Luckily i was able to catch the last show of Raajneeti in my city , yes i has already heard all the reviews and part of the stories link up to mahabharatha . So with intense optimism i set off to view Prakash Jha's Rajneeti .
Five minutes into the movie ...i thought this would be another Sarkar or a Phool where political drama and tension would be at the heighest. But the problem u face when watching a movie like rajneeti u torn between keeping track of its resemblence with mahabhartha or the story of the ghandhi clan. On one side you have all the main characters of mahabhartha being flawlessly been scripted into the movie with Ranbir kappor as the good Samaritan in the role of arjuna and ever wise and subtle nana patekar performing the role of Krishna with immaculate percision and the ever greedy and foolhardy Duryodhanan played by manoj vajpayee and the Dalit orphan played by ajaydevagan as karnan .While am still stuck figuring who i should attribute the role of arjun rampal to either yudhistaran or bheeman as he fits neither . All the other charcters are there Kunti, the caniving uncle shakuni and katrina kaif as an unconvincing draupadhi. In midst of all this drama comes the story of the Ghandhi clan which is sutured into the plot . We have politics of the post indira period the congress party split , Rajiv's forced entry into politics, the arrival of sonia , death of sanjay and for a moment your confused whether katrina is either Sonia or maneka at a point.
Too much for your head to handle, this is exactly Rajneeti's achilles heel it promises one thing delivers another . Yet it still has its moments where you truly enjoy the movie especially the role played by nana patekars krishna ever modest and noble yet poised for his unending thrive for justice by any means . Ranbir kapoor lacks emotion in certain scenes and your unable to connect with him and Prakash ja's take on each of their personal lives ends up being a soap opera of feelings which none in audience can be moved to. Even as major characters die without any valid and plausible reason theres no remarkble event that makes you feel for the sacrifies the ghandi clan has made for this country . Yet in all these flaws we find that the movie is saved by the concept with which it is made - a retelling of mahabharta with indian political history. Its like that saying "with great power comes great responsibilty" similarly prakash ja has not lived to his own great idea. Go watch the movie with an analytical mind and you might just enjoy it, try and connect the dots and you will see the great message this movie has to offer
With that i give Prakash ja's rajneeti 3/5 for a brilliant concept being uncannily put into movies. It's like an uncut diamond which has got lot of polishing to be done.
