Raajneeti (2010)

Genre: Crime/Drama

Starring: Manoj Bajpai, Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan, Sarah Thompson Kane

Dont go by the above poster as its highly misleading. Naseeruddin Shah has a role smaller than Ranbir Kapoor's chauffeur and no, the story is not based on the life and lies of Sonia Gandhi as many speculate it to be. In fact, the movie is more of a modern day adaptation of Mahabharat, infusing the characters of the Gandhi family. The Pratap family is sitting on the throne of India's largest political party, yet there is turmoil within. Veerendra Pratap (Bajpai) and Prithviraj Pratap (Rampal) are first cousins but are having a war of words when Veerendra's father chooses Prithviraj's father to lead the party instead of Veerendra himself. With the elections drawing close, each of the brothers want their own sidekicks to be filed as constituent nominees, leaving the party leaders in a fix. Prithviraj's younger brother, Samar (Kapoor) has recently returned from USA and is least bothered about politics but the assassination of his father sparks a deadly anger within him and he seeks revenge. Suraj Kumar (Devgan) is a popular local youth leader representing the backward cast who wants to fight for the upcoming elections. He joins hands with Veerendra and together, they swear to overthrow Samar and Prithviraj and lead the new government in India. In the midst of this lust for power and money, Indu (Kaif) who has a long-time crush on Samar, is compromised and is made to marry Prithviraj simply as a business-political deal. It is a sad fact of Bollywood movies that no matter how contemporary the director tries to make the movie, some very fundamental elements of Bollywood manages to seep in and ruin it. Long run-time, irrelevant songs, over-done melodrama and the typical dialogues ruin an otherwise good show. The movie consists of a fine star cast and most of them deliver up to the mark. Manoj Bajpai does exceptionally well and Katrina Kaif is exceptionally horrible. She can neither act nor speak proper Hindi and is simply a marketing eye-candy for the audience. I wonder why she even tries. The movie would have probably been better had the duration been shorter and it was made closer to the real-life events of the Gandhi's, something which we all know cannot happen in democratic India.

Thumbs up: Manoj Bajpai and most of the remaining cast

Thumbs down: Katrina Kaif and the lengthy plot

Rating: 5.9/10