Sukhi (Sarman Joshi) was good in the movie Style.
By the way, he is son-in-law of Prem Chopra.

yes! now I remember but I thought he was one of freak in Shadi No ONE!! too?

Finally Finally saw it (lets just say I am in a filmic drought!) - As a film I liked it, but masterpiece I shall not call it **yet **. I was moved initially but after thinking it through I knew something was amiss ..., something did not feel right - even with all the "rebellion" it was too chocolaty for me - not able to completely express what was missing I stopped short of posting my "review" here. Then I chanced upon this article which probably hints at some of the things I have been thinking about the film - I guess as usual take it with a grain of salt.



http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/03/12/sto ... 430400.htm



N the eyes of many young people, who have transferred their vote from the parliamentary system to the sms poll, politics is a blood sport. One played by frenzied talk-show hosts, spycam-wielding sting operators, corrupt public figures, and signature-campaigners. Can you make a political film for such a generation of urban youth, which had had no campus radicalisation, is largely disconnected from the public sphere by private aspirations, and derives its ideas about politics from television?

Improbable relationship

Contemporary Hindi cinema proposes an answer in the form of "Rang De Basanti", an account of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's visit to Mars. Or some other location that bears an improbable relationship to contemporary India, where a group of likeable but confused young men who swing between aimless hedonism and cynical nihilism are galvanised into a task force. This dramatic change is provoked, not by recognition of systemic injustice in the society they complain about constantly, but by a sense of private wrong. When their friend, an Indian Air Force pilot, dies in a crash, the accident is papered over to conceal the shady issue of aircraft maintenance. Catalysed by the Defence Minister's insinuations about their friend, and the repression of a peaceful protest, the pleasure-seekers cease floating among picturesque ruins and become conspirators. With no training in militancy, they defy such security impedimenta as patrols and roadblocks, shooting down the minister as he takes his morning constitutional and escaping with dreamlike ease.

Vengeance attained, they fight their way into a radio station, claim responsibility for the assassination, and condemn the corrupt and callous State. At this point, a glaring gulf opens up between the domain of the sms poll and the realm of real politics. The Rapid Action Force is deployed within minutes of the broadcast: the young revolutionaries are shot down in the act of addressing the people.

What dynamises these students, and the young woman who is their sheet anchor and reality check? They have been playing the roles of Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their revolutionary comrades in a film being shot by a young British filmmaker. Mehra deploys a parallel narrative to switch between a postcolonial Now and a turbulent colonial past. Despite this heavy-handed referencing of India's revolutionary tradition, "RDB" is far from being the politically vibrant film some reviewers believe it to be.

True, Mehra demonstrates the continuity linking the supposedly humane postcolonial state with its authoritarian colonial predecessor with unusual force. True, also, that he uses his fine ensemble cast to stir urban India's youth out of the privatism that enwraps them, and towards the awareness of larger accountabilities. Despite these advantages, "RDB" fails in its understanding of the political condition and of revolutionary action. Revolution may be provoked by an experience of personal injustice, but it always speaks for the multitudes. "RDB's" protagonists generalise about Indian society, but the heightening of their consciousness scarcely transcends the personal wrong they have suffered. Their perception of the postcolonial State's injustice against the greatest number remains shadowy. Urgent questions of religious unease and ethnic marginalisation are raised, but left swaddled in personal experience, instead of being amplified into an interrogation of official myths and public silences. We would have expected a finer effort from the director of the brilliantly moody, psychologically compelling "Aks" (2001).

No amount of cinematic wizardry can bridge the vast difference between the heroes of India's revolutionary tradition and "RDB's" protagonists. Simply put, men like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad saw themselves as the vanguard of a popular, mass-based uprising, rather than as solo performers. While the futile and newfound kamikaze idealism of "RDB's" protagonists leads nowhere, Singh and Azad's symbolic violence was continuous with a strategy of revolutionary activity articulated in speech, writing, non-violent mobilisation and violent resistance. Colonial India's revolutionaries were anchored in a passionately constructive engagement with Indian society, in the belief that politics is a potentially redemptive and transformative practice. Above all, revolutionaries like Bhagat and Azad were not motivated by the abstract idea of a nation; they were driven by the desire to change the life of an oppressed people. By contrast, "RDB" translates political activity as a variant on the classical revenge drama.

A recent trend

"RDB" is the latest in a lineage of recent films that have attempted to address the intertwined themes of youth, disenchantment and rebellion. Sudhir Mishra's "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" (2005) takes the Naxalite turbulence for its backdrop; despite its muddled conflation of different moments in the 1967-1979 period, it recognises that far-left radicalism degenerated into a muddied involvement with the local micro-physics of caste and region. With its three interlocking narratives, Mani Ratnam's "Yuva" (2004) charts the possibilities of a mass-based mobilisation, one orientated towards changes within parliamentary democracy rather than towards an uprising. Govind Nihalani's "Dev" (2004) and Khalid Mohamed's "Fiza" (2000) explore, from different entry-points, the manner in which persistent majoritarian injustice, through the devices of pogrom and stigmatisation, pushes young Muslims towards militancy.

At their best, these films bear witness to the young who have, in every generation, given their lives (or wasted them, depending on your viewpoint) for causes such as liberation, justice, dignity and happiness. It is in making too many concessions to their audience that these films fail. Contemporary Hindi cinema has yet to invent a cinematic narrative that can carry the freight of the political without camouflaging it beneath romance, spectacle, melodrama or the trappings of youth culture.

thats what I said!! precisely!! It is good in these days junk, no doubt!! But lacks honest emotional engrossment!!! just feels, too, mushy at times, too over indulgent at others, superficial at others!! that explains my rating of 8/10

Ranjut Hoskote almost nails it, and had I read this article the day I saw the film, I would have otherwise completely agreed with him. And I still think that RDB pales in a macro-political consideration of its consciousness. However, and after much realization, I wouldn't scrutinize RDB as heavey-headed the way he does, in my opinion, he overlooks RDBs boundless conclusion that transcends it's narrative from something other than a preachy political slogan. Rakesh Mehra turns the film into a social act with it's audience, and after much contemplation with myself, the film's melodrama is very much real, it isn't the slightest bit overdone, it's conjunction with the present day intellectually-lazy-MTV-bopping is very accurate I would argue.

This line sums it up very nicely by the reviewer and that how exactly looked it when I watched the movie. It's definitely a must watch movie and I loved the way the story has been told and it oozes high productions quality. I thought Aks was very good and RDB from Rakesh Omprakash Mehra is as good if not improving the movie watching experience. He is definitely a film maker to watch out for.



I think Black Friday that did very well.

Ali

By IndiaFM News Bureau, April 28, 2006 - 04:49 IST

UTV’s Rang De Basanti has managed to break all the success records of films from the recent past. And the producers were so ecstatic that they released an ad stating that the film was the second highest grosser of the decade, the first being Zee’s Gadar-Ek Prem Katha. The ad in question was featured in two leading dailies.

This claim hasn’t gone too well with Karan Johar, Yash Chopra and Rakesh Roshan, the producers of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Bunty Aur Babli and Koi Mil Gaya, respectively. They have taken offence at their films being named in a bad light. The ad claimed that Rang De Basanti had broken records of the above films.

UTV’s Ronnie Screwvala has apparently apologized to Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar. He said that his intentions were not to bring down the other films, but just to showcase the success of their film.

However, Karan Johar said that he has not got any apology. Rakesh Roshan, the producer of Koi Mil Gaya too was quite upset. According to him, UTV was not aware of the box office collections of his films. There have been whispers that Karan Johar and Yash Chopra are planning to take legal action. Nothing has been confirmed on that front. Rakesh Roshan was not planning to go to court, since he is busy with the post-production work of his next film, Krrish.



http://www.indiafm.com/news/2006/04/28/7046/



Can't these moronic delinquates for once stop thinking about themselves. I hope each and everyone these assholes get their buttocks rated by the Income Tax Authority and rott in hell in a poor home.

the rdb makers have every right to advertise their large collections… but to do so and then underreport the figures of other films in comparison seems pretty low on their part. I am not surprised that chopra and the others are upset

They have not "under reported" the figures of the other films. The figures used in the advertisments are the widely reported figures in trade journals. Now if Karan Johar, Yash Chopra & Rakesh Roshan have under reported the figures of their respective films, for cheating on their taxes, then that is their problem and not UTV.

I don't really agree with this. Rather, the film features an in-built audience reaction within itself, telling us exactly how to feel about what transpired during the film's second act. I don't really think it transcends anything - I felt patronized more often than not, and found the film's didactic, dumbed-down politics muddled. Even as a film, it doesn't work; the first act is a mix of tedious history lesson and frenzied musical montages. Character development is nil; Mehra expects us to read each figure as a mirror to their historical counterpart in the film-within-a-film (or is it really?).

I think the two reviews posted earlier in this thread strongly point out this film's numerous flaws. It has its heart in the right place I guess and has its few charms, but it didn't really work for me, either as a piece of cinema or a social/political essay. The success it has been enjoying (both critical and financial) is frustrating, although perhaps not surprising.

Philip Lutgendorf's piece on Rang De Basanti now finally up: http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/Rang%20de%20Basanti.html