After 2 super successful outings in the Munnabhai series, Director Rajkumar Hirani brings us 3 Idiots. Because of his stellar track record, expectations are sky high - but once again, the master story teller manages to exceed expectations. Combining a social message within an entertaining story of the college life of 3 students, Rajkumar Hirani reinforces his standing as one of India’s finest storytellers. 3 Idiots is indian cinema, at its best - it is probingly thought provoking, as well as humungously entertaining.
But to begin at the beginning, 3 Idiots begins with 2 college friends going off in search of their 3rd college mate, whom they have never met again in the 10 years since their graduation. Dextrously woven in with the present day search are flashbacks of their college life. Sharman and Madhavan are Amir’s hostel room mates at the Imperial College of Engineering, which has Boman Irani as it’s Dean. The movie is titled 3 Idiots, but essentially the story is about Amir’s one ‘idiot’ character, who has an unconventional take on education and …. life.
While his batch mates work hard for academic scores, ‘Rancho’ is hungry for knowledge … while everyone craves material success, Rancho believes in the pursuit of excellence. Diametrically opposite to Amir, is Principal Boman - who vehemently propagates academic excellence as a means to material success, and while doing so, drives atleast 3 people to suicide!
The movie alternates between the present day search, and the college stint - and every time we revisit each track, the dramatic quotient is slowly but surely ramped up. After 2 recoveries from near death situations, 2 suicides, flying visits to 2/3 north eastern towns, an international joint venture funding, an asthi ransom, a runaway bride, a tele-supervised childbirth and many such stops on this roller coaster ride, both tracks ultimately come to a thrilling climax.
At it’s core, 3 Idiots forces us to question our education system which focuses more on academic excellence rather than true knowledge acquisition, and it also questions society’s callous pressurizing of individuals to achieve material success. And while there is no way that you can miss this message, the story never takes itself too seriously. In fact, a particularly impoverished family is deliberately shown in a humorous back and white. Superb screen writing, and excellent editing engages you so completely that you even lose count of the how many times you laugh and how many times you cry for the characters.
To achieve what this movie manages, true team work would be necesarry - and hence every department of the movie turns in a splendid contribution. Cinematography, editing, art direction, screen play, dialogues, lyrics, music … are all excellent. On the acting front Aamir, and Boman are the best. Madhavan, Sharman, Kareena and Omi are also very good. In fact Director, Rajkumar Hirani does such a fine job of inspiring his actors, that even when given just a scene or two - Parikshit Sahani, Javed Jaffery, Mona Singh, Jayant Kripalani, Achyut Potdar and many more do an excellent job.
But more than anyone else, this movie belongs to Director / Editor Rajkumar Hirani. He had made a big leap from Munnabhai to Lage Raho Munnabhai, and now he does an even bigger quantum leap. It would be difficult to find words to describe his genius.
All in all this is a modern day masterpiece, especially for combining entertainment and a social message. Bollywood seldom gets better than this, and in the absence of a higher rating we give it 5 stars out of 5.