Deception was never this attractive; ugliness was never this beautiful and politics was never this charming before. Prakash Jha's "Raajneeti" is as perfect as a movie can be . In every movie there are three basic ingredients, which blend together to give an overall impact; The Direction, The script and the Performances...and Rajneeti exhibits how these ingredients should be mixed up. A brillinat script supported by immabulate perfromances under a direction which never looses its hold on the narrative for a single moment.
With a long run time of 3 hours, and a subject as dry as politics, it could well lead up to a dragging affair with possibilities of boredome...but this actually turns out to be the best part in favor of the movie. Every time one feels like the story might get dragged onwards... something happens which re-captures the viewer's attention. Such is the strength of script and such are the performances that even after three hours, you long for the movie to keep on running.
Each and every character is immaculately defined and portrayed. The balnace between these characters is perfect and you never feel that one of them is being over-shaded by the others. Considering the fact that there were so many characters in the movie...this is a huge acheivement on the part of script writers.
Dialogues are superb...tough and hard hitting and at the same time making a lot of sense. There is not a single dull moment in the movie. everyone gets to speak brilliant doalogues and deliver respective best performances of his / her career.
As far as performances are concerned...you can not single out one of them over the other. Each and every one has given the best he / she could under commendable direction of Prakash Jha. Even then the best of the best were from Minoj Bajpayee, Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampaal and Ajay Devgan. Minoj acts his role with perfection and makes you believe that no one else could've played it with more authenticity. Ranbir spins in a perfectly restrained performance and raises his bar as far as talent is concerned (simply outstanding). Arjun Rampaal turns out to be the biggest surprise of the enterprise. One has to applaude this actor who was once considered to have wooden expressions...Man he is too good. And as ever Ajay Devgan delivers another knock-out performance; his expressions and delivery is spot-on. Katrina Kaif is another pleasent surprise...she gets the best role of her carear and delivers way beyond her earlier work. Nana Patekar also sinks himself in the role. Even the supporting cast is too good. You can not ask for more from these actors...simply brilliant.
I have alwyas liked Prakash Jha's work, but this is without any doubt his best work to date.
The intital 20 odd minutes might be confusing a bit to grasp all the characters and their relations with each other. But after that, its a never-ending journey of surprises and shocks. The movie is loaded with scenes which can be considered gems...there are a plenty of them.
Overall, Raajneeti lives even higher than its huge hype and does full justice to those who kept on waiting for it to arrive. At least I couldn;t have asked for a better end-product.
Politics might be a dirty world, but this stroy about politics is a supreme work of art. Drenched with high quality in each and every department, Raajneeti is a must watch. Not to be missed at all.