Shukla's statements make me remember the defence minister's statement in the movie.
On 1/27/06, dev raj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
LACKS ENTERTAINMENT VALUE
By P Shukla - Eye TV India Bureau
Critic's I-view
Thodi Si Dhool Meri, Mitti Ki Mere Watan Ki, Thodi Si Khusboo Baurayi Si Mast Pawan Ki..., goes the title song of a film that is released on 57th Republic Day with a large number of prints to collect a huge sum in the opening weekend that starts this time on Thursday (not Friday as has been the usual case in Bollywood). Riding on the expectations of Aamir Khan fans, producer of 'Rang De Basanti' is sure that he will recover most of his cost in the first four days of the release. Not a bad idea, but not a good one for the future of cinema! The latest trend in Hindi cinema seems to be to attract the viewers by making slick promotional trailers and then blaming the media for bad reviews, if the movie fails.
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Is 'Rang De Basanti' good enough to spend three hours in cinema halls? First thing first. The answer is a big no. It may be a shocking reply for millions who have been waiting for this Aamir Khan starrer since they saw his last ' The Rising' ('Mangal Pandey') falling short of their expectations despite being a well-made and well-acted film. The lesson Bollywood should learn is that it's not the hype that helps a film succeed, but it is the content. Content is the king; a proverb for audio-visual media for years. However, a filmmaker like Rakeysh Mehra with an advertisement background fails to understand . For making the people to take note of a 30-second ad is quite different from making them watch a film for three hours.
So, where has 'Rang De Basanti' gone wrong? First, let us have a look at the story plot. 'Rang De Basanti' started in year 2000 when a young filmmaker Sue (Alice Patten) conceived an idea of making a film on Indian freedom fighters that was rejected by her bosses. She sets about to make the film on her own and lands in India at her friend Sonia (Soha Ali Khan)'s place. She goes around hunting for right faces for her film and eventually finishes getting Sonia's good-for-nothing friends to do the roles of Chandrashekhar Azad (Aamir Khan), Bhagat Singh (Siddharth), Ashfaq Ulla Khan (Kunal Kapoor), Sukhdev (Sharman Joshi) and even a foe to play Ram Prasad Bismil (Atul Kulkarni).
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All these lads (yes, Aamir at 40 plus and plays a university student) are a bunch of goons who hang around in university campus doing nothing. Daljeet alias DJ (Aamir Khan) is a bike rider by hobby.. Karan (Siddharth) is son of a big businessman (Anupam Kher), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) is happy go-lucky-kind of a guy and Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) is the spoilt brat from Haryana. This gang is always at loggerheads with Laxman (Atul Kulkarni) who is a student leader of a saffron party. All the characters in the film play dual roles except for Sue. Sometimes they are their real ones and sometimes they are playing famous characters from the history for the sake of Sue.
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The camouflage gets charged when the darling boy of the gang -- Ajay Rathode (Madhvan) a serving Indian Air Force fighter pilot, gets killed in an MIG air crash. The boys reach a conclusion that the Defense Minister of the country should be punished for the air crash and they kill him. The story should have ended here leaving the matter in the minds of the viewers if it was right or wrong. But, Rakeysh Mehra tries to justify the action on his own and lands in a situation where the story slips out of his hands.
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Rakeysh Omprakasah Mehra made his debut in Bollywood as Rakesh Mehra in 'Aks' with Amitabh Bachchan leading the cast with Manoj Bajpai and Raveena Tandon. 'Rang De Basanti' faces the same crisis in narration as was in 'Aks'. Mehra tries to be logical with his illogical points. These kinds of things may be very good for the intellectual class but people in India visit theatres for entertainment. That is surely missing in the film at least in the post-interval part. Mehra fails to create a base for the story at the very outset of the plot.
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The mindset of his characters change only in the post-interval part and by that time the narration gets so juxtaposed traveling from the present to the past and then back to the present that the viewers find themselves taken for a ride. Despite the fact that 'Rang De Basanti' is a brilliant idea, it fails at the ideation and execution level. For this failure all those involved either in writing the screenplay ( Rensil D Silva and Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra) or the story and the script (Kamlesh Pandey) or the dialogues (Rensil and Prasoon Joshi) are to be held responsible. The film boasts of an excellent technical team.
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Cinematographer Binod Pradhan succeeds in capturing the nuances of the student life very well. Allan Amin once again shows why he is the master of the stunt art. But, 'Rang De Basanti' fails in its music department. A.R.Rehman once again fails to live up to the need of the time and despite getting good lyrics from Prasoon Joshi, he could not live up to the expectations. None of the song has a haunting quality and after initial zig, melodies of these songs fizzle out.
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Among actors, most of the boys of the band have delivered a brilliant performance under the lead of Aamir Khan, who delivers more than what was expected from him. Though he does look a bit old to play a student now, Aamir still remains the torch bearer of a film that could have been the first hit of the year. Among the rest of the boys, Kunal Kapoor and Siddharth score the maximum. And not only at odd times these two Turks overshadow Aamir in some scenes. Atul Kulkarni does a fine job whereas Madhvan and Soha Ali Khan Pataudi perform their roles aptly. Om Puri and Anupam Kher are wasted in minor roles; only Kiron Kher comes out as a winner among senior actors. Alice Patten though does a good job but she may also join the list of one-film wonders of foreign actors in Bollywood. Alas, despite all this the film lacks in entertainment value and that will be a BIG hurdle for it at box office.
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--
yours sincerely
dev raj
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