RAAJNEETI
Director: Prakash Jha

Starring: Ajay Devgan, Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai


Well Machiavelli and Mario Puzo might never have heard of Mahabharata, but here they all mingle in an incoherent, clumsy and half -baked tale of political fervour and family feuds, which becomes feverishly excessive yet never actually achieves that singular moment of frenzy, where you can rise above superficial and fake sentimentality.

Election fever and an empty plot based on GODFATHER, KALYUG, and MAHABHARATA, reigns in this epic family tale of Indian politics, starring a plethora of stars in an overcrowded script riddled with potholes and plot deficits, and even poorer characterisations as the director struggles to give it a false sense of persuasive energy but all fall shorts, despite some potential which betrays sporadically through the screen anecdotes in minor trivia, which is rather pathetic as this could have been a quality venture if the script had more meat and the characters had some of that meat to eat.


Bhasker Sanyal (Naseeruddin Shah) is totally inept and wasted as a left wing firebrand who pays for a love affair by a self imposed exile.

Sooraj (Ajay Devgan) is the angry poor man stereotype who will stop at nothing to damage the rich and powerful and he too is wasted as the scowling middle aged man pretending to be a young fire-brand revolutionary, while the best sequence in the movie where drama should deliver is wasted in total frustration in a clueless confrontation between him and his repentant rich powerful mother in sheer melodramatic faux pas.

Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar)is a mentor for one of the rival political families who comprise the two feuding political giants who will run India in future, depending on who plays the best ploys, ranging from assassinations to bombings to framed rape charges against the feuding opponents who are all cousins and brothers but seem to have nothing else but time for planning political conspiracy and anarchy,which also describes this rather mediocre version of ''Copolla's Godfather'' guised as a political yarn.

Prithvi Pratap (Arjun Rampal) is actually quite good as the cousin who holds the top position, but is betrayed by Veerendra Pratap (Manoj Bajpai), the other cousin who will stop at nothing to claw his way back to the top, and in the process Bajpai brilliantly steals the entire movie single handedly, from under the noses of everyone else as the evil lonely man who seems to be the only real politician in this medley.

Indu Sakseria (Katrina Kaif) is the so-called rich, beautiful and tragic woman caught in the middle of these men who is lost both in the script and as an actress, since she has nothing to do except switch lovers like a game of musical chairs, she rises from one fake tragedy to challenge every contender and it becomes even more of a fracas than all the rest of the frenzy.

Sarah Jean Collins (Sarah Thompson) is playing an Irish girl in love with the Indian cousin who is the mastermind in this ridiculous riddle and she cannot act and is strictly there for a few kissing scenes and is the weakest link in the cast.

And Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) is the ultimate Machiavelli, a bespectacled political master of the MACHIAVELLIAN craft ,worthy of Rasputin himself who is both moral and evil incarnate ,and a genius who is the most unconvincing character and his relationships with the two women actually elicit inadvertent laughter and snide remarks from the audience ,as he goes jogging in a scene in the middle of this violent massacre and than decides to take a shower with Sarah in the buff, and is totally beaten hollow by both Arjun rampal and Manoj Bajpai in the movie.

MR. JAHA, is a wonderful craftsman but here he has too many cooks and they spoil or ruin this broth, with no one to focus this vision of a political tirade, overwhelmed by a plot borrowed from renowned classic sources and also spoilt by some totally inane lines in major key sequences which ruin the dramatic affect, yet he succeeds in at least creating a ponderous and pensive atmosphere where the violence and tragedy at times engages your attention.

He keeps the pace going and that is one of the few qualities here with the cinematography as well as the fact the script is only interrupted by one short rude song briefly in a disco, otherwise this is a turbulent ,inconsistent and rather pointless remake of previous classics, which fails to deliver the hype created by the production design or an all star cast ,which are both much bigger than the innocuously void characters and the trite violence which seems injected artificially rather than being a part of the political thriller, with a finger in every pot.

It is far better than both ''KITES'' and ''MY NAME IS KHAN '', both equally hyped and pretentiously ludicrous Bollywood epics, but it leaves a lot to be desired and that is an understatement, and much of the credit for that goes to ''Manoj Bajpai ''and ''Arjun Rampal’’,who have given convincing performances, despite ill defined characters which needed to be developed but got lost in the crowd that is both '' India and Bollywood ''itself.

The movie can be seen once as it grips you at times but it does not convince you ever, and that is one thing Mr. Jaha has never been guilty of before this epic multi-starrer in past with his middle of the road but intelligent cinema.

Plusses: Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal, Direction, Cinematography, Production, Atmosphere.

Minuses: Story and screenplay borrowed from “GODFATHER”, Sarah, Ranbir and Katrina Kaif.