exactly the people she was looking for her documentary. Lakshman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) the local student right-winged politician later joins in to complete the cast.

The group, initially find the concept absurd and would rather party than participate in the project but as they go about working on the documentary they find themselves questioning the rationale and ideals of the freedom fighters and in the process make several references to the hopelessness of present day India. Lt.Captain Ajay Rathod (Madhavan) Sonia's fiance' and an fighter pilot provides much of the positive, morally correct responses to group's skepticism and it's his tragic death in the second half, which shocks and ignites the group into seeking retributive action.

For those who might feel I've given away too much, there's no such cause for concern. What really propels the movie forward is the splendid combination of terrific, realistic performances and a well-written, multi-layered screenplay. Finally a script which bollywood can be proud of. If there were any messages the director wishes to convey, atleast it had the decency of allowing the audiences to draw their own intepretations rather than have it shove down our throats.
The direction by Rakeish OmPrakash Mehra is superb. Visually arresting, he carefully captures the natural progression of his characters. Mehra used to work as an ad-filmaker. And there is adequate proof of this in each and every frame. A lot of effort has obviously been taken to capture the right emotions and also in setting-up each scene. The five or more primary characters are usually seen together for most of the movie. Yet each scene is carefully crafted to allow for maximum interplay between the characters. This may sound trivial, but most bollywood movies fail to do this, focussing on one or two characters and the others are given the same importance as stage props. What Mehra has achieved is to ensure that each characters is seen contributing towards the scene.

Aamir Khan leads the ensemble cast with a tour-de-performance.He has proved he is one of the best actors around and that the ghosts of Mangal Pandey are well and truly behind him. His natural effervesence, the effortless natural Punjabi accent, subtle and powerful acting as the role demands (his breakdown scene in the 2nd half will be long remembered - a la Kamal Hassan). While he provides a strong performance he ensures he never overshadows the rest of the cast. Three revelatary, break-through performances by Soha Ali Khan (expect big things from her), Siddharth ( Tamil hero, darkhorse, provides a subtle performance with lasting impression) and Sharman Joshi (mostly seen in crass commercial movies, definitely has some acting talent). Atul Kulkarni also impressive but nothing dramatically different from his previous performances. Alice patten is probably the best foreign actress in a bollywood production. She provides a competent performance and thankfully does not murder her hindi speaking lines. Well done. Looking forward to watching more of her in the future.

The music of AR Rehman is impressive and probably deserves a seperate post for further review. The music has been cleverly inter-woven into the narrative (All directors should be sent a copy of this movie just to show it can be done). "Paathshaala" and "Khoon chala" are beautifully picturized and are equally haunting.

Brilliant.

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