Rang de Basanti

Happy republic day !!! Before I go on and discuss the storyline (of "Rang de Basanti" the movie, if you are wondering), here is my verdict: The first half of the movie is fun. If you loved "Dil Chahta Hai", you will like the first half. The second half is, in short, blown out of proportions.

Spoiler warning: If you don't want to know about the storyline, turn around now.

Now on with the story. The story talks about a firang girl, Sue, who is a person who makes documentaries. She is inspired by the Indian freedom fighters (the extremists, not the moderates) and wants to make a documentary on them. Her idea gets shot down by her superiors and she decides that she will make the documentary anyway. So, she travels all the way to India (saddi dilli, to be specific) in search of actors suitable for the roles of the freedom fighters. There she meets Aamir Khan (DJ) and gang, and the fun begins. This is the better part of the movie, with lots of comedy, and brief interludes into the freedom movement of India. Sue, finally manages to complete her movie and also starts to fall for Aamir (one kissing scene is there :drool: ).
So all is going well, when suddenly Madhavan (who is part of the happy go lucky gang), who is a pilot in the air force, gets killed due to a MIG-21 crash (the defence ministry saw this movie and cut 3 scenes).
This incident saddens the group of friends. When the group hears the defence minister (who has a striking similarity to George Fernandes) saying that the crash was due to the pilot being an amateur, they get very pissed off, as they believe that the crash was due to the corrupt defence minister's actions. This is where the film takes off in a totally insane direction. They decide to exact revenge by killing the minister. And how do they do it? They get on a bike take a gun and kill him on the footpath as he is going for his morning walk. This is where I lost interest in the movie. Too darn improbable, but well I was in a theatre so I had to watch the rest of the drama unfold. Sue, the firang girl, is forgotten in the second half of the movie and she is reduced to a running, crying girl looking for her friends/actors. In the end all of Aamir and his friends are killed by Black cat commandos as they confess, on radio, as to why they killed the minister.

All in all the film is a genuine effort to try and awaken the youth of india to come forward and fight. I think that they have overdone the revolutionary thing, but it is worth watching at least once. The film will do well though, as most of the people in India want to kill the politicians.

Two things worth considering:

1. I wonder whether this movie would have made it to the halls with the same storyline, if BJP was in power and not congress.
2. Aamir Khan's past three movies (including this one) had a "India's freedom struggle" angle to it. What will the next one be like?

Oh yes, I watched the 9 pm -12 am show. The movie is a good 3 hours long.