Producer: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Cast: Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, Waheeda Rehman, Om Puri, Anupam Kher, Kirron Kher, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan
Music: A.R.Rehman

You’ve already heard about ‘Rang De Basanti’, isn’t it! Some prior information about such anticipated film adds to more excitement that’s true. It is a film about five friends, has the big star Aamir Khan, directed by the unusual Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, has good music, deals with patriotic issues and is more about the youth of the country. Where this pile of information ends, ‘Rang De Basanti’ begins. Simply engrossing you all the way!

Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra made ‘Aks’ and he makes ‘Rang De Basanti’. He attempts to go through films like ‘Prahar’, ‘Lakshya’ and ‘Yuva’ bringing all the ingredients to his film about youth fervor and yet keeping it untouched by anything. He enlivens the periodic era and the patriotism lied deep in our heart in the contemporary times. And he succeeds in merging and linking both the times, creating an impact that is soul awakening. 

This is not a patriotic film, neither about youths screaming their heart out against the system, with characters talking bold, but it is a merge of all this and more on a very entertaining base.  It is a story about Punjabi at heart Daljeet Singh a.k.a DJ (Aamir Khan), the rich guy Karan (Siddharth Narayan), livewire Sukhi (Sharman Joshi), chirpy Sonia (Soha Ali), the philosophic Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) and the just Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) who come across Sue (Alice Payton) a British girl interested in making a film on Indian patriots after hearing many stories from her jailer grandfather McKinsey who has served in Indian police force during the time of Indian independence. 

As the film beings you come face to face with the pre-independence era read out from the diaries of McKinsey. Sue feels inspiration running down her veins and decides to shoot a documentary called ‘Young Guns of India’. She lands in Delhi and comes across Sonia and the rest of the guys. She shares with them her zeal of making a film. After that the screenplay continues to weave and web many interesting situations on leading to other. Three separate stories unfold at the same time but in an interesting manner. Stories of Bismil, Azad and Chandrashekhar start flashing and also running parallel to the youth of the age. Pandey also insists that the concern of India and world are the same implying the policies of Hindutva and also lending a political angle to the film, but not seeking power and money against it. Sue is an observer of all, of the past and present.

The director is to be applauded for the technique he has used in making the past and present intermingle and yet making them seem so much well used.  Prasoon Joshi cast the effect of youthfulness through the well-written dialogues that sounds young and yet has a lot of impact. They’re absolutely in sync with the metro-youth of today. Even the music by AR Rahman ignites the much-desired effect of portraying the youth and also befits the screenplay.

Everything about the film is so contemporary and yet it bears reference of the patriots without sounding too preachy.  The narration neither lags or loses momentum nor speed up. The story unfolds one scene after another keeping the interest going.  Aamir Khan puts up his best self as usual and you can catch him doing it remarkably well. Kunal has a significant role and does well in his given territory. Atul Kulkarni is a powerhouse while Soha looks as insipid as always. Siddharth and Alice also stand out with their performance. It’s not that only Aamir Khan is highlighted, but all get their due respect in the film. 

The hype, the advance booking, the promotion, the multiplexes have already announced RDB as a clear chit winner and thus distributors UTV have no worry to fall back to. They can be rest assured that they’ll be laughing their way to the bank!