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Review - 3 Idiots: teach fun Hirani-style
Quick Review
![[Poster for 3 Idiots]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/4212437407_922a2254e2_m.jpg)
It is so simple to be good in Hirani-land. You beg, borrow or steal with good faith to be a lovable, charming person in the land of idiots. And how much ever I hate the use of fiction in a realistic set-up, I end up enjoying each of his worlds. Maybe because, like most people, I want to believe that it is possible to be good in this mean-mean world. Also it's nice to see a comment on the educational system and the Indian-parent psyche, both competing to kill invention and creativity.
In fact, this time around, it felt like Rajkumar Hirani has taken it upon himself to challenge every single complaint that I have against typical Hindi masala films. I hate slapstick. He uses it - it's justified after all (the setting is a boy-dominated college and an all-boy hostel.) And DAMN! He makes me laugh at Mr. Bean-Tom & Jerrystyle jokes. And out loud at toilet and sex-related jokes! :( He uses that sttuppid marriage-melodrama scene. Yet, I'm egging the bride on to run away, completely disregarding the little change in plan-of-action that Hirani employs.
As in typical slaptick comedies the actors ping-pong between loud and melodramatic. You can call that brilliant acting, or say you cannot judge the actor because he is doing what the genre demands - take your pick. Then there's that slapsticky, loud background music too. And the list goes on. I want to hate this man's guts, but can't help admire the way the typical toilet-humor so fluidly mixes with the insight that comes next.
Though I fear he's taking the slapstick a little further with each of his ventures. A little further towards making the content appeal to the palate of the "masses". Be it the overuse of songs or clichés which are smartly covered under the guise of spoofs. Using a 40 year old actor to play a 17 year old. It is mildly irritating this time, the next time the annoyance might increase.
But that doesn't mean he hasn't taken any risks. The lead lady Pia (Kareen Kapoor) makes her first appearance on screen only in the 45th minute of the film. The kind of humor he uses itself is risky. Such serious, sensitive, and real issues are laughed at whole-heartedly - by the characters. Such dark humor! And well, the audience too was laughing, but that doesn't reduce the risk taken, right?
This might be the most obvious statement that one can make about the film, but how can you not say it when you have seen it. This film would have been hollow without its dialogues and their delivery. And despite the occasional shallow humor. And even if a few of them are sms/e-mail forwards. Its what they lead up to that's more engaging. All fingers point back to the man, Rajkumar Hirani, who has written the dialogues and directed their delivery.
While some of the phrases coined will become references in everyday conversations, the mantra "Aal izz well" has been taken to the extreme in the film's writing. The screenplay makes sure the audience knows from the beginning that "aall izz well" in the end.
So, yeah, you can call it predictable. And some of the events are predictable because the screenplay has given that one extra second for you to think and guess what's going to happen next. But those are semantics. The point raised or answered after that predictable moment is not something you'd think of - at least not all the time.
Another huge element of writing - characterization - is mostly done by use of caricatures. From Chatur/Silencer to Prof. Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani); from his supposedly-soon-to-be son-in-law to even Rancho (Aamir Khan), they all look like they are out of a comic book. But then you have seen a character like that in your circle of friends - the one who names the price/brand of an object before you ask for it, the one who is competitive ad nauseum, the one who spouts philosophy every third second.
But that lingering element of masala is not to be missed. There are no gray characters. Rancho, for example, has huge strokes of Raghu from Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Bawarchi. But there was still something mysterious about Raghu, something that made you curious about him. But here, you know Rancho could do no evil even if he wanted to.
And yet Rancho makes you laugh, he jerks your tears. One or the other emotion is at a high, all the time. But, the question I have about all films that give a "message" in a lighter vein - will the laughs stick or the message? Will we just laugh every time someone says "o bhaiyya, aal izz well" or will we subscribe to the fact that "all's well"?
- meetu, a part of the audience
Parental Guidance:
- Violence: Suicides are shown.
- Language: A lot of toilet and sex-related humor. Lines which could be construed as disrespect to teachers/parents. But I'd still take my kids, because I believe they have a right to speak their mind, even if it means insulting me.
- Nudity & Sexual content: None of that. But there's an elaborate baby-delivery scene.
- Concept: A comment on both the parental pressure to be a Doctor/Engineer and the educational system.
- General Look and Feel: A very happy 3 hours these are. Full of songs and bright colors. And you'll see humor even in the most serious topics under discussion.
3 Idiots - Movie Details
- Official Website: Link
- Producer: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
- Director: Rajkumar Hirani
- Lead Cast: Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor
- Supporting Cast: Jaaved Jaaferi, Boman Irani, Mona Singh, Parikshit Sahni
- Story: Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi
- Screenplay: Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi
- Dialogues: Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi
- Editor: Rajkumar Hirani
- Background Score: Shantanu Moitra
- Action Choreography: Shyam Kaushal
- Music Director: Shantanu Moitra
- Lyrics: Swananda Kirkire
- Running time: 165 minutes
- Reviewer: meetu
- Categories: Hindi Movies
- Genres: Slapstick, Family, Social, Comedy, Spoof, Dark Comedy
Comments (39)
ye galat hai meetu, woh galtiyon pe galtiya kare phir bhi maaf kar rahi ho. Infact that's why I'm POed at Raj Kumar Hirani.
posted 7 months agoI really enjoyed the first half. I feel the second half was quite a drag. The movie would have been better if it had remained true to the book Five Point Someone. In the 2nd half the director tried to stuff in so many things that the film ultimately choked. Especially, the baby delivery scene was ridiculous. And Amir's character could have done with some gray shades. Overall a good film but it had the potential to be brilliant.
posted 7 months agoGodbole saahab, ab hasi aayi to aap se chhoopa to nahi sakte. And i subscribe to the message too. The two main things the director wanted to do, he achieved. Overall it was an enjoyable experience, kya karein batao?
Animesh, yeah, you are right about 'it could have been brilliant' and Aamir was too goodie-good. But I loved the delivery scene...it was so silly that it was hilarious and the writer knew it too!
posted 7 months agoA bang on review !! Exactly felt the same. I know one can find innumerable mistakes/loopholes in the movie if one is hellbent on. But somehow the spirit of goodness lingers on and makes you just love the movie. Fully agree on "comic-book characterisation" and still i was able to relate to each one of them. In fact all 3 leading men were believable as 17-18 years old and Kareena was looking eldest of them all.And can't complain about the 'predictability' part as if flows from a bestseller.
posted 7 months agoit would have been better to stick to the book
posted 7 months agoNice review, though the film quite fell below my expectation. It turned out to be just another Bollywood film.
posted 7 months agoits a movie that can watched again and again its just wow! awsom, specially aamir khan in the last scence with the intectuality that me kept with him in the movie
posted 7 months agoIts great experience to watch 1st day 1st shoow and 2nd day first show with my family.Hirani saab special salute to you and ur party....
posted 7 months agoMay be you're right. Aisa hai ki I went with faithful adaptation expectation... somewhat frank darabont style... plot me change hoga tobhi gum nahi lekin book ke themes ko touch hona maangta. They didn't give it, I felt cheated.
posted 7 months agoI won't give movie away... but just say this felt like watched three movies in one... Taare Zameen Par, Bawarchi and Munnabhai. Plus Javed Jaffery twist toh pach hi nahi raha.
it is very touchy movie,iwanna watch this movie again & again
posted 7 months agoThis movie is really something, I mean Mr Hirani goes all out to ensure that "goodness" is neatly packaged in commercial terms and then doled out to the audience!!!
Man, he really tries hard, starting with the messages being repeated time and time again, the idiot genius with the heart of gold, Mr Khan trying hard to look 20 with his eye widening technique and tongue sticking out, not to mention his hands in pockets body language and scuffed up hair!!
Madhavan is the only decent chap in the bunch, in terms of acting. And is Mr Hirani making fun of the "great suffering Indian family" of Mr Rustogi, which of course the multiplex goers do not hail from? What with the movie watchers being cool dudes from rich khandaans??? Or was that a tongue in cheek reference to the melodrama of good old Hindi cinema? Or was it just a laboured plot point to make the suicide jump convincing???
And which hostel ever had such squeaky clean toilets??? And such a Director like poor Mr Virus, whose insistence on engineering leads his only son to commit suicide and one daughter to take up medicine ( possibly in revenge?)
This whole film in its attempt to send out a message of hope and feel good, desperately avoids any engagement with the reality of the education system, including the elite educational institutions. It is all fun and games, love and affection, harmless pranks and attempts at revolution, all of which are in the end as completely gimmicky and as fake as the film itself,which tries to be cool and send out a subversive message in the most simplistic terms and ends up being part of the same commercial system that the director advocates one should not follow!! Ha, ha.
You want to see a film on the education system in this country, get hold of Pradip Kishen's long neglected
In which Annie gives it to those Ones, based on life in the School of Architecture in Delhi, I think. His partner Arundhati Roy acts in it.
The role of Virus is quite similar to that film, there you had the inimitable Roshan Seth playing the Parsi director who repeatedly fails Anand ( annie) in the viva, till a strategem hatched by annie's friends results in annie clearing the viva finally!!! And yes SRK is there too!!
posted 7 months agoBollywood seems to have adapted the formula of Hollywood, throw in the star, a slick production effort masking the absence of a real plot, and couch it all up as a social message, and rake in the moolah!!!
And yes, you have the very same cool dudes and their families running to see the film and then nodding their heads and saying "yes, we need a change, we must follow our hearts, and not success and income, and laptops and blah blah...""
Then who will visit the very same multiplexes??? With no income??? And shell out Rs 200 to watch Three Idiots???
I second Animesh.
posted 7 months agoThere were too many unneeded additions to the storyline of the book. The 1st half was amazing, but the second didn't quite click with me.
@Vishal Thanks, dude! But come on...Maybe Sharman could've paased off as if he was in his early 20s but not the other two.
@rahul
@Datta
@Hassaan
Actually I liked the film better. I'm not a huge fan of Chetan Bhagat's scripts.
@Kabir
yeah, there are way too many cliches - but it made me laugh and everything had a purpose (believable/practical or not is a different issue) which makes it a bit different from the typical Bolly product.
@isha
@C S Pandey
@shameem
I'm glad you enjoyed the film!
@Comrade :)
posted 7 months agoyep they used a load of dark humor in the Rastogi's story. Also, I actually didn't like the production values of this film. Other than, you do have a very valid take on the film. Such movies are not going to bring about any "real" social change.
its a dam gud movieee. it tells wat todays youngsters want from their parents, teachers nd community. it focuses on parents not pressurising their children to become doctors or engineers rather should let their kids to be wat they want... its amazing 3 hours o fun, emotions nd full tooo masti of college time.......
posted 6 months, 4 weeks agoGO ND WATCH THIS MOVIE.... is worth paying 500 rupees for this movie......
"Idiots" made 100 crores in 4 days!!! or …."IDIOTS" is being made out of 100 crore Indians....... where is the math and who is doing the math???? Do the math yourselves…This means in one day movie is making Rs 25 crores....... HOW MANY TICKETS NEED TO BE SOLD IN ONE DAY TO MAKE Rs25 Crores?????..... how many halls are there in India for Hindi cinema???/and what is their sitting capacity... Even if the movie is being screened round the clock still selling tickets worth 25 crores doesn't add upto!!!!!! ……Movie is average... But everyone SHOULD LEARN and APPRECIATE the great MARKeting TALENT of AAMIR Khan on “””” HOW to CREATE "HYPE" for your product””””.......to ENHANCE its SALES... He is great at it
posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago@Comrade:
Agreed.
@meetu:
posted 6 months, 3 weeks agoConcerning Chetan Bhagat, as the grading of one great website says "To Each his Own".
SUPERB FILM FOR THE YOUNGSTARS
posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago@Meetu: Occurred to me just now, for those who use your site for parental guidance(and not censor rating)... you should mention about the 'sperm' race which might traumatize... Parents.
posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago@Dattaprasad Thanks. Will add that to the list.
posted 6 months, 3 weeks agomesmerizzzzzzeeeeeddddddd............... this guy /raju hirani/ has got some divine power
posted 6 months, 3 weeks agoI simply liked the film
posted 6 months, 3 weeks agodon't care of negative reviews
the best entertainer and also a good message
awsome out of the world fentastic after long time i senn ths movie Amir jiyo mere laal mere neelay mere peelay
posted 6 months, 2 weeks agomade a idiot out of myself and watched the movie today. Dumbest of the flicks I seen in a while.
Boman deserves a better ranking than you gave him.
posted 6 months, 2 weeks agoYou need to be a little more careful in providing parental guidance because I have read a couple of reviews where it is misleading. The whole movie is filled with references to balatkar. My kids watched it, the rest of the movie was great. But I think parents should have accurate information to decide whether to take their kids.
posted 6 months, 1 week agoYour reviews are good, but your parental guidance is inadequate and inaccurate. 3-idiots is peppered with dialogues about "balatkar" yet you have no reference to that. The movie is good, but let the parents have complete info and then decide whether they want their kids to watch.
posted 6 months, 1 week agoFinally, I could catch up with the movie yesterday. Loved the movie thoroughly as I fondly reminisced my own hostel days. Last 2-3 weeks, I had been receiving a emails from old college friends with a suggestion to join facebook; but not until I had seen 3 idiots could I detect the trigger behind those mails!
I think anybody who has spent a few years in a hostel would have found something in this movie to relate to. Of course the hostel here was too tidy for a boys hostel and the toilet humour a bit on the higher side. But the message of the movie-pursue excellence in the field of your passion, success would take care of itself-rose above all the trivia and caricatures employed.
posted 6 months, 1 week agoI fully agree with the Nitty-Gritty that you have compiled. Here are a few of my observations:
posted 6 months, 1 week ago1) Why should a Chachad of Gujarat have an estate in Shimla and not in Surat or Baroda?
2) Why did an obviously successful Phunsuk Wangdoo not get in touch with Pia and wait for his chums to get the two together after a gap of 10 long years, especially when he already had won over Virus?
3) Why did Madhavan’s character had to be named Farhan, when they were to show him drinking later? Was it done with the sly intention of inviting the ire of Islamic fundamentalists, so that if the initial box office response was not encouraging, this controversy would create the necessary viewer interest? And in event of the controversy, they would have coolly dubbed ‘Farhan” as ‘Rohan”.
4) Why did the zip of Rancho’s pant have to go up and down to explain his concept of machine; the zip could well have been that of his jacket.
5) How come 10 years down the line, it is Chatur who remembers 5th September, while the extra- chatur Rancho doesn’t?
@desiparent i have mentioned in the parental guidance section that there is a lot of sex-related language and disrespect. I didnt mention exact words because it sort of spoils the joke for the people who'd watch the film.
@Anurag there you are! thank you for your input.
about the nitty-gritty -
I'm not the writer, so I wouldn't know for sure, but here's my assesment -
1. Well Indians are all over the place. When in Spain, in a little village, there was an Indian restaurant run by a person of Indian origin. A Gujrati in Shimla isn't that big a stretch.
2. He had sworn not to get in touch with people related to the college. And she was Virus' daughter? Maybe that's why.
3. Jesus! No pun intended...are you a conspiracy theorist or what?! You should join Bollywood as a specialist, what say?
4. Well, why did ALL the humor have to be related to the potty or the sexual organs?
5. Chatur took it seriously, Rancho didn't and he wasn't supposed to go back to the college as per his vow to the Chachads of Gujrat.
A question that occurred to me later was -
Why wasn't Wangdoo not at Chachad senior's funeral? Would have saved us quite some time, you know :D
posted 6 months, 1 week agoAdding to what Anurag Anand has written above:
You are right. Your points are valid and one can find more loopholes. My biggest concern is that 10 years is a long period. In real life, no girl would wait for that long for Rancho.
The rest is all well. Peace!
posted 6 months, 1 week agoWell, Spain having a restaurant run by an Indian is fine, but a Gujarati having an estate in Shimla isn't really on. This is so because prior to 2008, no non-Himachali could acquire any property in HP, whereas here we have Chahad Sr. bragging about the whole of Himachal knowing him... must have taken him some years to acquire such a position!
posted 6 months, 1 week agoWow! Now I'll have to go look up all this information before I get on Hirani's case for leaving out details like these
posted 6 months, 1 week agoOne of the great movie came out of bollywood.
Aamir a true perfectionist!!!
posted 6 months, 1 week agoAll is well! I must start with this 3 magical words after watching 3 idiots. One of its kind and probably one of the best movies from bollywood. Enjoyed it a lot!
posted 6 months, 1 week agoYa this is great movie to watch learn and teach.
posted 6 months, 1 week agoAwesome movie..great review @meetu!!
posted 6 months ago@Anurag..Excellent points! I have a feeling Chatur's (Silencer) character was based on you :)
Thanks punerocks! :)
posted 6 months agohas 2 b one of bollywuds best films ever...hirani n aamir r d greatest things 2 hv happnd 2 bollywood
posted 5 months, 3 weeks agoIts just perfect movie for a complete tension release... just too good a movie was made, with versatile acting of each actor and behind the scene members participated, congrats for making such a brilliant movie..
posted 5 months, 3 weeks agoAbsolute social messenger movie amir khan simply great.
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