Raajneeti

Prakash Jha’s name usually evokes images from the hard-hitting Gangaajal (and the underrated but equally hard-hitting Apaharan) – which shows a very realistic image of the Northern heartland – a man who has his pulse of the ‘cowbelt’. Both these movies, apart from mirroring the socio-political scenario of Bihar/UP, were impressive for the strong roots in reality. No flashy stars, no foreign locales – but the movies had a soul in them. So in his latest magnum opus, choc-a-bloc with big stars (Ajay Devgan, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif etc), you expect nothing less than awesome.

And for a while, he does hold your interest – esp in the frenetic first 20-30 min where the entire political first family of an unnamed state is introduced. There are two brothers, Bhanu Pratap the ex-CM and the Chandra Pratap the organizer. Bhanu’s son is Manoj Bajpai and Chandra Pratap’s sons are Arjun Rampal and Ranbir. Both the elder sons have an eye firmly on that party president and hence the CM’s seat. So when Bhanu Pratap falls ill, all hell breaks loose in the family. What begins as a Machiavellian game between the two warring factions, explodes into a full scale war in the second half.

For a while, the Mahabharat structure of the story seems very interesting – there is a clear Karna, Duryodhana, Yudhisthir and Arjun. A Krishna substitute Brij Gopal is there – and so is a paralysed Dhritarashtra. There is also a Godfather twist to the story in – Sonny and Michael Corleone. But soon the novelty wears off and you start getting restless at the pace of the movie. The movie reaches a peak interest level just before the intermission. Unfortunately, after that the movie literally crashes and burns.

What works for the movie is the interesting Mahabharat setup in politics, the real-life chess game played by both sides. Acting is decent all around except the usual suspect – Katrina Kaif, who is terrible in the first half - and debutante Nihila Trikha in the second half. Arjun Rampal is a little inconsistent – he does the role well overall, but I couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that a more earthy actor like Kay Kay Menon or Atul Kulkarni would have suited the role more.

Things that don’t work for this movie are quite a few
- The length : At a little over 3 hours, the movie drags on at a lot of places. Esp in the latter half, where there were a lot of groans from the audience for “khatam kar”
- The screenplay : from a crawling but still sensible first half, the story becomes a literal ‘yudh’ in the second half, racking up a ludicrous body count. Realistic, my ass !!
- The dialogues : they are plain ridiculous. Using the Mahabharat analogy is cool – using the same dialogues is not! The movie is full of arcane shudh-hindi dialogues that will be completely Greek to the generation born after the tv serial. When was the last time you heard the statement “tum mere jeshtha putra ho” – or the term “aadarneey karyakari adhyaksh mahoday” 5 times in 2 min? I am sure even Mulayam Singh uses the term General Secretary in his daily life rather than “party mahasachiv”

So Raajneeti, despite the filmmaker’s reputation and taking inspiration from various stories like the Mahabharat, the Godfather and Sonia Gandhi’s own life - turns out to be as unrealistic as, say, Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. The usage of pure Sanskrit-ised hindi in today’s times is just silly and the sequence of events in the second half make the entire movie appear quite harebrained. I mean if killing off multiple CM candidates is so easy to get away with, why bother with using any politics in the first place ? Just hire an army of goons and assault the bugger anywhere.

So a thumbs down for Raajneeti and a recommendation to catch something else this weekend – I hear Shutter Island has a great rating on IMDB ...



PS : Four out of Prakash Jha's last five movies - Raajneeti, Apaharan, Gangaajal, and Dil Kya Kare (1999) - all have Ajay Devgan in the lead