Jun 19, 2010 12:53 PM
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Alas! Someone please can you lend your ears to hear Raavan’s idiotic ‘Chak Chak Chak’ kind of bak bak, bak bak? Hearing this same phrase over and over again made my head spin ‘tip tip tip’. Once again a terrible showdown post Kites. I guess this year we will have a tough competition over foolish and bad movies. And am sure, both Kites and Raavan will have a close competition.
Now, coming to the movie; the movie revolves around Raavan, the Dus Sarvalinga villain of the famous Indian epic, Ramayana. Beera the king of jungle kidnaps and captures the super ambitious SP of Lalmaati, Dev’s ethereal belle Ragini to take his revenge by doing away with his precious possession, his adorable wife. Earlier, Dev’s ruthless cops brought tremendous sufferings to Beera’s protected lair; now its Beera’s turn to bring Dev’s house down. He kidnaps the fearless Ragini who is also an Indian classical dancer with exquisite sex appeal. Hence begins the journey of Dev in search of his wife and the kidnapper, and Beera’s journey with the beautiful damsel who exists with him but longs for her husband in their 14 days journey.
This Ramayana seen from the Raavan’s perspective has the characters of the epic tied loosely to modern plot. Ram, Lakshman, Sita, Raavan and even the Hanuman who can jump from one tree to the other, having the knowledge of every tree in the dense forest, who wisely gives his suggestions and lead them to their end – all Hanuman characteristics in human form. Now, let us focus on the main trio of the movie. Dev, the modern version of Ram is shrewd in all ways to achieve his ambition, corrupt enough to conduct the rape of Beera’s sister with his juniors, double faced to kill Beera’s younger brother who comes to him for truce. At the end of the movie you are left to feel confused as to who is a villain and who is the real hero? Surely, I cannot afford to call Dev as Ram who can even ditch his wife in the end for attaining his ambition that he is so close to. Ragini, the Sita maiya in the movie ‘Raavan’ is the love interest of both the men Dev and Beera. She is an elegant dancer who not only dances to the music or ‘taal’ but also on her husband’s tunes. She is shown dancing day and night, on the bed, in the kitchen and over the dinning table at sunset point. My god, being a classical dancer myself, had I tried that on my husband (would be) he would say you better get married to a ‘Khajurao’ pose than me. Nonetheless, having a sexy wife with little bit of craziness in the Lalmaati is fine with Mr. Dev. Ragini longing for her Dev and all her efforts to escape from the clutches of Beera, comes to setback in the climax when she learns the cunning mind of her husband and the greatness and the love of Beera. Beera, the Robinhood of Indian jungles is the savior of underprivileged. He may be the dacoit under the spotlight for the cops but a godfather for inhabitants of Lalmaati. He guards his community like a possession and nobody escaped from the strong vigilance with his other 10 invisible heads. Unfortunately he is not given powerful statements here as he is portrayed as uneducated, uncouth, hot-tempered guy. He is only given to say; ‘chak chak chak’ and ‘bak bak bak’ time-to-time which only made me wonder, were these the times when he was conferencing with his other 9 heads?
Cinematography was superb capturing the waterfalls, dense inhibited jungles as a backdrop contrasting to pristine beauty of Ragini. Her facial expressions, stares of hatred and love, and the vulnerable Beera have been marvelously captured in the movie. The locales are mystic and unexplored having an aura of its own. Apart from these, nothing is significantly good in the movie. The script disappoints once again pathetically. When you deal with a controversial issue like the relationship between Raavan and Sita, then you have to back it up with evidence, strong statements and logical script, apart from being creative. You cannot make everyone happy out of a topic like this; in that case one should focus on family movies and avoid dealing such a sensitive topic. One needs to be strong in nerves to carry a subject matter like this. I felt the movie ‘Raavan’ was too sugary and simple in its approach.
Rahman and Gulzar retreats back with fantastic numbers that completely justifies the plot. However, I did not like the way the songs have been placed in the movie. They rather soothe my ears without seeing.
Star cast of Raavan was one of the greatest attractions apart from Mani Ratnam brand. Vikram Dev bore the Raavan traits more promisingly than Ram. Somehow I felt he would fit in the shoes of Raavan with much ease and effect than anyone else. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Ragini is the exotic beauty amidst lush vegetation of Lalmaati forests. She stood as a treat to the eye not only for Beera but for the viewers watching the movie too. Well, coming to her acting skills she is undoubtedly better than her earlier ones, but again a weak script does not uphold any memorable scene from her. Now the pivotal role Beera, done by Jr. Bachchan is neither superlative nor below average in terms of acting. He was impressive during few scenes with Ragini, especially when he enquired about Dev out of jealousy and some scenes in the climax, but not as penetrating as he did earlier under Mani’s Yuva or Guru. Somewhere, his repetitive dialogues and expressions made his character too obvious and easy, which actually shouldn’t have been.
Overall, it’s a comedy of errors and sometimes when the ticket rates are sky-high you feel you should fight out to get the money back – I was exactly feeling the same. My sister was insisting on ‘Prince of Persia’ but I stuck to my opinion about Mani Ratnam’s movies from my experience. But after repenting on seeing this flick I learnt that even younger people can come up with suggestions wiser than the older men.
