Rajneeti is an intelligent adaptation of the famed Indian text Mahabharata.
Having said that without doubt Rajneeti is the best film of 2010, so far; though I won’t say writing is brilliant but it is intelligent, given the complex structure of the story.
At the core of the story are two rivals Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) and Virendra (Manoj Bajpayee), they are first-cousins. The protagonist Samar (Ranbir Kapoor), younger brother of Prithvi, gets sucked into the murky world of politics owing to the brutal killing of his father, CM aspirant Chandra Pratap Singh.
How Samar avenges the wrong-doings of Virendra to his family with the help of Krishna in the story, aptly called, Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar) forms the narrative.
Rajneeti is not an easy film to handle and Prakash Jha does loose a grip on the plot here and there in the second half; but the way he handles the climax and redeems the story’s protagonist Samar, even his act of cold-blooded killing of Karna like, Suraj (Ajay Devgn); speaks of his directorial abilities.
Again, it is only Prakash Jha’s deft handling that women sparkle in this male-centric film. Be it Katrina Kaif or Sarah Thompson or even the modern day Kunti played brilliantly by Nikhila Trikha; Jha uses simple languid shots to establish each one’s character.
Rajneeti might fit into the genre that RGV’s Sarkar introduced and yes, when compared to Sarkar, Rajneeti pales in comparision; but Rajneeti has one thing going for it Ranbir Kapoor.
It requires lots of experience as an actor and maturity to come up with such a perfornace in an ill-baked role; yes Samar’s character is ill-baked.
The turn-around in character’s motivation from a normal guy to a calculative and conniving politician, to take on a wily Indian politician, is not very well explained. However, Ranbir covers up this folly with his brilliant act.
What rocks the movie:
Ranbir Kapoor, as also the performances of Nana Patekar and Manoj Vajpayee
Prakash Jha’s directorial compositions
The narrative that has a lot of movement packed in to take the story forward
What chucks the movie:
A stray club-song out of the blue with Katrina and Ranbir
Verdict
Rajneeti is a film that is worth watching, if not for anything else, just for Ranbir Kapoor’s award-winning act.