Rang De Basanti
-NIMISH
12th Feb 2006.
Rang De Basanti, is a movie with difference. What are the factors that differentiate the movie from the rest of the Bollywood? Well, to start with, there is no Amitabh Bachhan presence, neither vocal nor physical. Thankfully there are no item songs. For a change we have Amir Khan, the well-established actor who was introduced back in ‘The Rising’. To conclude, Rang De Basanti is a powerful script, and a wonderful story.
It is a story about D.J. (Amir Khan), Karan Singhania (Siddharth), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Ajay Rathod (R.Madhavan)
and Sonia (Soha Ali Khan). These six friends consider friendship above everything else. All but Ajay have common interest and a common view about the nation’s plight, claiming that the country’s drains cannot be cleaned. Ajay on the other hand has an exceptional view to this and urges them to join IAS, politics, military and other such positions from where they can clean up the country’s gutter. It is perhaps because of this view that Ajay became an Air Force pilot.
Laxman Pande (Atul Kulkarni) who is a worker at a communal party often
clashes with the beer parties of these friends. He has a specific hatred for Aslam because of his Muslim identity. Ajay on an Air Force mission loses his life since his MIG crashes down, but in the process he rescues the heavily populated Ambala district, and drives his plane away to a remote area. The defense minister (Mohan Aghashe) blames the pilot for his careless driving rubbishing the media reports that the plane crashed down due to the cheap spare parts used in the planes. Ajay’s mother slips into coma, after the Rapid Action Force sent by the defense minister to disperse their protests, acts hard on her. Now the four freak out friends, along with Laxman Pande, plan to assassinate the minister.
What is it that gives them such courage to take such a drastic step? Here lies the genius of the movie. Sue, a London based filmmaker, after reading her grandfather’s diary, plans to come in India to make a film based on the lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Chandrashekhar Azad and their freedom movement.
Her grandfather was a jailor in India during the time of the freedom struggle. In India she finds her characters in these five people. Here comes a major twist in their lives, when they get into the characters they are assigned. They start feeling the freedom struggle, and the effort behind it, and most importantly, the reason behind it. Sue through her grandfather’s diary cruises all of them in the history pages giving them a glimpse of the bravery of the revolutionist, and their motive behind their sacrifice.
They start believing in communal unity, freedom and a way to demand our rights. After Ajay’s death and his mother slipping into coma, they correlate everything to the situation when Lala Lajpat Rai succumbed to death while shouting, “Simon, Go back”. And then came their turn to assassinate the Saunders of this era, the defense minister.
At every point the movie relates the current situation to the British era, indirectly claiming that, we again need to struggle to claim our independence, independence from the political atrocities. It is a shame that we’re fighting within ourselves to attain our own freedom.
I don’t completely support the message provided by the film. It says, “To clean up the system you need to come out of it.” While that in movies like Yuva was
completely contradictory. In yuva, the youth get into the system to clean it up, which I suppose should be the right way to influence someone. Although, they have made it clear, that in current system, it is not practical that a politician suffers punishment or is jailed. Do we have any other option to cure the corruption?
Also there are few errors in the movie that I’d like to point out. The movie is clearly underestimating the power of our fourth pillar: media. In a peaceful agitation against the defense minister, where about a thousand people gathered at the India Gate, TV news channels covered their protest, but nation couldn’t witness the merciless beatings by the Rapid Action Force. I can’t think of any reason that the media was not present during this shocking incidence, that led to severe injuries, and slipped Ajay’s mother into the state of coma.
The assassination of the defense minister is shown highly impractical. I don’t think that five immature students, who have never seen a real pistol, can drive on a motorbike, barge the heavy security, kill the Union Defense minister, and escape unharmed, and remain unsuspected for days. Again these assassins to reveal their motive easily barge into the All India Radio, a govt. building, go on AIR declare their crime and still remain safe in that building for more than two hours, without a single hostage on board. I don’t think it should take more than fifteen minutes for the cops to enter the building, once they declare the crime.
I just didn’t expect an Amir Khan movie to flow in this manner.
But overall, the movie is powerful and definitely with a difference. I can grade it as a must see movie. Certainly the generation will awake.
Rating: ***
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