What a dumb movie, its like taking you to Vaishno Devi and sending you back without darshan.
If camera angles, sharp editing and some snazzy directorial touches off an on, made a movie great, I would be building Qutab Minars in the air. Literally. What on earth was everyone thinking? Without a proper thread of narrative and sequence leading to some sort of logical climax or thinking, the movie just meanders on and on without any purpose. They just start the movie from point blank and end it right there, at point blank too.
First lets list the pros, since they are quite few. Technically film works well, there is a bit of innovation in story telling too, only they forgot that to tell a story you need a story. Camera, music, editing, lighting and all the other blah blah is good, so much so that the worker they employed to give Kolkatta a cleaner look also does well. The kabaddi field they play on could give Sachin (Airtel’s) football field a complex. The performances by Rani, Ajay and Abhishek are good for majority of the film. Some of the scenes are handled well and some are borrowed in melodrama from Raj Kumar Santoshi film. Another good point in the movie is the handling of relations, esp between lead pairs. All share good chemistry with Abhshek - Rani being the best.
I dont have a problem with open ended narrative, it is good, Chameli had an open ended climax, so did my favorite book, The Serpent and the Rope. But here, its not open ended, its like an interval. You almost expect an interval sign coming when the shot of the assembly comes. And pray what on earth happened to Abhishek Bachan? Your guess is as bad as mine. If this was not bad enough, the casting is almost imperfect, you could not get anything more imperfect than this. Other than Rani, none of the characters look, feel or behave the way they should.
Abhishek Bachan - Well critics eyes are different from mine for sure, he looked far too polished in major part of the movie, just banging his hands, body whatever on whatever; no intense eyes, no brooding looks, no stone face. Give me Bhiku Matre anyday. Mani Rathnam disguises his failure by going to long shots and dark imagery. Still, not a bad performance, but nothing extravagant either.
Ajay Devgan - He surely does not look like a PhD student (or maybe) and since when did the PhD wala have a say in local politics? Anyways, he does well but a younger ’’actor’’ would have done better and looked better.
Vivek Oberoi - What a waste, just because he has to save Ajay in a scene, a whole story around him is written. He is not a cool dude anyways, carefree etc. Saif etc. would have been better choice.
Kareena Kapoor - She had no role worth speaking off and she knew it herself and hence moves on as if she is obliging Rathnam here.
Esha Deol - She is the only female lead whose role is integral to the plot, only because her male lead’s is the main story. She does well in her limited capabilities and thats it. She does not look that naughty as suggested.
Rani - Her’s is the best performance in the movie. Period. Although like Kareena she does pretty much nothing for the story.
Now in a Rathnam movie, spending time discussing characters means script has failed. ’’Bombay’’ when it came was about riots not Manisha, but here exact opposite case prevails. He falters in relying heavily on technique and loosing out on the screenplay and story development. The story basically is of the three young men, although it could have been a story of one young man instead. The problem is three stories develop separately and they dont converge to a common point. Abhishek’s story just goes completely off the radar, Rani looks like a forced inclusion; Vivek’s story was never developed in the first place and Kareena was just a glorified extra in the movie. So it was left to Ajay to be the Ganga for other two stories to merge. And they did not, infact as I said there were basically two stories, Lallan and Michael and they both end quite in a limbo. So, after some heavy duty action, script wandering, all you see is nothing, and as an audience you wont like it for sure. Post third story (Vivek) the movie takes a complete nosedive. Nothing worth mentioning of the climax either. Infact had he ended it on a note when Esha tells Ajay jokingly they lost elections, it would have been perhaps a lot more acceptable. The subject was good and handling quite amatuerish.
Sadly, even Rehman music itself does not have the intensity to bring you back again. And thats the word, despite being a Yuva movie, the intensity and Yuva power was missing. Fanaa and Anjaani were picturized well although I loved the sweetness of Kabhi Neem, well written song. Sadly this mix of Dil Chahta Hai, Arjun and Satya does not work despite the talent they had.
To sum up as someone said in theater - Interval se pehle ka part ho gaya hai, abhi interval ke baad wale part ka wait karo