Range De Basanti starring Amir Khan, Alice Patten, Madhavan, Soha Ali Khan, Siddharth, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni is a movie, which evokes the patriotic spirit in us. A movie dedicated to the Great Freedom Fighters of India, who have fought their lives to give us the “Freedom India”.
The movie has all the ingredients required to make it a commercial hit. The biggest of one being the star-cast. With Amir Khan in the lead, the director has not failed to utilize his acting talents and his comic senses and with all his vitality exhibited right from the start till the end, the movie has been justified as a typical Amir Khan movie. Another saving grace of the movie is the youthfulness of the characters (despite age showing up on Amir Khan face), their frivolous attitude and innocence, which adds more light to the narration and characterization.
Sue (Alice Patten), a foreigner, is inspired to make a documentary on Indian Freedom Fighters, comes to India to make her dream come true, after reading her Grandpa’s Diary and his encounters with the great fighters like Bhagat Singh, Azad etc, while he was serving the British during their regime in India.
Sue seeks the help of Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) for her venture and through her gets introduced to her four friends, D.J (Amir Khan), Karan (Siddharath), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Suki (Sharman Joshi), Whom Sue feels fit best for the characters of her documentary. Ajay Rathod (Madhavan) the lover of Sonia is a pilot and the only one in the gang who has some patriotic feelings and feels it’s one’s duty and responsibility to serve the nation and keeps emphasizing about serving the country to the gang. All the other guys have totally different life styles, priorities and virtues, far different and unmatched with the characters of the free-fighters portrayed by Sue and. For them, patriotism is something very alien. They are the carefree guys of today’s generation and have no responsibility towards their nation, whatsoever. Initially they show no interest to get involved into the movie and into their characters and make fun of everything about the movie. But things take a turn, and they actually start to realize the importance of those leaders and their sacrifices to this country once they start acting in the documentary. Gradually they start to see in them, what they have not seen so far – the spirit of Patriotism. The scenes of their enacting as the patriotic heroes are juxtaposed against the scenes of their current life of fun and frolic and at one point the past and the present merges. The death of Madhavan in an air crash and the manipulation done by the defense minister to cover-up his mistakes thus making Madhavan’s death a result of lack of his ability turns the table upside down and becomes the eye-opener for the boys to realize their responsibilities towards bringing out the justice from the dark. The cinematic characters that they enact become real within them and they take drastic steps to bring out justice for the death of their dear friend towards the climax.
Amir Khan as D.J. is full of life and fun. He plays a boy of Punjabi origin, and his mother played by Kiran Kher, has suited herself best in her role. The mother-son confrontations and dialogues look very natural and bring out good humor. Amir Khan has made the audience roar with laughter’s at many scenes with his spontaneous humor particularly when he introduces Sue to his mother as her would be daughter-in-law without realizing she understands Hindi and his subsequent reaction when he sees her talking fluent Hindi. This movie is one more feather to his cap of his outstanding performance. Amir has proved himself once again as a potential actor.
Siddharath (Of Boys fame) as Karan is a silent boy (of the gang) and suffers a strained relationship with his father (Anupem Kher) and who wants to leave the country for his higher studies. Siddharath has shown more maturity and has exposed his acting talents impressively in this movie, particularly towards the climax scene he is the one who actually steals the show. He makes an impression about himself in the minds of the audience. He deserves a pat for his performance.
Kunal Kapoor as Aslam, the handsome guy of the four, has exhibited good acting. He plays a role of Muslim belonging to a very conservative family disliking his acquaintance with Amir and his gang due to their nepotism for racism, but who rebels with his family and sees religion at a different angle.
Sharman Joshi as Suki is very lively in nature and brings out the best of humor next to Amir Khan. He does not have much of serious act in the movie. Wherever he is present in the movie, audiences are not deprived of good laugh.
Soha Ali Khan as Sonia looks stunning throughout the movie. She seems to do everything fine except acting. Just few scenes of jokes, teasing the boys, dancing a bit and romancing with Madhavan alone doesn’t prove her acting potential. In the scenes where she is supposed to elicit sorrows, she miserably fails, particularly when she hears of Madhavan’s death. She could have emoted better. Except her looks and sketch, she doesn’t seem to impress any other way.
Madhavan as Ajay has understood his role and done justification to that, though he is seen only for very few scenes in the movie. He is very impressive.
Alice Patten as Sue has shown some good acting. Her Hindi fluency does not suite her face and seems little out of place.
Though there are many positive elements to make this movie more interesting, one cannot ponder over the prominent flaws, which the director has not taken care to address. The movie for most of its part toggles between the contemporary India and the modern India. When showing the incidents from the past, there is no coherence between the scenes. It looks like bits and pieces of each freedom fighter life has been attached with the story, without evidently reasoning out their cause to fight against the British, because of which the complete history of their vital role for the freedom movement is not clearly understood. The most unacceptable and unrealistic aspect of the movie is the climax, which destroys the charm and the impression of the movie all-together.
The youths at the prime age of their lives, loosing their life just to bring justice to the dead man (Madhavan) is too far-fetched practicality. An act of killing the defense minister also makes no sense in the movie, one really tend to ask, if killing the unjust is the only solution to bring justice, wouldn't it would bring out more violence in the real life than what exist now? Karan killing his own father is too much of unreality to bear. These kinds of big leaks in the story, makes the movie realistically unacceptable and collapses the naturalness carried in the story from the beginning. The end could have been conceived little different and more pragmatic, without so much of bloodshed. However one has to appreciate the comic sense of the heroes even at the time of their deaths, which adds up to their performance and make us remorse for their deaths even after the movie is over.
Rang De Basanti is surely a movie, coloring the patriotic spirit in us.
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