Aamir Khan's `Rang de Basanti' Has Raw Energy: Movie Review
By Nabeel Mohideen
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is a bit like an
erratic chef with a cupboard full of wonderful ingredients and no recipe book.
The director's second feature film, ``Rang de Basanti'' (The Colors of
Spring), isn't quite an overcooked mess, but there's just too much in there to
figure out the flavor. Is it ``youth'' movie, coming-of-age tale or political
tract? Is it mainstream Bollywood or middle-of-the-road, urban-multiplex
fodder? Then you have Aamir Khan, all of 41 years, and just about passing off
as a young man who finished college five years ago.
To be fair, this isn't a vehicle for Khan; almost all of the leading
players in the film get equal billing. Mehra opens the story in London, where
Sue (British actress Alice Patten) is leafing through her grandfather's Raj
diary and getting ready to make a film on several early heroes of India's
freedom struggle.
She gets to India and runs into DJ (Khan) and his cronies, a
fun-loving but largely aimless bunch of student types, eventually persuading
them to play the characters in her film. It's all fun and frolic until one of
the friends, an Indian Air Force pilot, is killed when his fighter crashes, the
latest in a series of such accidents. Spurious parts, unscrupulous politicians
and dubious middlemen are to blame, the film says.
Getting Real
The tragedy makes the story of the film within the film all the more
real to DJ and his friends. Is this why all those brave young men laid down
their lives? The boys must become men and the girls must shed tears for these
unlikely new martyrs. The title of the movie refers to a tribute to freedom
fighter Bhagat Singh that variously translates as the spirit of sacrifice,
martyrdom, awakening, freedom.
Mehra used to direct television advertisements before he entered films
with ``Aks'' (Reflection) in 2001. This effort is similarly full of visually
arresting sequences joined together with the seams showing. What keeps the
enterprise on track are some of the individual performances, the raw energy of
a young cast and A.R. Rahman's splendidly rousing soundtrack.
Khan's acting prowess -- and he does shine as the impish DJ, floppy
hairstyle and all -- is almost matched by the youngster Siddarth, who is a
delight. Patten (daughter of Chris, Hong Kong's last British governor) does a
very creditable Hindi accent and Soha Ali Khan shows flashes of mother Sharmila
Tagore's talent.
Winsome Cast
The director, with all these riches at hand, has disappointingly
chosen to throw everything into the mix. You want to like this movie. It's got
its heart in the right place, there's an adult sophistication to the polemic
and the hard- working cast is winsome. And yet...
It was the same with ``Aks,'' a derivative story that was adventurous
in scope and execution, the sum of its parts didn't quite add up to a whole.
Yet this is a film that will find an audience because it has Khan in it, which
means, at the very least, a challenging script and time well spent.
Khan is that Bollywood rarity, a star who chooses to work only if the
role and the film are worth his while. ``Rang de Basanti'' may not be all it
could have been, but it's still a cut above. The film opened globally on Jan.
26, India's 57th Republic Day.
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000088&sid=aLgKdgt4AprM&refer=culture
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