Rajneeti (2010)

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Bollywood fans have been craving for good cinema since quite a while and Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti seems to quench their thirst well. There is no doubt that the movie lacks Bollywood masala, glamorous clothes, dances numbers and romance, which Indian cinema thrives on but there’s something in this film which sets it apart from the rest!

Rajneeti is a complicated story about politics, democracy and elections in India. It’s a story that shows how some people have control on the lives and destinies of millions. It’s a story about how political ambitions make a person extremely bitter and violent. It’s a story about how the young generation becomes wildly involved in politics after the death of the family’s head. It’s a story about how an ultimate outsider to politics, Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) comes from abroad for his uncle’s birthday and gets involved into the battle-ravaged ground of family rivalry and becomes the mastermind behind the entire political warfare. It’s a story about how his life changes from a peaceful one to one that contains a lot of aggression! It’s a story of the woman who loves him and lost him and the one he loved and lost! It’s a story of a simple man’s fall into the moral hell, politics. To cut it short, it’s a story of the ugly side of Indian democracy, politics and beyond.

Rajneeti is a great attempt by Prakash Jha to shed light on the many social problems that prevail in the Indian society and he tries his best to expose them through this film. It also shows how politics is driven by corruption, greed and most of all revenge. Nothing more can be said about the plot because that would confuse you even further.

Ranbir Kapoor can easily be called the lead of Rajneeti even though there are many other actors with equally important roles. I never doubted Ranbir’s potential but this role was just performed to excellence. The way he has acted his role with such intensity shows that these young actors are not just eye candy and they can actually do serious parts. His acting in Rajneeti could easily give the best actors of Bollywood a run for their money. Throughout the film, his emotions were intense, his dialogues strong, his actions just perfect and can I also please add his looks were absolutely killing?

Surprisingly, Katrina too fit in the role perfectly, even though I never thought she would be able to do justice to such a serious performance. Considering Rajneeti is her first mature role, she has done a great job and the way she portrays her emotions leaves you in tears and shows that she has matured as an actress. Arjun Rampal has also shown great acting skills and portrayed the role of a violent politician perfectly while Ajay Devgan is just another actor in the film and it’s clearly not even near one of his best performances. The supporting cast has done an excellent job too.

The songs were beautiful especially ‘More Piya’, ‘Bheegi Si’ and ‘Ishq Barse’ and anyone can get addicted to them easily. Direction was beautifully done, the script was very well written and the dialogues were extremely strong, which breathed life into different roles. Coming to the technical side of Rajneeti, the camera work was brilliant, the art direction was superb and the background score was just ideal.

However, Rajneeti does come with a few flaws. To begin with, it takes a bit too much time to settle down the plot and narration and you need to watch it with a lot of concentration otherwise it will only make your head spin! 40 minutes into the movie and all that has been shown is politics. Those who want to see Ranbir and Katrina spark on the screen will be extremely disappointed as there are hardly five scenes of them together. I also believe that there were a few (read: very few) parts where the movie seemed stretched and a little more editing would have made it is flawless but this does not mean that one could get bored during the movie!

All in all, it’s one of those movies that make you enjoy every part of the film and the popcorn as your eye balls pop out at literally every scene and at times you even jump in your chair out of shock with what just happened. It makes you feel the money and time was well spent as you walk out of the cinema.

Whether Rajneeti makes millions on the box office or not is still a question considering a hefty budget of 20.91 million was spent on it and recovering such huge amounts is not that easy, but it’s one movie you shouldn’t miss this summer. It shows how Indian cinema is much more than sugar coated stories and happy endings – Hafsah Sarfraz

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama/Action, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Prakash Jha, Director – Prakash Jha, Music Director – Wayne Sharpe, Pritam Chakraborty, Aadesh Shrivastava, Shantanu Moitra, Cast - Ajay Devgn, Nana Patekar, Ranbir Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Rampal, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai, Sarah Thompson, Darshan Jariwala, Shruti Seth, Nikhila Tirkha, Chetan Pandit, Vinay Apte, Kiran Karmarkar, Daya Shankar Pandey, Jahangir Khan, Ravi Khemu

Satya (1998)

Cast: Urmila Matondkar, Chekravarthy, Manoj Bajpai, Shefali Chhaya, Saurabh Shukla

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Music: Vishal Bharadwaj

Lyrics: Gulzar

Capsule Review: One of India’s most influential crime dramas, Satya took its astute and original director Ram Gopal Varma into the bowels of underworld crime in Mumbai. Done in a relentless documentary style, the stark visuals of violence and aggression on the swarming streets of Mumbai gave an all-new definition to the action genre in Indian cinema. All the violence was staged with the fluency and virility of real life. The characters, especially the by-now legendary Bhikhu Mhatre (played by Manoj Bajpai who catapulted to instant stardom after the rugged and raw role), project a bewildering residue of realism while remaining cinematic creatures filled with dark, uncontrollable and indefinable passions. At the centre of this lopsided crime thriller is the protagonist, Satya, played by Telugu actor Chekravarthy whose initiation and acclimatization into the world of crime takes him and the innocent middle-class girl Vidya (Matondkar, remarkably deglamourized) down.

Jail (2009)

“As expected, Jail is a dark, brooding and morose film on the injustices of life and how human dignity can prevail despite bleak circumstances through resilience, perseverance and hope. Like all Bhandarkar films, Jail too is a social commentary akin to a documentary on the deplorable conditions within jails and most importantly the injustices endemic to the system. As a documentary, it does a great job of showing a slice of life that ordinary cinemagoers are (hopefully) not too aware of, but the masses just might be too well acquainted with. Precarious power play, exploitative class dynamics and general combat between justice and injustice are a major focus of Jail; achieving agonizing profundity by depicting the microcosm of society jail communal life is and can be: a mafia boss operating the underworld through the jail, for instance. Of course, like all Bhandharkar films, Jail is rich in desi street language, expletives and dialogues like “jail ki pehli raat aurat ki suhag raat jaisi hoti hai. Kitnee bhee koshish karo neend nahin aati.” (The first night in Jail is like a woman’s wedding night. However much she tries, she can’t go to sleep).

The heavy publicity that the stars of this film embarked on – including an appearance at Wills India Fashion Week – showed how much work they had put into the film. Particularly Neil Nitin Mukesh – who plays the lead role and manages to do relatively well if one over looks Neil’s character, Parag Dixit as an extension of John Abraham’s character in New York. But to give credit where its due, Neil matures tremendously in Jail with Parag. His dialogues are minimal and its all about his hard expression carefully crafted to deliver an abysmal despair that leads him to the brink of insanity. His anguished screams when he is put in solitary confinement, and when he attempts but fails to kill himself out of sheer despondency, are perfectly executed. If this performance doesn’t get Neil an award, we certainly don’t know what will.

However as much as the story is about Neil, it is equally about Nawab (Manoj Bajpai,) the silent butcher who has risen amongst the ranks with his superiors over the years on his sentence. With Nawab one sees the return of the hugely talented but terribly miscast Manoj Bajpai doing what he does best: flawless expressive acting. Manoj’s character is the voice of reason and goodness that guides Neil towards the right path and ultimate freedom. Credit is also due to Bhandarkar for getting melody queen Lata Mangeshkar back to render a soulful track for the film’s score.

Mughda Godse, though, as Neil’s supportive girlfriend, is a wasted character and a totally unnecessary appendage, whose character’s purpose could have easily been fulfilled by Neil’s mother. Nonetheless, Mughda’s bagged herself an award for Bhandarkar’s Fashion and probably chose to stay part of the production to continue the trend.

All in all, Jail is an intense and powerful film that is certainly a must watch, when and if one in the mood to be educated. However be warned that the entertainment quotient in this film is zero. The logical inconsistencies in Neil’s trial, such as the most obvious facts of his case, and subsequently his innocence are proved a bit too late. It was perhaps a necessary evil for Bhandarkar to propel the plot along, but it leaves the audience feeling that the film is being unnaturally stretched – Hani Taha Salim (Rating – 3 OUT OF 5)

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2009, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Shailendra Singh, Director – Madhur Bhandarkar, Music Director – Shamir Tandon, Toshi, Sharib, Cast – Neil Nitin Mukesh, Mugdha Godse, Manoj Bajpai, Arya Babbar, Ashish Sharma, Rahul Singh, Sayali Bhagat