Masand's Verdict: Rang De Basanti

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

26/11: Terror comes precariously close

Featured Slideshows

RANG DE BASANTI

Starring: Aamir Khan, R Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, Kunal Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Sidharth and Soha Ali Khan

Director: Rakeysh Mehra

Every once in a while comes a film that makes you question your indifference towards everything that's going on around you. That makes you feel almost ashamed for being unconcerned about the state of affairs in your nation. A film that inspires you to wake up and react. To raise your voice, or to put your foot down.

You don't see such films in India very often. To be honest, you don't see too many films that stay with you half an hour after you've left the movie hall. And that's why when a film like Rang De Basanti comes along, you stand up and cheer.

Rang De Basanti is the story of a group of young friends in Delhi, who spend the most part of their lives laughing and joking, drinking beer and chilling out.

When they're urged by a British documentary filmmaker to act in her film about the Indian revolutionaries, their lives change forever.

What they may have until then regarded as outdated, stuffy, text-book values eventually begin to assume greater relevance in their lives.

In the end, the line between past and present blurs as our protagonists become one in spirit with the revolutionaries that they set out portraying.

Right away what appeals to you about director Rakeysh Mehra's new film is the fact that it so accurately captures the spirit and mood of the current generation.

The jokes are not forced, the emotions aren't cheated. This is the real stuff.