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Review - Rajneeti: less chess more monopoly
Quick Review
![[Poster for Rajneeti]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/4641546078_d957d4b4cd_m.jpg)
The wait for a high-octane, all-engrossing drama just became longer. But, that still doesn't mean we don't have a decent watch in hand with Raajneeti. The set-up is certainly complex and intriguing. And there are a couple of sly and conniving twists, no doubt. But, the depth is still missing. It's almost as if introducing the characters and their connections was an end by itself and not merely the beginning nor the means to get there.
Given that the characters are based on Mahabharat, it would take real skill to make them uninteresting. So, are all the characters here. In fact, if you focus only on that angle, you'll see even more curious amalgamations. For example, Nana Patekar's character, Brij, is more Krishna, but has shades of Shakuni mama and a little bit of Bheeshma too. Made me think a bit about Krishna's manipulative tactics too. And after a while, these analogies can burst out of their seams. It's best to leave these aside and just watch the film for what it is. It would also help to keep Corleones, Gandhis, and Thackerays at bay. As glaring as they are, they only serve as distractions.
And despite so much potential for complexity, the lack of details along with the creativity-challenged treatment offered to some of the situations gives you the heebie-jeebies. And as almost always, the negative lingers longer than the positive. Some of the scenes, like the one in which a character is introduced just after the previous scene alluded to him; or sundry women getting pregnant; or a woman falls in love with the "arranged" husband after he respects her wish not to be touched. Such scenes clearly didn't belong here; or the on-the-face references to the mythological epic. Oh yeah, and not to mention the deranged "item" number.
Also with the various connections and cross-connections, the film deserved a lot more in terms of flow from one sub-plot to another instead of a "my turn-my turn" shout-out by the characters whenever they were made missing-in-action for a bit.
Then there were other things that didn't go with the tone of the film like say, Prithvi's (Arjun Rampal's) sudden eccentricity. It was almost as if to say Arjun's otherwise wooden facial muscles can be chiseled into this other form - Exhibit A, B, and C presented as proof. To be fair, he was doing a decent job till then. The other usually plastic face is Katrina Kaif. Not in this one, at least in some parts. But all of you who are going to the film to see the surreal vision of the diva in a sari, please pass this one. The bits you see in the promo are almost all of what you'll see in the film too.
The film is all about Samar and Ranbir has certainly carried off the chameleon-skinned character well. My complaint though is against the almost Jekyll and Hyde conversion without any symptoms of the disorder. Many of the other actors mostly retain their first expression, despite having fairly gray characters.
This almost 3-hour affair doesn't slacken but doesn't keep you waiting for the next move either. Because somehow there's a foregone conclusion given the epic characters the film is based on.
- meetu, a part of the audience
Parental Guidance:
- Violence: Loads. Gun fights, brutal murders, rapes, etc.
- Language: A few swear words in Hindi and a few beeped out words.
- Nudity & Sexual content: A couple of lip-pecks, lip-locks, and love-making scenes each
- Concept: Familial and regional politics, the story of a political family.
- General Look and Feel: Serious drama.
Rajneeti - Movie Details
- Official Website: Link
- Banner: UTV Motion Pictures, Prakash Jha Productions, Walkwater Media
- Producer: Prakash Jha
- Director: Prakash Jha
- Lead Cast: Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan
- Supporting Cast: Vinay Apte, Kiran Karmarkar, Daya Shanker Pande, Jahangir Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Khemu, Sarah Thompson, Darshan Jariwala, Shruti Seth, Nikhila Tirkha, Chetan Pandit
- Screenplay: Anjum Rajbali, Prakash Jha
- Dir. of Photography: Sachin Krishn
- Editor: Santosh Mandal
- Action Choreography: Sham Kaushal
- Music Director: Wayne Sharpe
- Running time: 165 minutes
- Reviewer: meetu
- Categories: Hindi Movies
- Genres: Thriller, Family, Politics
Comments (49)
Rajneeti looks promising as good cinema as it definitely has a story to tell. Unlike Kites, which relied much more on the gloss and glam, Rajneeti is dwelving into some good storytelling. And the hype behind this movie has more to do with Prakash Jha, the director, which I again think the audience deserves to expect.
posted 3 months agoAdd to that, a film being claimed to be based on Mahabharata definitely acts as a crowd-puller for Indians (irrespective of the geographhy). Maybe, that's the reason I can't agree on the fact that the subject will be too complex for the current urban youth and therefore, the movie will fizz out of multiplexes.
Btw, I would recommend everyone to definitely watch Shyam Benegal's Kalyug which is a brilliant modern day adaptation of Mahabharata.
@moviebhakt yeah...the problem is expecting too much. And yeah, Kalyug is one of my all-time favorites. Something along the same lines, I loved New Delhi Times too...
posted 3 months agoHearing about this movie for the first time. Will definitely watch it.
posted 3 months agoMeetu,
I am excited about this film too, but wary about the three hours duration.
This whole modern day Mahabharata also freaks me out...our guys are not capable of such adaptation. Sorry.
Also, i fear it may be only about angry and serious faces, expressions, and lines...will it have a deadly plot?
Lets see...
posted 3 months ago@moviebhakt do that and let us know what you think.
@Mr.Inketi well, i watched it just a little while ago. review coming up soon ;)
posted 3 months agotimesofindia has given it 5 stars!
posted 3 months ago@meetu.. Eagerly waiting for the review. Will I get to read it tonight or need to wait till morning ;)?
posted 3 months ago@meetu: thanx for the alert, but I'd like to say something. Please don't take it in a bad way (it's just something that I've observed as a *somewhat* regular reader of your reviews & would like to share), but *almost* whenever it comes to movies with high expectations, & which get reviewed & rated fairly high on other sites are often reviewed in a relatively bad light here.
Talking about wait for a high-octane, all-engrossing drama, since Mahabharata's modern take didn't quite work out for you, I hope it ends for you with Raavan.
posted 3 months ago@lost in confusion, thanks for the feedback. Maybe, i haven't mapped my tastes in films against those parameters. Would be a very interesting study though. :)
posted 3 months agoRe: Raavan - i hope so too :)
Meetu,
If you have been following the decline of Times of India (quality-wise, not quantity - I know its the largest selling English daily in the world blah blah), I feel that your reviews too are undergoing a similar pattern:
Rajneeti: less chess more monopoly
Kites: Plummets into an abyss
Paathshaala: I don't want to go to school
Prince: citizens take cover, hide, quick!
Blue: In Deep Water
I hope you get what I am trying to say here. Aren't some of the movies cheesy enough without the titles you put on your reviews?
One more important thing: The first thing that got me hooked to your reviews was 'wogma'. I hope you remember what it stands for. Just go through some of your earlier reviews, and you'll know what I mean.
Oh yes, and it is Corleones!
posted 3 months ago@pondy thanks for the feedback, man! So far, I've received only positive feedback for the titles. Will try hard to be better at them. The idea is to tell readers quickly what I think of the film, for those who are not interested in knowing the why and what.
I take the name of the site very, very seriously. I know I've started giving a bit of the ambience and sometimes describe a scene or two, to justify a particular observation, but that has also been based on feedback i've received. Also having seen the movie, I'm choose to describe only those parts that are not central to the plot.
Nevertheless, I'd really appreciate it, if you could point out exactly where you thought there was a lapse.
Typo corrected - thanks for pointing it out.
posted 3 months agoSo what abt ajay devgan?...read somewhere else tht he has been sidelined in the process...tht is sad because he has always done well with jha...
posted 3 months ago@Jitaditya well, I won't say he's sidelined because the role he was playing wast that of a sidelined character. So we can say, "it was what the script demanded" In fact, that's true of all characters, that balance has been managed pretty well.
posted 3 months agoAnd we agree...after a long time. :-)
posted 3 months agoe.g. in the above review, you give away too much information on the characters that the actors are portraying:
posted 3 months agoNana: Manipulative, krishna-esque (i for one did not know that it was based on chars from Mahabharata.)
Ranbir: chameleon-skinned
These things may take out the impact of certain events in the story, making it a less enjoyable experience.
as an example (just an example): If I am writing a review of the Sixth Sense, and I say Bruce Willis has given a convincing performance as the ghost who doesn't know he's dead (extreme, i know), I may not be surprised at the climax of the movie, right?
Leave Rajneeti, tell me whr did you watch New Delhi Times and is it available any whr right now.. M dying to watch it..
posted 3 months ago@pondy : Huge difference between the two examples you mention. Talking about the character arc doesn't really give away a film unless its part of some suspense. It was so in the sixth Sense example you mention...but raajneeti hardly had any such suspense. And if you were oblivious to the mahabharat connection, this review seems to be the first thing you read about the film.
posted 3 months agoDear Meetu, Just as some of the folks here, I also became a fan of your reviews until recently. When ever popular sites such as TOI and Taran Adarsh etc give a good rating to a movie, you make sure that you trash it. I know you are trying to drive traffic such as the Bollyfans to your site by being different. You try to dissect a movie like you are even better than an Oscar judge. I m pretty sure that you don't even like 'No country for Old men', 'Avatar', 'Departed' etc (all oscar nominated) A reputed film maker as Prakash Jha definitely knows what he's doing. There were many critics like you (Khalid Mohammed) who tried their hand in movie making and fell on their face. Lets face it, keep thrashing good movies and you will soon have only your regular patrons (Bollyfans etc). Good Luck!!
posted 3 months ago@meetu: Opinions differ, & ours often differ by & large. But that hasn't made me stop checking out your point of view as yet.
Just a suggestion: Why not change "meetu, a part of the audience" to "meetu, apart from the audience in general"??? ;)
posted 3 months agoI'd also like to add that I hope you'll continue sharing with us your actual thoughts about the movies, & not make them up to go with what others in general think of them. Hope you won't let any naysayer (for a lack of better word entering my mind this very moment. And yeah, that may even include me at times, so bear with me) cloud your opinion & hence the review of the movie here.
posted 3 months agoplz get back to smaller font size meetu.. the new look of da site is too flashy.. the old one was classy!
posted 3 months agoHaaaa..
@lost in confustion, pondy,aam janta
have you even seen the film? why are all of you crying over meetu's review and change in style?
first things first, TOI, Taran Adarsh, Meetu are all individuals, just like us, and they too have their tastes [which can change!]. they are not algorithms or machines to be the same forever.
Now, Rajneeti is a genuinely badly made film with a senseless storyline. Please, let us not insult the Mahabharata. As for Ravan, haa...thats another flop in the coming.
there are better Telugu movies which depict family feuds against a political backdrop.
Rajneeti is a flop and there is doubt about it. Hits are not measured by the yuppy crowd that digs into their popcors in Mumbai paying Rs 250 for tickets...TOI and Taran can say what they please.
posted 3 months ago"Given that the characters are based on Mahabharat, it would take real skill to make them uninteresting."
Whoa.. I think you've have just taken one of the strongest points about the movie and shrugged it off. It takes skill to write those characters. And it would have been extremely easy to mess them up. And the actors playing them did a great job. You have dismissed them too easily.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@Mr. Inkenti: FYI, TOI is not an individual, Nikhat Kazmi is. BTW, I was just sharing my observations, not crying. But maybe that's what you're doing.
"Hits are not measured by the yuppy crowd that digs into their popcors in Mumbai paying Rs 250 for tickets"
Oh yeah. Hits are measured by you, alone by yourself or a few in a cinema hall, enjoying a movie that hardly anyone cares about.
Movies with hardly any audience in the cinema hall maybe your idea of a hit film (hit film may not always be good. Then again, the definition of a "good movie" too varies from person to person). But commercial movies are about the box office, & how big a crowd can it manage to pull counts by & large. If you didn't like the movie, it's okay, but speak for yourself. Don't pass the judgments, let the BO decide whether the movie is hit or not.
Finally, stop crying if possible, & take a chill pill ASAP.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@lost in confusion
you haven't answered the question: did you watch Rajneeti?
I know TOI is not an individual, but I meant the person who writes the reviews for TOI, ibnlive, bollywoodhungama are all individuals
Of course, I know what a hit is [to get more technical, a hit is when the distributor and further the exhibitor makes a profit--the ultimate net collections]; the reason why I mentioned about that is it is sites like bollywoodhungama, TOI etc [the reviews and views which you refer to] take the collections of the first three days at plexes and declare a film as hit or flop.
let me know how you liked Rajneeti.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@Mr. Inkenti: No, I haven't watched Raajneeti as yet. I'm not sure, but I guess I'll wait for the DVD release (as I've been doing for most of the movies since more than a couple of months). So, are you implying that I've no say here since I haven't watched it? I'd stop passing comments here if the admin or someone having an authority on this site would let me know so.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@bollyfan I have accepted while giving the example that it is an extreme one at that. I just wanted to point out that meetu in here earlier reviews took an extraordinary effort to NOT give away the small things in the movie. The ideal review for me is one which gives a qualitative, but objective assessment of the different aspects of the movie and as a whole too. I could easily connect with the earlier reviews in this sense.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@inketi Let me put the question back to you, have you read my comment? Where does my comment require viewing of the film?
@Mr. Inkenti: If you're saying that reviews on TOI & bollywoodhungama are based on the collections of the first three days at multiplexes, let me tell you that they generally post reviews on the day of the movie release, & sometimes even earlier. Now, they can't know the collections beforehand. And if you mean that they estimate the collections on the basis of advance bookings & thereby form their reviews, I think that the advance booking of Kites was as good as (if not better than) Raajneeti. Yet Kites did not receive as good a review on either of the sites as Raajneeti. Think about it.
posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago@Bollyfan finally!! ;) bring the champagne out! And thanks for your interaction as always...
@pondy I used these analogies because Krishna-esque could mean so many things and so does being chameleon-skinned.
@mlost long-long time ago on a VHS tape :) should hunt it out now, no?
@aam janta this is not intentional, i promise. i just write what i feel like when i'm leaving the cinema hall and analyse why i felt what i felt.
@lost in confusion like i just told @aam junta above and no, i won't stop writing any time soon and will never change my opinion to conform to anyone :)
@Sumit suggestion taken, will reduce font-size soon.
@Mr. Inketi thanks ;)
@V R surely kudos to Maharshi Vyas!
@pondy, @lost in confusion, @mr. inketi thanks for the lively discussion!
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agoNice movie. only annoyed with the length of the movie, they could have shorten it. But nice movie to watch once.
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agohttp://chin512.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/raajneeti-is-powerful/
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agoAccording to mid week box office reports, Rajneeti is the second biggest hit after
posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago'3 idiots' this year. The few people who didn't like it are probably on this forum!!
Within the Mumbaiyya film genre,I found it to be just about watchable, though after Benegal's Kalyug, Verma's Sarkar and of course Coppolla's Godfather, no new ground broken here. At times it seemed like a pastiche of scenes from all these films. Another Mahabharat allegory that was made by Mani Ratnam in Tamil(and released dubbed in Hindi later)was probably a better film, though for the life of me I can't recall its name. Example of why it is nothing more than a masala film:
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agoNana comes to shoot Devgn, closes the door from inside, ranting about what a snake his parents have sired. Devgn's mother steps away for less than half a minute and is back with the red piece of cloth that the baby Devgn was wrapped in when they found him. Used to happen in Manmohan Desai films.
@Aam Janta that sounds about right. It might as well be the first hit after '3 idiots', that still doesn't make it anywhere close to great.
@Samir ha ha...yeah Manmohan Desai...yeah...I guess they couldn't have had Ajay Devgn sport an earring, would have been too obvious, no? They could have had a locket or something :P
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agoJust saw the movie yesterday, & I'd give it 3/5. And the scene Samir mentioned above annoyed me the most.
posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago@Samir - Is "Dalapathy" the mani ratnam movie you are referriong to? That was definitely a better film.
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agoThe junta waited long and long and they got Kites.... Uffffff.... Rajneeti, at least, entertains in a much better fashion than the whole lot of trash that was thrown to us in this entire year. So, better go and have a shot at it and decide for yourself. This is a film which is & will have huge difference in opinions.
posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago@Shilpa: Yes, Dalapati was the name. Thanks.
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agohttp://harmanjit.blogspot.com/2010/06/43-things-i-learned-from-rajneeti.html
posted 2 months, 3 weeks agonice one Harman...and all true ;)
posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago@Samir: You're right.. It seems like a pastiche of scenes from all the films you've mentioned.
Particularly, two scenes that I can instantly recall were from Godfather.
1. The Vinay Apte scene where his boyfriend is murdered.
2. The car explosion scene.
posted 2 months, 2 weeks agoFinally i found this place! I had lost all my bookmarks, and just could not recolelct the URL...and boy am i glad to be here. :D
Like the review...
Rajneeti, considering that it is made on the Indian political system, deserved to have more meat.
This was a half hearted attempt, to say the least.
Do also read my review of Rajneeti at www.ktens.com
posted 2 months, 2 weeks agoHey, Meetu, it's a pleasure to read your take on films, even though personal it is a fairly balanced pov you present, unlike the rants we get to read everywhere else :)
And oh yes, how I agree with you on Rajneeti. My thoughts - http://filmsandwords.blog.com/2010/06/15/drama-drama-only-drama/
posted 2 months, 2 weeks agoi do like the preview, very detailed and clear to understand. thanks buddy hope u watched the movie it was gooood.
posted 2 months, 1 week ago@Ketan welcome back! now please don't lose us :D
@Fatema thank you!
@Katrina Kaif game thanks, the review is now published, do take a look
posted 2 months agoRajneeti was just a bullsh*t rehash of The Godfather. I mean, how much creativity should a director lack to just copy and paste scenes like the one where Sarah n Prithvi are killed or Babulal's good morning present or even The father's murder!...
This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel bad about being an Indian. Come on..make something original goddammit! The people who made this movie should be definitely sterilised!
And enough of the nonsense about the Mahabharata. The only factor alluding to it is the whole Karna/Kunti thing which doesn't even come into picture till the very end, where it's just too late..
Its just a plain, embarrasing patische of The Godfather I & II
posted 2 months agoAnd don't give a damn about the Aam Janta guy! People like him give me diarrhoea! Stay true to yourself!
posted 2 months ago@Aditya i can understand your angst. We have what we have and i appreciate your passion. But, this is still better compared to some of the copies i've seen. Anyway, hope you are better after your bout of diarrhoea :)
posted 2 months agoMahabharata imitation is totally laughable... The lady (portrayin kunti-type role ) was not even able to enact her part properly...
posted 1 month, 1 week agoAll I could understand frm the movie was .. its a murder cycle. Its understandable if Prakash Jha wanted it tht way.. but atleast he could have introduced some sophistication in the characters avenging the killing of their loved ones. I mean.. what was the whole point of kidnapping tht sundry woman files a rape FIR??
After watchign such movies.. I want to cry out loud... grow up hindi cinema guys :(
Oh ya .. and its Godfather all the way!! urghhh...
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