Rang De Basanti

It's much better than a Shankar movie but not as good as what the hype would like me to believe. Whatever expectations i had evaporated in the first half, the biggest disappointment being ARR's background score [barring glimpses of brilliance like the title music], and Aamir Khan's over-the-top take of a typical Dilli da puttar. AK has to move beyond his eye-brow raising flirtatious routine.
The narrative. History repeats itself. Lives and characters are born again. The screenplay fuses flashbacks with jump-cuts to the present. Maybe the narrative can be seen as one of the pluses of the film. Though not necessarily bad it didn't strike a chord nor stir me up into attention. In many such transformation scenes, ARR's score was a let down.
While Aamir's characterization was realistic enough, i must say i began to get tired of his antics. And Sharman Joshi is plain irritating, with his role being reduced to a cliched caricature. Commercial elements, they would say. Sidharth comes, smokes, stares and goes. Underplayed? I would rather say, dull, conspicuous trying to be inconspicuous. Alice Patten's and Toby Steven's roles in Mangal Pandey look similar to me. She and Soha Ali Khan are cast aptly, IMO. Atul Kulkarni and Kunal Kohli fare much better, being restrained and expressive,as the scene demands. One sees unmistakable shades of Hey Ram's Shriram Abhyankar in Kulkarni.
The second half is definitely the better half, though the Hollywood-like "feel good" syndrome makes its presence felt now and then. Making wisecracks, laughing and singing whilst death is staring is ok as long as the undercurrent of tension, fear or plain shock is maintained [yes, subtly!] in the characters. Laughing, after being hit by machine-gun fire is not only exasperatingly cliched, it represents what i think is the worst of Hollywood. "Feel good" makes me feel bad. Why is Bollywood ashamed of our locales? Why is it always about trendy clothing, swanky bars, and the works? Or am i letting bias get in the way of better judgement once too often?
Thematically, this movie screams home an important point - don't hide behind blame games or fancy words like patriotism if you aren't willing to be part of it and get your hands dirty. Shankar, for all your attempts till now, there is one movie which conveys what you have wanted, want and will keep wanting to convey. It does it better than you do. nothing more, nothing less. More than that, the chosen vehicle is what i agreed with most in the movie - The state machinery and its role in crushing rightful dissent and suppressing questions*. The terrorist "twist" was the highlight of the movie for me. I have very strong and politically incorrect views on the subject and hence i "O puttufy" for Rang De Basanti on this one!

* There was this film by Bharathiraaja called "En Uyir Thozhan", starring Delhi Babu [who is now sadly, bed-ridden] which talks about the betrayal of a loyal party worker who virtually worships his party. The film is about how he and the people awake. A very good movie, in its own way, and not surprisingly it bombed at the BO.