AARAKSHAN

‘Aarakshan’ was a burning issue in India just 4-5 years back. Prakash Jha comes up with the film supposed to revolve around the same conflict. But 5 minutes into the film pops up a romantic number between Saif and Deepika. True that the songs are used as a device in Indian cinema to enhance an emotion. But the emotion over here is a sub plot to the main premise of the film and gets established clearly in scenes before. 10 minutes later pops up one more song and then 10 minutes later probably the most bearable song. Had it been a masala entertainer it wouldn’t have pricked me but over here the flow of the script was compromised.

As the first half unfolds and characters and plots are established you can’t help but feel that the screenplay is a little disjoint. Too slow at places and to rushed at some other. In short it doesn’t gel. So we have a man Mr Prabhakar (Amitabh Bachchan) the Principal of STM with his philosophy of a just chance to every student without looking at his cast. Then there is Deepak Kumar who through the film is rubbed the wrong way by people constantly trying to remind him that he is a lower cast. Then there are elements is college trust and netas who want the institute to mint money and make education a business and then there is Mithilesh Singh (Manoj Bajpai) who is a shrewd greedy coaching class teacher who squeezes the last penny out of the students pockets in the name of KK coaching classes. So when the legislation of reservation is passed there is a lot of unrest with people being made to stand either for or against reservation. Taking advantage of all this like a politician would do Mr Prabhakar is made to resign as a Principal and Mithilesh Singh is appointed.

Come the second half sans too many songs is much more fluent. The focus of the film is not lost. Though now Aarakshan (Reservation) issue is lost and it becomes a battle of principles of Prabhakar versus the immoral deeds of Mithilesh. And then the film reaches a subsequent climax.

Coming to the performances, Amitabh Bachchan has the best role and obviously he enacts it brilliantly. In some scenes he is terrific. But now that is expected, just like a century is expected from Sachin Tendulkar everytime he takes guard. Saif Ali Khan doesn’t look right for his role but portrays it with utmost conviction and does a good job. Deepika is good. Prateik is ill at ease with both the language and the character. He doesn’t convince as (Sushant). Yashpal Sharma, Saurabh Shukla, Darshan Jariwala, Chetan Pandit , Vinay Apte do really well but the person who steals the show is once again Manoj Bajpayee. You hate him everytime he is on screen. His is the most memorable performance of the film. Others in smaller parts do well.

Somehow the entire tone of the film doesn’t work. It appears to bright and at a lot of places shots are soft focus. Editing is also lacklusture. Songs don’t add to the film in terms of choreography also.

Overall doesn’t deliver the expected output