What does it take to make a movie and make sure that the audience loves it? This is one of the most difficult questions faced by any movie maker. Raj Kumar Hirani seems to have found some pieces of this jigsaw puzzle right. He has made Munnabhai a household name and now 3 idiots is a blockbuster and Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad is on most of the college goers’ lips. So, I too decided to add to the revenues of the movie by sharing my hard earned money. I wasn’t disappointed. Well that doesn’t mean I was impressed. Somewhere in the middle should be much more appropriate a feeling just like those numerous surveys where they have 5 options (including: highly dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, satisfied and highly satisfied) I should say I am on the fence here.
This movie’s script was made using most of the things which your everyday e-mail forwards have. Somebody sat up reading all the mail forwards which software engineers get and made it into a script. All the director and the writer did was to come up with Bollywoodish twists and story and add the e-mail forwards content into that. Guess what, it was worked, as gullible as we are, this movie is a hit and every guy who has seen the movie has said that he/she liked it. But then, the other fare that gets churned out of Film factories is far worse than this.
What works are the performances and what works best is the idea of the movie. Chethan Bhagat brought to light the plight of India’s wannabe engineers in colleges a few years back. The frank, simple story laced with events in the college was a runaway hit as almost every youngster who read it found some part of his/ her life in the pages. So, when something on those lines goes on the screen, it works. The ragging sessions, the booze sessions, pranks on professors, it’s fun to watch all this and more on screen. What works best is the conviction that there is a possibility of change, a possibility that you need not be part of the rat race and still be successful and happy. It might look exaggerated to find a hardly studying, completely practical guy to gain some 500 patents and be one of the top scientists in the world while running a small school in Ladakh or for that matter the transformed Raju Rastogi to be inducted into a company because of his straight forwardness. In spite of all this, there is profound message and that is of the freedom of heart and one’s actions. Maybe we can succeed if we did pursue our passions and we did it with all our hearts, maybe we all cheated ourselves and joined the rat race but probably there is still salvation awaiting us if we can dip into our hardly used reservoirs of courage and fight it out, maybe we can get up everyday and feel fresh and raring to go and do our job rather than feel tired and unworthy at the end of the day. That’s the only message I could take back from the movie. Everything else pales into insignificance from the movie. I feel the same when I read Five Point Someone each time. I must appreciate the “3 idiots” and its makers for that.
Otherwise its all mayhem on screen like almost every character cries on screen. Now this has become a Raj Kumar Hirani staple, which has been used in Munnabhai too. It was good to watch it in the first Munnabhai but the second one seemed exaggerated and 3 idiots is no different. Everyone has tears almost at the drop of your hat. Seems to serial-ish. Its definitely difficult to digest Aamir khan, Sharmaan and Madhavan as the 3 idiots. That does not take away anything from the work they have done on their body language and efforts to look young enough for a college goer. Aamir has all the meat compared to the other 2 and does it with panache and energy. It’s wonderful how he is so very much “into” the character in all his movies. Boman Irani does another splendid job as the villain professor with a lisp. He is mind blowing, hardly any other actor can parallel him in today’s Bollywood. The other actor who takes the honors is Omi Vaidya, the bumbling Chatur Ramalingam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omi_Vaidya). He has some of the best lines in the movie and does it amazingly well. Kareena Tandon is a pain and is just there for one song to bare it all.
It was a bit sad to watch Madhavan not getting a bigger role as was expected.
This movie’s script was made using most of the things which your everyday e-mail forwards have. Somebody sat up reading all the mail forwards which software engineers get and made it into a script. All the director and the writer did was to come up with Bollywoodish twists and story and add the e-mail forwards content into that. Guess what, it was worked, as gullible as we are, this movie is a hit and every guy who has seen the movie has said that he/she liked it. But then, the other fare that gets churned out of Film factories is far worse than this.
What works are the performances and what works best is the idea of the movie. Chethan Bhagat brought to light the plight of India’s wannabe engineers in colleges a few years back. The frank, simple story laced with events in the college was a runaway hit as almost every youngster who read it found some part of his/ her life in the pages. So, when something on those lines goes on the screen, it works. The ragging sessions, the booze sessions, pranks on professors, it’s fun to watch all this and more on screen. What works best is the conviction that there is a possibility of change, a possibility that you need not be part of the rat race and still be successful and happy. It might look exaggerated to find a hardly studying, completely practical guy to gain some 500 patents and be one of the top scientists in the world while running a small school in Ladakh or for that matter the transformed Raju Rastogi to be inducted into a company because of his straight forwardness. In spite of all this, there is profound message and that is of the freedom of heart and one’s actions. Maybe we can succeed if we did pursue our passions and we did it with all our hearts, maybe we all cheated ourselves and joined the rat race but probably there is still salvation awaiting us if we can dip into our hardly used reservoirs of courage and fight it out, maybe we can get up everyday and feel fresh and raring to go and do our job rather than feel tired and unworthy at the end of the day. That’s the only message I could take back from the movie. Everything else pales into insignificance from the movie. I feel the same when I read Five Point Someone each time. I must appreciate the “3 idiots” and its makers for that.
Otherwise its all mayhem on screen like almost every character cries on screen. Now this has become a Raj Kumar Hirani staple, which has been used in Munnabhai too. It was good to watch it in the first Munnabhai but the second one seemed exaggerated and 3 idiots is no different. Everyone has tears almost at the drop of your hat. Seems to serial-ish. Its definitely difficult to digest Aamir khan, Sharmaan and Madhavan as the 3 idiots. That does not take away anything from the work they have done on their body language and efforts to look young enough for a college goer. Aamir has all the meat compared to the other 2 and does it with panache and energy. It’s wonderful how he is so very much “into” the character in all his movies. Boman Irani does another splendid job as the villain professor with a lisp. He is mind blowing, hardly any other actor can parallel him in today’s Bollywood. The other actor who takes the honors is Omi Vaidya, the bumbling Chatur Ramalingam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omi_Vaidya). He has some of the best lines in the movie and does it amazingly well. Kareena Tandon is a pain and is just there for one song to bare it all.
It was a bit sad to watch Madhavan not getting a bigger role as was expected.
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