Rajneeti

Title: Rajneeti

Director: Prakash Jha
Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Manoj Bajpai, Nana Patekar, Katrina Kaif

My comments: Story or Reality? What’s worth?

You can watch this movie with two angles. Story and reality. As far as story is considered there is no doubt it is a very good story. But wasn’t Mahabharata a very good story as well. Inspired mildly by the epic Mahabharata this is the story of a political family torn between war for the power of a state. After an attack to the elder brother, the son of younger brother (Prithvi, Arjun Rampal) is left with the reigns of the family politics leaving the son (Veerendra Pratap Singh, Manoj Bajpai) of the elder brother seething with rage who, with the help of a dalit leader (Suraj, Ajay Devgan) wants to lead the state into a political turmoil. But in comes the Arjun or Ranbir Kapoor helped by mamaji – Nana Patekar, who saves the day for his family with sheer Michael Corleone style Godfather tactics, eliminating each and every piece of the chess quite systematically and ruthlessly. Now this is the story we have read and appreciated in both the Mahabharata (there is a scene between Suraj and his birth mother resembling the scene between Karna and Kunti in the epic) and the Godfather. The interest really builds up when Katrina comes in a simple plain saree to take the command but doesn’t last long enough.


What can be appreciated with this angle in movie is the acting of the star cast. Every single actor in the movie has given an absolutely brilliant performance. Whether it be Manoj Bajpai as the jealous cousin or Nana Patekar as the politico giant. Arjun Rampal has done a fab job with his angry yet loving image of a country politician. Ajay Devgan has again proved why he is the master of silent roles. Ranbir Kapoor, too, tries and break away from the ‘lover boy’ tag pasted upon him and brings in refreshing performance.

But now we must consider the other angle. Reality. There are many questions we should ask ourselves after watching this movie. Do people really break each other’s rallies? Do people really go for a killing spree as a solution for a political motive? Is the solution to every problem killing your opponent? If you see these questions, then Rajneeti won’t seem as impressive as it is made to be. Good story but probably not in the current context of things. Good acting but probably not the real world scenarios.

The movie is good or made out to be good? Only you can watch and tell. But its definitely worth watching once. If for nothing else, go and watch it to see Mahabharata brought onto the screen for the first time in a stylized vision.