One of the most awaited films this year, due mostly to the director and the stellar star cast, Raajneeti carried a lot of expectations on its shoulders. But here we are let down first and foremost by the director himself. Prakash Jha deals with too many characters in this film and in the end it turned out to be a disadvantage for him and the film. I felt a few characters should have been developed more. Ranbir Kapoor’s and Manoj Bajpai’s character were among the very well written ones. Ajay Devgn’s character too had “dome” motive in the start, but in the second half even his actions were not well justified. Katrina Kaif was hardly even there in the first half.
The major problem of Raajneeti is the scripting; Jha gave more preference to how to bring in Mahabharata in the film than to concentrating on the current politics, which should have been the main plot. The elements and characters of Mahabharata should have been add-ons. He was concentrating more on the character of Dhrithrashtra who was a less important character in Mahabharata, at least if we are only using elements of Mahabharata in a different story to tell. And Raajneeti wasn’t staying so true to Mahabharata that it should have characters like Dhrithrashtra when there are only 2 Pandavas and Dhrithrashtra has only one son.
The film turns into an unintentional comedy because of all these extra doses of Mahabharata going on and a few more scenes of poor writing. Katrina Kaif saying “I love you” to Arjun Rampal and when Ranbir/Arjun’s mother tries to tell Ajay Devgn that she is his real mother are laughable moments. And in a film which is supposed to connect with the youth, who uses words like ‘jaisth’ (meaning eldest) in the dialogs - “Tum mere jaisth putra ho.”
It also turns illogical sometimes, when you see a mother going to meet someone when she has just lost her son and hasn’t even performed the antim sanskar. The film really misses the word EMOTION. Everyone here including brother, sister, mother, father was more interested in politics than their personal relationship. It is true in politics, people are more concerned about winning and losing, but even a mother? I can’t take that. Katrina Kaif was married to Arjun Rampal because he was standing up for the post of chief minister. I don’t see why a father of a girl will sell her daughter to a person and give over 50 crores rupees as dowry; especially when her daughter is Katrina Kaif. And Katrina Kaif did not turn the match down, which again was unjustified. The script really needed more effort and even though the duration of the film was around 170 mins, it still was incomplete. Although after seeing how the things going in the film and emotional moments turning into hilarious scenes, I was happy it was left incomplete. It would haven difficult to take more.
The high points in the film were the characters who were all shown with some negativity except for the ladies in the film. Why such partiality Mr. Jha? But whether it was a Pandava or a Kaurava, they all had some negativity in them and were using wrong means to win the election. The highlight of these characters was the character of ‘Krishna’ (played by Nana Patekar). It was good to see Jha taking up the risk and showing the negative side of Krishna too.
The casting too deserves special points, though not the acting. The casting deserves special points as the actors were chosen in such a way that they can easily be related to real politicians. But though some non-actors did try their best to act, they still did not come up with convincing performances. Ranbir Kapoor and Nana Patekar played their parts very well. Manoj Bajpai was good too, but after seeing him perform in Shool and Satya, it must not have been difficult for him. For most part of the film, he was only shouting. Ajay Devgn wasn’t making much of an effort in his acting in this film. The character suited him and he could have played it even while sleeping.
Though we see a good amount of effort been put up in this film, the film still demanded a lot more. It looked like Prakash Jha got strained and gave up after sometime and completed it just for the sake of the efforts he put into it. The film could have been much better, but sadly it disappoints.
