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NOT A REVIEW - Just enthusiastically looking forward to some politics and drama…
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Yay! Yayy!! Yayyy!!! A political drama is coming up next! So much potential of interesting, gray characters; so many ways to connect them; so many twists, angles and sub-plots to look forward to! It's extremely difficult to keep expectations and excitement at bay.
I know-I know, there is a very high chance that any or all of this could be overdone and thus murdered. Also, some people suspect that the subject would be "Too complex for the current urban youth"There is also a chance that it might turn out to be an idealism vs. crookedness routine. Or that a group that feels marginalized and converts into "revolutionaries" chews up the charm of an intelligent issue.
Add to the mix, some very intriguing casting. Despite the relatively different roles played by Ranbir Kapoor, a politician is far from what I'd have ever expected him to be cast as. Who has ever heard of a shrewd chocolate hero? But, you never know -
Anything written about the cast has to begin with Katrina Kaif being uprooted from having an innocent, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes image into a milieu that needs a calculative brain at the very least. She will have to play on her glam-quotient but with a difference. Her accent is something that troubles me in her usual roles even if she's born abroad. So I didn't know what to make of a situation where she's to ask for votes in the Hindi heartland. Turns out, that the lady has worked really hard on it and it wasn’t easy going -
Unwilling to make thehttp://www.raajneeti.net director bear the loss, the actress made a unique offer to Jha. She offered to pay him back Rs. 15 lakh from her remuneration for the loss of work. The pretty lass must have done her maths well to arrive at that figure as her average earning for a day.
Later, not only did she redub some of her lines, she had a dubbing studio booked for her for 20 days! Here's a glimpse -
The first name that came to my mind when I saw Katrina in a white/khadi saree, hair tied up, garlanded, and hands greeting us in a Namastey, is SONIA GANDHI. Though both the director and the actor deny any resemblance in the character, people are getting offended. (Like that's a surprise!?) In fact the lady watched videos of Sheila Dikshit, Ambika Soni, Priyanka Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. Interestingly she has arranged to meet these ladies now. Most likely to appease misgivings, if any. A move to get in the good books of the current governing party?
I wonder if the tagline to the title, "politics … and beyond" too is a ploy to the same end? Suppsoedly, Prakash Jha doesn't want the film to be seen as a film about politics because politics is in daily life. He claims it is more of a family drama with a political backdrop. The aim, he says, is to entertain. If the audience takes home a message he will think of it as a bonus. And there you go - take your item number and Steamy scenes as evidence.
Turns out what the director giveth, the censor board promptly takes away. Yep! Lots of chops have been made, ranging from sex and violence to EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) manipulation.
Some of the members apparently feel that a few sequences are too ‘hard hitting’ for the aam janta to digest.
Is that why the special National Anthem has been kept out of the film. Yeah, we in Maharashtra will get to see the cast sing the anthem with us before the film. :P
My nagging thought is how all this marketing gimmickry fits in with the script that took 5 years to write having characters based on Mahabharata. So, we'll have Katrina playing modern-day Draupadi; Ranbir as Arjun; Nana Patekar - Krishna; Ajay Devgan - Karna; Arjun Rampal - Bheem and Manoj Bajpai - Duryodhan. And maybe Naseeruddin Shah is cast as the Bheeshm of our times?
In this setting it will be exhilirating to see National award winners Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar, and yeah-yeah Arjun Rampal together. I'm just glad that I'm getting to see them and not the supposedly 'entertaining' bits in the promo. *muah* to the producers!
So much anticipation, so many possibilities. And the wait isn't too long. Just until June 4th.
Music:
Wayne Sharpe's music is being largely liked. Read reviews here - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
This article was first published at meetu's Times of India Blog
Rajneeti - Movie Details
- Official Website: Link
- Banner: UTV Motion Pictures, Prakash Jha Productions, Walkwater Media
- Producer: Prakash Jha
- Director: Prakash Jha
- Lead Cast: Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan, Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal
- Supporting Cast: Sarah Thompson, Darshan Jariwala, Shruti Seth, Nikhila Tirkha, Chetan Pandit, Vinay Apte, Kiran Karmarkar, Daya Shanker Pande, Jahangir Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Khemu
- 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, 1 week 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, 1 week agoHearing about this movie for the first time. Will definitely watch it.
posted 3 months, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week agotimesofindia has given it 5 stars!
posted 3 months, 1 week ago@meetu.. Eagerly waiting for the review. Will I get to read it tonight or need to wait till morning ;)?
posted 3 months, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week agoAnd we agree...after a long time. :-)
posted 3 months, 1 week agoe.g. in the above review, you give away too much information on the characters that the actors are portraying:
posted 3 months, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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, 1 week 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months agoNice movie. only annoyed with the length of the movie, they could have shorten it. But nice movie to watch once.
posted 3 months agohttp://chin512.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/raajneeti-is-powerful/
posted 3 months agoAccording to mid week box office reports, Rajneeti is the second biggest hit after
posted 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months agoJust saw the movie yesterday, & I'd give it 3/5. And the scene Samir mentioned above annoyed me the most.
posted 3 months ago@Samir - Is "Dalapathy" the mani ratnam movie you are referriong to? That was definitely a better film.
posted 3 months 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 3 months ago@Shilpa: Yes, Dalapati was the name. Thanks.
posted 3 months 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, 3 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, 3 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, 3 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, 2 weeks 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, 1 week 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, 1 week agoAnd don't give a damn about the Aam Janta guy! People like him give me diarrhoea! Stay true to yourself!
posted 2 months, 1 week 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, 1 week agoMahabharata imitation is totally laughable... The lady (portrayin kunti-type role ) was not even able to enact her part properly...
posted 1 month, 2 weeks 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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