Jun 13, 2006 04:40 PM
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No attacks on neighbouring country, no loud dialogues on national integrity, still truly patriotic and Indian, that’s Rang De Basanti for you. Aamir Khan fans, take a breath and forget Mangal Pandey. For once, a much hyped film actually delivers and surpasses all expectations.
Sue from London is the nucleus of the story; her grandfather served the British Army and was a witness to the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. She decides to shoot a documentary on the Indian freedom struggle and befriends Soha Ali Khan, her friend in Delhi. After coming to India and auditioning many for the roles, she is disappointed as no one seems to be interested in the country or its history. Finally she meets Soha’s friends and the search ends. DJ (Aamir Khan), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Laxman (Atul Kulkarni) and Karan (Siddharth) are not upto her expectations, but she goes ahead with the documentary.
This is just one side of the story. Soha is engaged to Madhavan, a MiG pilot, who dies during a training session, and the Air force department puts the blame on his carelessness rather than accepting the corruption that happens with buying faulty parts of planes. Friends agitate against this and face brutal hitting by the system.
Not many twists and turns, the story is simple and clear. What makes it special is the anger and concern that comes through in the director’s vision and every frame. The performances are awesome.
The crux of the movie is that instead of wasting time on blame game, we need to wake up and do something about it and who could be a better representative than the youth. The filmmaker is honest with his intentions and has his senses in place. The music has already caught on and complements the characters. Watch it for the sheer pleasure of feeling Indian without loud anthems and pretentious patriotic songs.
