Rating: 4/5
It is said that the epic saga of Mahabharata contains all the stories that exist in this world, be it lies, deceit, lust for power, revenge. In short all those that can make a solid impact. Prakash Jha taking a cue from this has set his big canvass film Raajneeti against an Indian political backdrop. But then at the same time he has merged dollops of The Godfatherwithin it. Nonetheless, the end product makes a compelling watch.
Cousins Veerendra Pratap Singh (Manoj Bajpayee) and Prithvi Pratap Singh (Arjun Rampal) are heirs of a powerful political party. But when Prithvi is appointed to take the lead, an angry Veerendra teams up with the backward class leader Sooraj (Ajay Devgan) to plot against Prithvi and evict him from the party. Prithvi’s younger brother Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) who is studying abroad and has no political aspirations gets sucked into the political rivalry between the families. Under the mentoring of senior party and family member Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar), Samar takes charge of the conniving affairs of state to start their own political party, gather funds and get Prithvi contest against Veerendra. What unfolds next as the battle shifts ground to the elections forms the rest of the film.
Like mentioned above, as the film mixes in elements from the Mahabharat, Veerendra’s character is a modern day Duryodhan where as Sooraj is Karan, a valiant soldier but on the wrong side. Brij Gopal played by Nana Patekar is like Krishna, the passive participant of the war who takes Ranbir Kapoor’s Arjun like character to victory with his guidance.
The film is a valiant effort by the master story teller, the multi-time National Award winner filmmaker, Prakash Jha who is at his home ground while making films of political drama genre. Here he is as ably aided by script writer Anjum Rajabali weaving just the right story and screenplay packing in all the treachery and deceit involved with Indian politics. What makes Raajneeti an engaging watch is also the fact that the makers have succeeded in narrating the story like a thriller format.
Jha doesn’t waste time in showing lip synced songs and incorporates them well in the narrative playing them in the background. Camerawork by Sachin Kumar Krishnan is simply superb. The way he has captured those vast mass shots deserves a bow. Although the running time of the film is close to three hours, it doesn’t matter much while watching the film and the credit for it goes to the editor Santosh Mandal. The sound design carries a good impact as well.
Absolutely brilliant performances by every single actor of the mammoth cast, also including those with smaller parts. As expected Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar and Ajay Devgan are at their best. Arjun and Ranbir manage to match up to them as well and deliver a power packed punch. Katrina impresses with her uninhibited act. Sara Thompson as Ranbir’s foreigner girlfriend also leaves an impact in her relatively smaller part. But a performance that may win some awards for sure has been delivered by Manoj Bajpai. He is menacingly good. Shruti Seth, Vinay Apte, Kiran Karmarkar, Chetan Pandit and Nikhila Trikha lend able support.
Raajneeti is an important film in today’s times. It is not to be missed by connoisseurs of good cinemas well as those who forever complain that Hindi cinema offers nothing different.
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar, Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai and Naseeruddin Shah
Director: Prakash Jha
RAAJNEETI
Director: Prakash Jha
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai
Review by: Dr Usman Khawaja
Well Machiavelli and Mario Puzo might never have heard of Mahabharata, but here they all mingle in an incoherent, clumsy and half -baked tale of political fervour and family feuds, which becomes feverishly excessive yet never actually achieves that singular moment of frenzy, where you can rise above superficial and fake sentimentality.
Election fever and an empty plot based on GODFATHER, KALYUG, and MAHABHARATA, reigns in this epic family tale of Indian politics, starring a plethora of stars in an overcrowded script riddled with potholes and plot deficits, and even poorer characterisations as the director struggles to give it a false sense of persuasive energy but all fall shorts, despite some potential which betrays sporadically through the screen anecdotes in minor trivia, which is rather pathetic as this could have been a quality venture if the script had more meat and the characters had some of that meat to eat.
Bhasker Sanyal (Naseeruddin Shah) is totally inept and wasted as a left wing firebrand who pays for a love affair by a self imposed exile.
Sooraj (Ajay Devgan) is the angry poor man stereotype who will stop at nothing to damage the rich and powerful and he too is wasted as the scowling middle aged man pretending to be a young fire-brand revolutionary, while the best sequence in the movie where drama should deliver is wasted in total frustration in a clueless confrontation between him and his repentant rich powerful mother in sheer melodramatic faux pas.
Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar)is a mentor for one of the rival political families who comprise the two feuding political giants who will run India in future, depending on who plays the best ploys, ranging from assassinations to bombings to framed rape charges against the feuding opponents who are all cousins and brothers but seem to have nothing else but time for planning political conspiracy and anarchy,which also describes this rather mediocre version of ”Copolla’s Godfather” guised as a political yarn.
Prithvi Pratap (Arjun Rampal) is actually quite good as the cousin who holds the top position, but is betrayed by Veerendra Pratap (Manoj Bajpai), the other cousin who will stop at nothing to claw his way back to the top, and in the process Bajpai brilliantly steals the entire movie single handedly, from under the noses of everyone else as the evil lonely man who seems to be the only real politician in this medley.
Indu Sakseria (Katrina Kaif) is the so-called rich, beautiful and tragic woman caught in the middle of these men who is lost both in the script and as an actress, since she has nothing to do except switch lovers like a game of musical chairs, she rises from one fake tragedy to challenge every contender and it becomes even more of a fracas than all the rest of the frenzy.
Sarah Jean Collins (Sarah Thompson) is playing an Irish girl in love with the Indian cousin who is the mastermind in this ridiculous riddle and she cannot act and is strictly there for a few kissing scenes and is the weakest link in the cast.
And Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) is the ultimate Machiavelli, a bespectacled political master of the MACHIAVELLIAN craft ,worthy of Rasputin himself who is both moral and evil incarnate ,and a genius who is the most unconvincing character and his relationships with the two women actually elicit inadvertent laughter and snide remarks from the audience ,as he goes jogging in a scene in the middle of this violent massacre and than decides to take a shower with Sarah in the buff, and is totally beaten hollow by both Arjun rampal and Manoj Bajpai in the movie.
MR. JAHA, is a wonderful craftsman but here he has too many cooks and they spoil or ruin this broth, with no one to focus this vision of a political tirade, overwhelmed by a plot borrowed from renowned classic sources and also spoilt by some totally inane lines in major key sequences which ruin the dramatic affect, yet he succeeds in at least creating a ponderous and pensive atmosphere where the violence and tragedy at times engages your attention.
He keeps the pace going and that is one of the few qualities here with the cinematography as well as the fact the script is only interrupted by one short rude song briefly in a disco, otherwise this is a turbulent ,inconsistent and rather pointless remake of previous classics, which fails to deliver the hype created by the production design or an all star cast ,which are both much bigger than the innocuously void characters and the trite violence which seems injected artificially rather than being a part of the political thriller, with a finger in every pot.
It is far better than both ”KITES” and ”MY NAME IS KHAN ”, both equally hyped and pretentiously ludicrous Bollywood epics, but it leaves a lot to be desired and that is an understatement, and much of the credit for that goes to ”Manoj Bajpai ”and ”Arjun Rampal’’,who have given convincing performances, despite ill defined characters which needed to be developed but got lost in the crowd that is both ” India and Bollywood ”itself.
The movie can be seen once as it grips you at times but it does not convince you ever, and that is one thing Mr. Jaha has never been guilty of before this epic multi-starrer in past with his middle of the road but intelligent cinema.
Plusses: Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal, Direction, Cinematography, Production, Atmosphere.
Minuses: Story and screenplay borrowed from “GODFATHER”, Sarah, Ranbir and Katrina Kaif.
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