Review on "Rang De Basanti"

Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Produced by Ronnie Screwvala & Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Starring - Aamir Khan,R. Madhavan,Alice Patten,Soha Ali KhanWaheeda Rehman,Siddharth Narayan,Kunal Kapoor,Atul Kulkarni,Sharman Joshi

Country/Language - India/Hindi and English

My rating - *** (Good)





Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in the world but I have to confess that I've never watched a whole Bollywood movie, at least that I can remember of it.

Now that I'm living in India I really want to know what Bollywood produces. I know that I might fall asleep, especially when we are talking about Musicals (I believe most of the Bollywood movies are musicals).

The producer's target were Indians and the song-dance scenes exclusion could turn the movie into a flop but I found those scenes boring and responsible for the long duration of the film. The special effects and the song-dance scenes were certainly the main drawbacks of the movie. I think those two aspects have to be improved otherwise Bollywood will not gather audience abroad.

The movie starts with the will of a young British filmmaker , Sue (Alice Patten), to produce a movie about the heroes that struggled for the end of the British imperialism over India. Her source of inspiration was a diary of his grandfather who served in the British Force during India's quest for independence. She flights to India and finds a strong supporter to her film, Sonia (Soha Ali Khan). They both are very committed to go forward with this movie and start the casting in Dehli. Sonia introduces Sue to Indian culture and brings her to party with her friends.

The casting wasn't going very well and they despair with the lack of talent of the many applicants. When Sue was in a mood to give up her idea she looks at Sonia's friends and she suddenly notices that they would be the perfect characters!!!

At the beginning it was quite difficult to convince them since they didn't identify themselves with the values of the revolutionaries and they prefer to party than to stand for patriotic beliefs. But Sue persuades the young men and shows them how can they can contribute for a better country free of corruption so they start to identify themselves with revolutionaries.

Ajay, Sonia's boyfriend, pilot on the Indian air force dies on an plane crash. The Defence minister claims that the accident was due to human error to cover his corrupt deals that he performed on a contract for buying cheap aircraft spare parts.

Ajay friends decided to protest peacefully against the corruption inside Indian politics, but on this protest the police starts a riot and wounds most of them. They decided that they had to go for violence if they want to change something. So they decided to murder the defense minister. The government makes people believe that it was a terrorist act and the Defense Minister became a national hero. Frustrated with the outcome of their acts they decide to bring the truth to public and through a radio station they confess the crime and explain theirs reasons.

The police takes the radio building in assault and kill all the young men when they were willing to surrender peacefully.

I really liked the movie since it stressed the problem of corruption in Indian politics and the extreme important role that Indian youth must have to change it, regardless their religious beliefs their ethnic group or even language.

The movie shows that Indians will have to unit on ideas since they differ in terms of religion, languages and ethnic groups.