Rang De Basanti

You could skip ahead to the 2nd paragraph if you want to read about the movie alone. But if you are like what I expect you to be, you could read this paragraph too. As one of my intelligent friends pointed out, never see 2 movies both of which have been winners at Cannes, before you go to see a new movie. Your frame of reference is skewed. But then I already like Aamir Khan and had hoped that Rang De Basanti (RDB) would be great. Read on.

Rang De uses the story of a Brit soldier in the pre Independence era and his notes on the famous quartet of Azad, Rajguru, Asfaqullah Khan & Bismi. These notes are discovered by his daughter Sue played by Alice Payton(daughter of British diplomat Chris Patten) who comes over to India to shoot a movie called Young Guns of India. How the tale unfolds when she meets the friends of Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), DJ aka Daljit (Aamir Khan), Sukhi (Sharmaan Joshi), Karan (Siddharth) more famous for his role in Boys, Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) and a local hothead, Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) is what the movie is all about.

The music from AR Rahman, which I had raved about earlier is fantastic. It is refreshing, sounds like something that should be in a movie, parts of which are set in Punjab and is uncluttered. You could play the music on a long drive, from say, Bangalore to Bombay and not get bored once. Each track is different and spans genres as disparate as rap, bhangra, poetry set to music (I cannot think of a label for Ru Ba Ru), pop, etc including one religious track which plays during the visit to the Golden temple. My favourite is obviously the Daler Mehendi title track, which has enough energy for an entire train of Punjabis from Ambala to New Delhi !

Aamir is his disciplined self, with dance moves that would make any Punjabi proud. He plays the role of the DJ portraying the intense character, who is witty, brooding at times, with a flourish that none else in Bollywood brings to the job. That said, he now needs to start looking for special roles which can bring out the best in him, rather than try and act like a college goer. He has weight which comes with age, very visible and I guess, we now know what to expect from Aamir. You can t forever be just the angry young man. And Aamir is way too talented to be doing the same stuff.

It is difficult to speak Hindi without sounding odd if it isn’t your native tongue and Alice manages to pull her role off, bringing some freshness to the screen. Soha Ali Khan needs to watch her acting and realize that there is some distance to be covered in the acting department. She is great in just one moment in the movie, when Madhavan who plays her fiancé, Ajay Rathod, proposes to her. There are these dialogueless few moments, which are her best moments. And Madhavan looks fairly casual in his role and a tad overweight for an Air Force Officer. Mohan Agashe plays yet another politician role. I think he should stick to roles like the one in Apaharan. Sidhharth too has some way to go in the acting department when he does some intense scenes like the one with his father, played by Anupam Kher (portraying a corrupt businessman) and yet another with Aamir towards the end of the movie. But he is young and refreshing in other moments when he is playing his character as the son of a rich businessman in college, forever with a cigarette in hand. Anupam Kher is wasted in the role of a corrupt businessman, reminiscent of his role in HUM. He was actually better in that role.

The movie is good as long as it sticks to the college scene. It excels at recreating the atmosphere of a college, the borrowing of money by students, strapped for cash, the TV in the canteen, the going to dhabas, etc. The moment it tries to juxtapose the freedom fighter s lives with that of the youngsters, it goes all over the place. Atul Kulkarni is symptomatic of what is right with the movie and what is wrong. His character is a hothead extremist culture vulture initially and then joins the student group. The transition is really mixed up. I think that the MIG issue was perhaps unnecessary, as there is mixing of facts with unproven fiction. It is difficult to sit in the theatre and believe that there was a scriptwriter on the job. Like another friend put it, if you come out of the theatre and try to recall some moment from the movie as the defining moment, there is none!

Anyways, you go watch the movie and Paint It Yellow (The English version which was abandoned)!