GOING STUDY!
Rajkumar Hirani’s assault on our apathetic education system is funny, timely, heartfelt – but also terribly pushy and preachy.
DEC 27, 2009 – EXITING LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI, I WAS STRUCK by how Rajkumar Hirani had transformed the earlier film’s formula into a sequel that felt utterly non-formulaic. I wrote, “The easiest thing [they] could have done is to dust off the characters from the first outing and merely give them a bunch of new jokes to mouth, a set of new comic routines to execute. They could have dumped on us Munnabhai LLB or Munnabhai BEd or Munnabhai MSc.” That’s precisely what Hirani has done with 3 Idiots (adapted from Chetan Bhagat’s bestseller) – he recycles the Munnabhai MBBS formula into an utterly formulaic entertainment. The specialty under scrutiny may have switched from medicine to education, but little else has been tampered with: the catchword phrase (along the lines of “jadoo ki jhappi” and “Gandhigiri”) is now “all is well,” Boman Irani still plays the dictatorial overseer of the Evil Establishment whose doctor-daughter falls for the nominal hero, the wisecracking Circuit is bifurcated into the characters portrayed by Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi), and most of all, the motivating maxim is still that the universe can be bettered by nothing more than the good thought, the kind word, the noble deed.
Ignore his primitive staging, and Hirani is our Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the Gallic charmer who, through the winsome whimsies of Amélie, set about ameliorating the world’s ills with a hop in the step and a gleam in the eye. Whimsy is Hirani’s currency as well, with which he makes us buy into setups that we’d otherwise mock as trivial melodrama. (The sight gag of an eccentric oldster being barbered to the strains of the opera is pure Jeunet.) Hirani devices old-fashioned David-Goliath fables of humble men toppling giant institutions, but because he coats his conceits with a just-this-side-of-surreal sheen, his films don’t lumber on screen. The grimness is alleviated by the goofiness. Hirani is a wise storyteller who understands that a relentlessly tearjerking narrative can be endlessly happy too – with, say, the visual of a paralysed father sandwiched between hero and heroine on a scooter, or the image of an impoverished household being reduced to a black-and-white stereotype of a shack from a 1950s weepie, with a consumptive Leela Chitnis armed with a roomful of medicine bottles. This isn’t the trick employed by earlier filmmakers, who would shoehorn a comedy track into their narratives, at periodic intervals, to provide relief. Hirani’s methods are organic – his sequences bustle, simultaneously, with the apparently contradictory impulses to make you smile and reduce you to a sobbing heap.
He demonstrates this in a joyous stretch where Chatur Ramalingam (played by Omi Vaidya, an excellent newcomer) addresses an audience during a function at Delhi’s Imperial College of Engineering. The very name of the institution suggests an autocracy at odds with the democratic give-and-take necessary for an ideal education, but Chatur is content to scrape and bow. All he wants is a degree in hand that will make him a marketable commodity, and if rote learning is what his instructors want – they frown upon original thought – then he’ll learn by rote. Chatur is a Tamilian from Uganda, so he’s twice removed from the North Indians around him – a stranger to the nation as well as the national language. We’ve all seen misfits like him, who compensate for their alienation from people by trouncing those very people in class. This one time, however, Chatur wants to fit in, and he decides the way to go about this is by memorising and delivering a speech in chaste Hindi.
But the puckish Rancho (Aamir Khan) sees an opportunity and tweaks a few words in the address so that it’s now borderline pornographic. Poor Chatur launches into his impassioned speech, and he cannot see why every single person in the hall (on both sides of the screen) is rolling in the aisles. The scene is sidesplitting, and yet, it underscores the message – without underlining it, the way the rest of the film does – that learning by rote may fetch you marks but not mastery. At this point, Chatur is clearly the clown of the circus we call our educational system – and yet, in the scene that follows, Hirani allows this character to recover his dignity. Plastered out of his skull, he accosts Rancho and partner-in-crime Farhan and asks them why they did what they did, why he deserves to be punished so. And that instant, your sympathies shift to this outsider, who has been humiliated simply for following the system the way millions still do. The camera trains its focus on Chatur for the most part, but had it rested on Rancho, we might have seen a head hung with remorse.
But outside of this stretch, the typically generous Hirani doesn’t seem particularly sympathetic towards Chatur, who’s rendered (like everyone else) in broad swaths of black and white. He’s introduced as an obnoxious NRI with a shining $3.5mn nest, replete with heated swimming pool and Lamborghini-stocked garage. To a great many students, this is the destination of their dreams – and education is merely the expensive ticket. They endure school and college so they can enjoy life. They willingly enroll themselves in these “factories” – as Hirani castigates our academic institutions – so they can be perceived a worthwhile “product” in the job market. To pick on Chatur, therefore, is to mock anyone who isn’t especially interested in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. (And that number would run into the millions.) The more accessible aspect of 3 Idiots is its emphasis that we need to follow our dreams, even if that means pursuing photography when your father sees you as an engineer, and even if that father has opted to swelter in his sleep because he could afford only one air-conditioning unit, the one he installed in your room so you could pore over your engineering books without breaking into a sweat.
In that respect, 3 Idiots is an embryonic Rock On – a slightly impractical (and implausible) fantasy about following your heart, except at a much earlier point in life, during college. Then again, we do not watch our movies because they are towering edifices of logical reasoning. And even formula can be fun with the right cast and in the hands of the right craftsmen. The problem, however, is that Hirani never aims for just “fun” – his mission is to entertain a mass audience while also empowering them. With a bludgeon in hand, he charges at us, daring us not to cry, or laugh, or (preferably) both – and to this end, he stages his material as broadly as possible, without the disarming delicacy, the relaxedness, of the Munnabhai movies. At two different moments, two different men actually have their eyes roll back in their heads as they droop into a faint. Boman Irani overacts as he’s never done before, and Kareena Kapoor (as Pia) keeps him company in the scene where she plays drunk. (After this and Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna, this actress will hopefully be kept away from alcohol – at least on screen.) Madhavan and Sharman Joshi pitch their histrionics several notches higher than their scenes warrant, and even Aamir, at first, goes overboard with twinkling eyes and smacking lips and busy hands perpetually wrapped around a Rubik’s Cube. (He’s much easier to watch as he eventually relaxes into the skin of his character.)
There’s a surfeit of remarkably observant writing on display here, but an equal number of scenes are so shapeless and graceless that, at places, 3 Idiots seems little more than the run up to an amateur skit with cartoon characters like Pia’s label-obsessed fiancé. (And she consents to marry him a second time?) Even the relatively normal characters are required to service burlesque bits like urinating at someone’s doorstep. (I couldn’t decide if my problem was the urination itself or the silliness of these overage actors pretending to be impish collegians. Aamir and Madhavan and Sharman do not share the on-screen camaraderie of the boys of Dil Chahta Hai or Rang De Basanti – we buy their “close friendship” not because we sense it but because we’re told endlessly about it. I wonder: Would I have bought the same routines with, say, Imran Khan and Arjun Mathur and Prateik Babbar?) And when they get caught, we’re expected to empathise with them – talk about loaded dice! – and not with the householder whose doorstep has been urinated on, or the professor whose question paper has been stolen. In the case of the latter, it’s hard to swallow that Rancho would abet cheating in the first place – even if only for a friend – given his high-minded homilies about education in general.
And it isn’t as if these attitudes are silently tucked away into the screen’s recesses – Rancho constantly mouths off about what should be fixed in our educational system, what’s the best way to learn, how teachers should act, how students need to be set free… This is a condition that’s named, I believe, TZP-itis. Take a very worthwhile subject, talk ceaselessly about it, add tons of tears, and laugh all the way to the bank (and the awards shows). Raju refuses to compromise on his principles? Cue tears. Farhan and Raju realise how right, all along, Rancho has been? Cue tears. Pia sees that Rancho isn’t really a goofball, that he’s got a heart of gold, that he’ll do anything for his friends? Cue tears. Her father sees that Rancho isn’t really a goofball, that he’s got a heart of gold, that he’ll do anything for a fellow-man? Cue tears. Farhan confesses to his father that he’s miserable being an engineer? Cue tears. The Munnabhai films were hardly subtle, and they teetered as much between merriment and message and melodrama, but the emotions there felt earned. Here, befitting the college, the emotions feel engineered.
Part of my disappointment, I admit, has to do with my expectations from both Hirani as well as Aamir – that birthing scene? Really? – and yet, it’s these very decisions that may make 3 Idiots the toast of this holiday season. It speaks to parents, it speaks to children, it speaks to students (both new and old), it even speaks to teachers (a key event loops back to September 5). More than a few scenes carry a thrillingly mad charge, especially the ones that dare to be irreverent. Hirani may be an old-school director in the most honourable sense of the phrase – it rains during a funeral, recalling a few thousand earlier instances of pathetic fallacy; the interval “twist” is one of the best in recent times – but he isn’t above knocking our hallowed tradition of mother-made food as “khujli wali roti,” or understanding that it’s all very okay to sympathise with a friend’s sister who isn’t getting married, but the sympathy cannot extend so far as to marry her yourself. Hirani’s ear for humour is golden. It’s worth a trip to the theatre just to hear some of the funniest one-liners committed to the screen. But for all the entertainment he serves up, I seriously hope that, next time, he doesn’t take on the story of unfeeling banking officials made to see the error of their ways and cancelling all farming loans. It would be a terrible tragedy if Hirani ended up the Madhur Bhandarkar of the feel-good genre, saving the world one profession at a time.
Copyright ©2009 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
aNoN
December 26, 2009
Are you saying this is ‘remarkably observant writing’ or ‘an equal number of scenes are so shapeless and graceless’. Which is it?
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brangan
December 26, 2009
aNoN: Jesus Christ! That was a quick comment 🙂 I guess I meant that the execution didn’t match the writing. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Like the way the “birth” sequence was executed. On paper, it must have been a perfect complement to the birth sequence at the beginning of the film, only this time the father (rather, grandfather) is content to let the child chart his own course in life. The “message” of the film in one great lump-in-the-throat scene. Brilliant!
But then look at how horribly it’s executed, with extra writing-padding — like the hero-glorification, with the nurse exclaiming that in her 20 years, she’s never seen anything like this. And the scene could have ended with the grandfather holding the baby and saying he can be whatever he wants to be.
But before getting to that moment (which is the whole point of the scene), we’re asked to endure some false drama about the baby being stillborn (ooh!) and Kareena panicking at the other end (the only doctor in the place and she’s not at hand… double ooh!). And then that forced “all is well’ moment that you saw coming a mile away. I mean… why?
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Aditya Pant
December 26, 2009
I haven’t watched very many Hindi films of late, but this has to be the most engaging film I have seen in a long time. The only scene that disappointed me was the ‘delivery’ scene. I couldn’t place what I found ‘wrong’ the the scene, till I read your comment above. That is it….”extra writing padding”
And of course, there was a lot of nostalgia for me, not because of the things that were happening on the scene, but because of ‘where’ they were happening – the location. 🙂
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Rakesh
December 26, 2009
I know it’s a hypothetical question but do you feel another composer could have bolstered up the music department? Shantanu Moitra indeed is competent but the soundtrack does not work as a stand alone component..
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Sid
December 26, 2009
BR, yours is the review that comes closest to what I thought of the movie and I’m a little relieved that I’m not the only one who was disappointed with the film — I admit it’s a good film. just not the masterpiece I may have been unfairly expecting.
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Lakshman
December 26, 2009
Though some of the gags **Spoilers ahead*** where they finish their exams late and still “hand” over the papers, the initial shock urination, usage of pencil in space and the photographing of fully burqa clad women (Shimla) are liberally borrowed from international ads and www, the subtlety with which they were handled was appreciable, scenes where say a David Dhawan would have made a mini-movie of. The baby delivery scene and simply too stark similarities to the Munnabhai series were a dampener but what a movie to end the year! Cant remember the last time I laughed so much watching a Hindi Movie..
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Priti
December 26, 2009
i was quite disappointed. it was all so reminiscent of TZP, especially aamir, essentially playing the same superior-than-thou role, this time with less tears, eyes widened and tongue stuck out for good measure.
i was painfully aware of the one-dimensionality of the characters this time, unlike in the munnabhai films, where it was just one joyride, and you didn’t care two hoots for depth.
all the exaggerations and cliches and yawn-inducing climax apart, i had the hugest problem with the entire road trip, having apparently been completed in one day (no?), with the sun shining all through, with pia’s wedding also scheduled for the same day. how convenient 😀 i wouldn’t have noticed, or cared, under better circumstances.
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hmm
December 26, 2009
Oh thank God. You’ve been so saintly in trying to see the good in everything lately that I arrived here a bit nervous. I am so relieved you are not having an ecstatic fit over this film. All is well after all!
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Harish S Ram
December 26, 2009
but he has now become a person who makes you laugh while slightly handing over few sheets of statistics like racho the saviour hands over to Virus. the movie still works like a old school fun movie so lets not give a thumbs down to it 🙂
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Venkat
December 26, 2009
Good review.. I was expecting some comments from u in the last part of the movie when Amir Khan is shown as some scientist. It felt like a last-minute addition just to add more weight to his character. What if he had just been a teacher? I felt the director compromised with few parts. What makes this movie so adorable was the spirit of engineering shown in the movie.The casting, with few bearded n unkempt heads, of the entire batch was perfect. I was expecting some BITs nostalgia to seep in.. With all its flaws, i have no choice but to embrace this film with all my heart!!
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Saleheen
December 26, 2009
A lot of reviewers who weren’t completely satisfied with the film picked out Kareena Kapoor’s performance and praised it as refreshing or sparkling despite its truncated screen time. What did you think of it?
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B.H.Harsh
December 26, 2009
If I have to sound harsh, This is Hirani’s weakest film of the trilogy.
But One can also put it as The director moulding his craft more and more to appeal to masses with each passing film. Whichever way we perceive it, 3 Idiots has worked very well with the aam junta. But I really wonder if it could’ve been a little more effortless and lesser pushy (as you rightly put it)
Talking of the birthing scene – It explains why Hirani has been getting away with this feel-good stuff every time – Its melodramatic, manipulative – yet madly magical in its own sweet way.
I think Aamir was a main reason that scene worked so well for me. The genuine sense of initial shock, and the exaggerated feeling of joy gradually – He pulled it off brilliantly!
What did you think of the way Aamir acted in that particular scene??
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Harish S Ram
December 26, 2009
but does this nit picking the flaws really necessary? i get that you are saying your/our expectations were high and we did expect our laugh fun to be earned. this movie has decided to be no greater than a typical commercial masala movie which we are accustomed with a SRK starrer. the hero is the do-gooder who maybe doing the most atrocious things in the name of free thinking but the direction here is top notch and for once lets forget the flaws in the screenplay and appreciate the cinema for all the other aspects of it which had all blended well together to entertain us apart from the misigivings in the screenplay.
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Dips
December 26, 2009
“It would be a terrible tragedy if Hirani ended up the Madhur Bhandarkar of the feel-good genre, saving the world one profession at a time.”
Hahaha
Unfortunately I’m seeing Madhur Bhandark-ism everywhere; even in early trailers of Rann.
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shamoni8
December 26, 2009
dude, this is from a writer’s and a critic’s point of view.
or was this what u thought of the film the first time u saw it? cos even tho i was taken aback by the similarities to munnabhai, i thought it was a decent movie, save the delivery scene.
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Arnav
December 26, 2009
I used to like your writing. You are just such a moron now. One should learn to not take himself too seriously. You should learn that. You are turning into a Khalid Mohammed now.
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prasun
December 27, 2009
With every new movie, I find it harder and harder to continue enjoying Hindi movies.
“Then again, we do not watch our movies because they are towering edifices of logical reasoning.”
How I wish this would change!
First of all, the plot of the book would have been good enough for the movie, but addition of the extra characters and plots and subplots was simply unnecessary. I would have gotten rid of the Mona Singh character, “Suhas”, Javed Jafferey character and the 10 years later gimmick.
The characters, like you mentioned are caricatures. Boman Irani’s character is the “villain”, the “3 idiots” are the heroes and we are required to be on their side, no matter what.
The “tearful scenes”, like you mentioned, are too much over the top and should have been done away with.
A lot of the jokes, as mentioned in other comments, have simply been picked off from email forwards and, probably, youtube.
Realistic and subtlety have never been qualities that you would ascribe to big-budget Hindi cinema, but Aamir Khan overdoes himself and the movie feels like Akshay Kumar play a Munnabhai character.
The only good thing about this movie was that I got to see the Rajneeti trailer, and I look forward to it hoping it would be more Gangajal and less Apharan.
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brangan
December 27, 2009
Rakesh: I don’t know. Because Vinod Chopra’s films usually have good music, but the ones Hirani directs have always been lacking in that department. And it’s not that Moitra is a bad composer either. Maybe Hirani prefers a “massy” sound? I really can’t say.
Priti: Reg. “i wouldn’t have noticed, or cared, under better circumstances.” Exactly. And the deluge of coincidences was just not on. I’m surprised that people have been comparing this to the feel of Manmohan Desai. I can see where they are coming from, but the man — bless his soul! — never sat down to dole out messages. The setups here may “remind” you of Desai, but the execution is quite different.
Saleheen: I thought she did what she had to do. Nothing to rave about. Nothing to pick apart either. Except for that “drunk” scene, which I hated. Though I loved the joke about Gujju food 🙂
B.H.Harsh: I really liked Aamir as the film progressed. Strangely, he looked the youngest of the three.
shamoni8: “or was this what u thought of the film the first time u saw it?” Uh, yeah! How else do you think one writes reviews? By having one viewpoint and then elaborating on another? 🙂
prasun: Which are the jokes off the email forwards? I typically delete them, so didn’t catch on.
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prasun
December 27, 2009
The one about the astronaut pen : http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
I don’t remember the other ones, but most jokes seemed like I’d heard them before.
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Arpith
December 27, 2009
@Lakshmanan: “scenes where say a David Dhawan would have made a mini-movie of”
Yes, let’s not forget to pat Hirani on the back for being better than David Dhawan. Why do I get the feeling that we’re going to wallow endlessly in the mediocre crap we churn out (and then give ourselves Filmfare Awards for it).
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Ramesh
December 27, 2009
BR just doesn’t seem to get comedy
😦
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Ramesh
December 27, 2009
(the film felt like one of those middling kamalahasan/crazy mohan comedies (magalir mattum/sathi leelavathi) which were plenty preachy if the humor left you cold.)
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tanul thakur
December 27, 2009
@ Prasun: Thank God! I was not the only one. It is ironical a joke about original thinking is derived( though it is not *the* criteria for a good joke, but then we expected better). Also, the joke when Aamir ruffles all the paper is from a popular video shared on Facebook. Just one of the many grouse.
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Anand
December 27, 2009
BR: The review opened with an overview, it talks about the positives, the negatives, the performances and had a proper end. Wow! I think you have really enjoyed this film so much that it has managed to bring out your best. The focus on this review was what you wanted to say rather than how you wnted to say!! This made it one of most enjoyable reads( not that I did not enjoy your other reviews). The last time I remember you coming out with such a comprehensive review was A Wednesday!
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dhruv
December 27, 2009
br, i think u r always a little harsh on an aamir khan film n much more kind on a srk movie? mayb bcos u expect much more, but i dont think dats how it shud b
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Arun
December 27, 2009
“It would be a terrible tragedy if Hirani ended up the Madhur Bhandarkar of the feel-good genre, saving the world one profession at a time.”
sigh.. that would be tragic.. i think it must have been Toooo-Saccharine-Krishna-sweets combo of the wannabe altruist Aamir Khan + moral science specialist Hirani..
Dutt+ Hirani and Fahan+Aamir would blend better 🙂
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Lakshman
December 27, 2009
@Arpith: Ah! there you are. So when did Filmfare awards started recognising true talents!! I remember the music of Karan Arjun getting an award ahead of Dil Se!!I totally agree with your POV about the quality of movies but saving National Awards, ALL the other awards are farcical.
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VJC
December 27, 2009
I visit your blog everytime before watching a movie. There were disappointment for two three times like Delhi 6, Love Aaj Kal. I think you are always biased towards Sharukh Khan and Abhishek. This movie Deserved a Good rating. It was a laugh Riot. I do not remember laughing that much in theatre for quiet a long time. The film was also very engaging. But i think aamir would have got his acts right if he had not gone on this publicity overboard which i feel has influenced many film critics against him. I would be more happy if i see my favorite rangan changes his stance. This definitely deserves a good rating. You should have read that novel and gone to the film. Many of my friends who read the novel enjoyed it but those who did not read did not like it.
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Rk
December 27, 2009
Just a question – why no mention of Five point someone ? Ok,2nd question – have you read it ?
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Ramesh
December 27, 2009
http://www.hindustantimes.com/reviews/Review-3-Idiots/490735/H1-Article1-490233.aspx
Mayank shekar’s review. (“Opinions are like blogs. Everybody has them”)
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Rohit
December 27, 2009
I think Chetan would have suggested the “Imperial College of Engineering” coz that was what IIT Delhi was before it was made an IIT.
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B.H.Harsh
December 27, 2009
People like Lakshman (comment no. 27) make me feel really pitiful about the state of our country – Who just know how to bitch about system, but can’t even get their own facts right!
Little do they realise that Karan Arjun released in 95 while Dil se in 98. And Dil se actually won a Filmfare that year, while Karan Arjun didnt.
Anyways, I sincerely hope 3 Idiots doesn’t snatch away any awards from Kaminey (or Dev D).. considering it has high chances of doing so, given it released at the very end.. thus staying fresh in the minds of one and all.
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Nandita
December 28, 2009
What’s with bollywood’s new fixation for the Rubik’s cube? It’s Shahrukh too in My Name Is Khan and reportedly Farhan Akhtar in Kartik Calling Kartik. Does someone know what english film inspires them this way?
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Alpesh
December 28, 2009
I just came back from watching the film.
I do think you make some valid points.
My own issues with the film are how certain things just stand out like a sore thumb. And criminally (from a writing point of view) how certain plot points later in the film are telegraphed so early in the film like the pen and the kicking.
From Aamir’s first scene I was disappointed, simply because he said to himself ‘All izz well’. I know it’s his catchprase but i don’t think it needed being openly shown in that instance.
The resemblence to the first munnabhai in terms of certain scenes, certain plot points irked me as well. Why watch Guru, when I can watch Nayakan instead? Why watch 3 idiots when I can enjoy Munnabhai MBBS all over again?
That birth scene, I have the same issue with it as you mentioned in your comments above about that whole still born thing.
Oh the other thing that irked me was the scene where Aamir pulls out the statistics
Actually I could point to several instances where the writing wasn’t up to scratch, and I do doubt that the birth scene (after baby is delivered) as written looked good on paper.
The only quibble relating direction is concerned, and this only occured to me since reading your review, is that there was no obvious change in the relationship after the story moved from the 1st year to the final year of college. The trio did not seem anymore closer than they had before or their relationship hadn’t evolved in any way since that first year
Maybe like you I had high expectations, and maybe it is preventing me from loving this movie, but I am sure that the writing for 3 idiots was poor.
Geez now I am worried, I have astronomical expectations for the Vinnaithandi Varuvaya audio, what if the same thing happens with that…..surely ARR won’t let me down or will he…..?
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Suganth
December 28, 2009
Nandita: I think the Rubik’s Cube thing is ‘inspired’ from The Pursuit Of Happyness, where we get to see Will Smith solving it in a jiffy… Maybe, our heroes feel that being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube might make them seem ‘intellectual’.
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PK
December 28, 2009
Do you really beleive that students in elite Engg./Medical college can be very good friends? They are compiteters in life and become good friends much later in life. I have not met many ‘Good’ friends of my Medical College days for last 30 yrs though we are in same city/Country.—PK
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Lakshman
December 28, 2009
@Harsh (how apt) : Sorry, I am totally against these good for nothing awards and got carried away this time.
@Alpesh: About a month ago,I got a tamil new songs Mp3 collection which had 2 songs from Vinnaithadi varuvaya. “Enthan Nenjil”, one of those,is extremely catchy and ends with the lyrics “this is Tamil R&B”!!
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Ramesh
December 28, 2009
@ Nandita : Pursuit of Happyness ?. Though I would bet against it !
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argumentativeindian
December 28, 2009
Hi BR,
Terrific review! It was a complete pleasure reading it! 🙂
I think the one thing that irked me the most is that the message of the movie wasn’t really “knowledge for knowledge sake” – aamir still ends up “owner of 400 patents” and feted by US companies – just that there was the “good way” and the “bad way” of getting there.
Plus, for once I found the Khan slightly hammy – the hands in pocket and sneaker shuffling body language were a bit much!
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Madhusudanan Perati
December 28, 2009
Watched the film today, found it thoroughly entertaining:). Well the concept could be easily stated as what if the boy of TZP grew up to a Munnabhai-1 situation, isnt it? In that sense it is true that originality is almost nil, but what I liked is that the film still manages to create its moments. Its also true that if you consider the weight of the social issue it is dealing with, the film ended up looking pretty ‘irresponsible’ but then the same intuitive escapist approach possibly makes the film look very casual and hence a fun film to sit through.
The thing is that somewhere, I thought, the makers of the film somehow managed to tell us that that they aren’t all that serious about whatever they are talking about, and that made me not care too much to think deep into the logic of the statements made.
And a few things I didn’t like, though, were 1. Amir Khan for the first time is looking to be trying too hard to push his star weight? I hope he understands that he is already a superstar to most of us; I don’t think he has to do anything particularly about being one any further. 2. The two negative characters are painted with a lot of black, and the film was being very unsympathetic towards them as it doesnt provide almost anything on their side of the story. (The question here for e.g. is: Can a professor of such a reputed institution be found that bad, that ruthless, and that insensitive? hmm-may be). 3. The film makes no attempt at all to suggest any changes to many situations that we already know of (because of our familiarity with the concept) and as a result we at times know what is going to come. 4. The age! I struggled to imagine the three as college guys initially, though later I somehow forgot about it…
May not be a film of the quality of Munnabhai MBBS or RDB, but still fun to watch.
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Ramesh
December 28, 2009
@ ramesh, get your own name! this is MINE!
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Ramesh
December 28, 2009
in other news,
my bollywood lists, 2009
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Raj Balakrishnan
December 29, 2009
Great review for a great film. Just back from a viewing, I agree the movie was more like a Munnabhahi BE. Completely over the top, melodramatic, preachy and unrealistic. But I simply loved it! Cannot remember laughing so much in a Hindi movie. I wish the ‘House of Crap’, Yashraj films, shuts shop and its owners learn from Hirani on how to make entertaining films which ordinary Indians (and not pakistanis and punjabis alone) can relate to.
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geetanjali
December 29, 2009
Watched it today and I came away quite unsatisfied. There was an inherent, natural charm in the Munnabhai films which I just didn’t find here. The moments were very manufactured – like you said, daring you to laugh and to cry. I still managed to laugh a few times, but in the emotional scenes I found my eyes rolling far back into my head. Don’t know whether this was a result of high expectations – since everyone I know around me kept harping on how it was brilliant or the best film they’ve seen in years.
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brangan
December 29, 2009
Alpesh: What I meant is that the scene is conceptually a brilliant one (in the sense of mirroring the earlier birth) — but yes, after the baby is delivered, it would have sounded awkward even on paper.
PK: Reg. “Do you really believe that students in elite Engg./Medical college can be very good friends?” Of course! Emphatically yes. 🙂
argumentativeindian: Yeah, the Khan was slightly “conscious” here. BTW, I was talking to someone in the industry about how they’d (reportedly) erased Aamir’s age lines using VFX, and how that was a fantastic effort in a film culture where heroes expect us to believe they;re young despite jowls and paunches and wrinkles. (The ideal, of course, would be to hire a younger actor, but if you HAD to cast Aamir, this was definitely the way to do it. He looked younger, in fact, than Madhavan and Sharman.)
And then this guy mentioned that this may be the first time it’s done for a hero, but it’s done ALL THE TIME for heroines, to remove dark circles and lines and so on. Thinking back, this sounds so obvious, that the cinematic equivalent of airbrushing would happen with heroines — but somehow I was a little let down. I mean, the only thing half these girls have going for them is their faces, and now even that’s a con 🙂
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vivek
December 29, 2009
@arnav- how about a little more respect. I am sure rangan relates to the theme in a much more personal way given that he is an engineer frm a top college who now writes movie reviews and screenplays for a living!
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Vivek
December 29, 2009
This is going to be fun!
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Bala
December 29, 2009
I shall now attempt to take the discussion in a different direction – happen to catch the Shekar Gupta interview f Kamal on NDTV ? 😀 Thoughts ? Personally , I was disappointed , considering that here is a truly complex actor with complex beliefs and Shekar Gupta (not exactly an authority on cinema , let alone tamil cinema) was entrusted the role of interviewing him.Where were the questions on his various acting choices (influences etc) , his life choices (atheism ,marriage ..heck female emancipation ? ) ?
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brangan
December 29, 2009
Vivek: LOL! Thanks for that. I loved the two-handed signature bit and the White House bit. I think this film is going to be fun. When Main Hoon Na became a hit, I thought they’d do something like that in Tamil — i.e. a genuinely affectionate spoof on a certain kind of film. The only thing that worries me about this is that, unlike in Bollywood, a lot of the things being spoofed here are still a part of the movie landscape. It will be interesting to see how they straddle that fine line — of being a spoof and yet not seeming too much like, say, a Perarasu or Vijay film.
Wirth the rare exception of, say, the Karnan-made quasi-Westerns (spoofed in Quick Gun Murugan),The Tamil masala films are quite generic/archetypal, unlike say the Manmohan Desai film, which was a very *specific* kind of masala movie that Farah Khan and Abbas Tyrewala based their script on. And the only Tamil film directors with that strong an authorial signature are non-masala people like KB. Speaking of whom, and much as I love his 70s work, I think a wicked spoof can be made of his cherished (and very unique) tropes, his multiple-relationship stories, his “shock” twists, his life-file wordplay and so on 🙂
Bala: No, didn’t catch that, but for my money, the best Kamal “interview” was the one where he appeared drunk and went on a superb rant after they asked him to rename “Sandiyar” as “Virumaandi.” It’s out there on YouTube, in case you haven’t seen it. A brilliant, brilliant rant! And to think it’s almost extemporaneous, so unrehearsed. Now, *there’s* a great performance 🙂
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Utkal
December 29, 2009
“This is a movie made in a burst of inspired lunacy and thank god for madmen such as Raju Hirani and co-writer Abhijat Joshi for making it possible. Otherwise consider a delivery using a vacuum cleaner, an anti-ragging device using a home made lightning rod, and a series of uncovered butts requiring a rubber stamp saying ok tested.”.. Kaveree Bamzai
This kind of echoes my feelings about the film. Just after seing it from the front row of a multiplex in Kolkata I sent out smses to 5 or 6 of of my friends: ” Insanely Brilliant”.
I dont agree woth your take on the childbirth scene, which I thought was a stroke of genius. Theingenuity of Rancho cluld have been proven in many siruations. But bringing childbirth into the world of male-bonding achieves so much. It esrablishes a bond beween Pia anad Rancho. It gives somethin g to soften the hard-hearted Virus agnaist Rancho. And it is so unpredictable. Also the still born bit is precisely what I like aboiut the scene. Yes we see the All Izz Well epipahny coming, and the director gives it to us and that is what gives us the high.
Thankfully, Hirani does not write scripts as crtics expect him to. Or else we would get films like ‘ Kurban’ or ” Delhi 6′..movies that sounds great on paper but are so boring to watch. That is where a film like # Idiots score over a film like Swades( which I also love very much.). Swades is preachy, while 3 Idiots is not. Swades is prosaic in parts where it could have soared with inspired lunacy. After Lagaan, this is the most adeventurous, inventive and joyous script ever in Hindi cinema.
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Harish S Ram
December 29, 2009
every1 do remember Om Shanti Om once 🙂 didnt we have the same fun in theatres?
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Youdontdeserveareading
December 29, 2009
I don’t understand how are you able to gather any audience for you stupid review.
I am neither referring the "content" or "you" to be stupid but, rather your act of superfluously discrediting every movie you watch which is not perfectly co-incidental with the reality.
I have not read any of previous reviews on other movies, neither I am pro review writer. I am writing what I feel from my heart and not from my ass (like you did). Don’t take that personally and no offences whatsoever.
I liked the movie 3 Idiots although it grew a little bland towards the end.
Cheers
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Ramesh
December 29, 2009
“people like KB. Speaking of whom, and much as I love his 70s work, I think a wicked spoof can be made of his cherished (and very unique) tropes, his multiple-relationship stories, his “shock” twists, his life-file wordplay and so on :-)”
Who is KB?
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brangan
December 29, 2009
Ramesh: K Balachander.
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IQBAL
December 29, 2009
How come you missed reviewing PAA, uptil, would like to know your views on the same !!
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Ramesh
December 29, 2009
but isnt all tamil cinema merely intentional or unintentional spoof of balacander’s work(at least until someone decided to teach them cinematography…and then it was blacander’sdramatic symbolism….in montage…in digital color corrected montage…in digital color corrected montage…danush added….ad nauseum…)
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Rahul
December 29, 2009
wel i agree with you with the scene and Aamir acting as an obstetrician ..but considering the fact and the character of Rancho that has been portrayed , its relevant…i felt it exaggerative though..but the efforts that the starcast has put in the movie except Kareena lets accept that it was the movie witin our taste and fully entertaining …
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Arun
December 29, 2009
i hear from sudhish kamath in twitter that you are joining twitter…
welgum tweeper welgum!
140 character reviews must be fun!
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Shankar
December 30, 2009
“silliness of these overage actors pretending to be impish collegians”…not to harp on it incessantly, but this was precisely the problem I had with London Dreams…only this time pretending to be rockstars!! 🙂
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Pardesi
December 30, 2009
Any review of a film like Three Idiots must needs be undertaken at a few levels. At the most superficial level, the film is a simple comedy about life in an engineering college hostel, full of gags and puerile humor – but films like Singh is Kinngg and Kambakht Ishq have shown us that this kind of humor works! Three guys meet, one is UNIQUE and smart without trying, GENIUS even – Rancho or Ranchoddass. They bond over lots of time spent in the hostel bathroom and drinking on the rooftop. The headmaster is a tartar and in an attempt to foil him they get into trouble, are nearly thrown out except that Rancho miraculously fashions a baby vacuum device to deliver the headmaster’s grandson on the college ping-pong table. Then Rancho mysteriously disappears, and the other two Idiots go on a search for Rancho, find him and ALL IZZ WELL.
Well that is the story in a nutshell and it is simplistic, like most efforts by Raju Hirani, and it is full of moments that you will laugh at. But Raju Hirani is not like Hrishikesh Mukherjee – he is not happy simply serving us a slice of everyday life. The slice has to be garnished with a message, some life changing message that will make us go WOW! He tried it with the two MunnaBhai films and tries to top that effort with his latest film.
So after JAADU KI JHAPPI and GANDHIGIRI, what is the message this time around? It is actually something we saw in TZP, to let a student (child there, adult here) do their thing! In the age of scientific innovations and inventions, the main message to parents is to stop forcing the kids to be engineers. The message to the teachers is to teach differently – to stop teaching theory and to teach engineers how to make baby-suction machines, little choppers with cameras, and so on and so forth. The message is that these hard-ass professors are forcing students to commit suicide, that deadlines are meaningless and that deadlines force students to suicide.
AND the message is hamfisted and corny! None of the innocence of an uneducated man like Munna trying to do things right! Here we have a genius Lama!
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Deepak
December 30, 2009
“the best Kamal “interview” was the one where he appeared drunk and went on a superb rant after they asked him to rename “Sandiyar” as “Virumaandi.”
I’ve seen that. I thought he was indeed drunk. But if he wasnt then it was one marvellous performance…Loved the way he said “Sandiyar” and then “realizes” his faux pas and brings his hands to his mouth 🙂
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Utkal
December 30, 2009
“In the age of scientific innovations and inventions, the main message to parents is to stop forcing the kids to be engineers. The message to the teachers is to teach differently – to stop teaching theory and to teach engineers how to make baby-suction machines, little choppers with cameras, and so on and so forth. The message is that these hard-ass professors are forcing students to commit suicide, that deadlines are meaningless and that deadlines force students to suicide.”
Why is the mesage hamfisted ( whatever that means) and corny? Just because it is the age of scintefic innovations, everyone has to be an engineer, regardless of his inner calling? Apparently, you did not get the message!
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Hiren Shah
December 30, 2009
I saw 3 idiots yesterday.It is excellent and Hirani must be complimented for brining about the limitations of the Indian education system in a very interesting manner. One of the main themes of the movie according to me is “follow your heart” Only problem is that in movies, they are not always able to show all aspects of the problem. For instance, many people come to know what is their cup of tea(enjoy doing) only after they start working(In work, we have the possibility of discovering ourselves) and for many, it is too late by then as India does not have structured career trasnsition. “All is well” is not really so in real life. I have twenty one published articles on the subject which are on my blog- Make your passion your profession which also has quotes on the subject from bollywood, cricket, management and other personalities in the quotable quotes section.
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brangan
December 30, 2009
Arun: I am?
BTW, something that brought tears to my eyes by the time I got to nasty buffalo farts 🙂
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chhote saab
December 30, 2009
Bade saab, Last year I remember we were discussing the amazing streak of hits Akshay Kumar was churning out almost comparable to Amitabh in his prime. But I think Aamir Khan has taken it to an entirely new level. I think the last movie of his which did not do as well as expected (not a box office dud) was Mangal Pandey and even that had a phenomenal opening. If you go before that I don’t even remember which movie of his was a flop – probably the horrendous ‘Mann’ (I may be wrong). Even though he does just one movie a year (as compared to Akshay Kumar who had 3-4/year), his streak is phenomenal. And we are talking blockbusters, not just above average hits! Lagaan, DCH, MP, Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, TZP, Ghajini and now 3 Idiots. If you take ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa’ where he was a producer, that’s one more. He has turned into a smart selector/marketer/actor/producer of movies with almost 100% success rate.
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chhote saab
December 30, 2009
His last flop was the dreadful ‘Mela’ in 2000.
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santoshbhoopalan
December 31, 2009
BR, liked your review on 3 idiots and it put light on many of my observations during the film.
I have a point though, nearing the interval there was a good twist to the story when Aamir is not who he is. Its works wonderfully well for the audience (for me too) when Jaffery’s character is introduced just before the interval for the suspense value, no doubt. But the resolution offered after the interval seemed quite weak to me, as it seemed too impractical, too filmy that Aamir could get away with cheating everyone throughout his school and college. Also it takes his character to a suffocatingly high pedestal. What did you feel about this?
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KPV Balaji
December 31, 2009
i echo bhoopalans sentiments, i thought the flashback story of who aamir was so weak and lame, to be it was an attempt to glorify rancho and his ideologies of knowledge being more important than the degree.
<>> did it really work for you.??.the twist was a bit intriguing but the payoff was least effective..
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Piyush
December 31, 2009
Desipundit..I love to read your reviews here. But I havent come to terms that you actually like devdas and sawariya(yes i am questioning your analysis). I havent seen 3 idiots so i wont say anything about it. Anyways will talk more when I watch the movie.
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Rakesh
December 31, 2009
Chetan Bhagat clarifying the issue about his name not being present in the Opening credits of 3 Idiots
http://www.chetanbhagat.com/blog/general/a-book-a-film-and-the-truth
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Anon
December 31, 2009
The identity switch did fizzle out eventually. Even their progress through college wasn’t clear, especially the episode with the suicide guy. Was he their classmate? He could have been a senior/mentor/friend. Why else did only these three run up the stairs or attend the funeral? Something was missing in that sequence too.
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Harish S Ram
January 1, 2010
Happy new year to every1 who visits this site 🙂 lets wish for quality movies to increase in numbers 🙂
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Pardesi
January 1, 2010
@Utkal – Oh I got the message, did anyone not? That is the thing about ham-fisted messages, they are made to hammer one and all. The problem is not with one or two people who were there against their will, the movie was indicting the entire college, system, everyone. The inspiration was an IIT and the message was that nothing of worth is taught at an institution like that?
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Jabberwock
January 1, 2010
Desipundit..I love to read your reviews here. But I havent come to terms that you actually like devdas and sawariya(yes i am questioning your analysis).
Piyush: the reviewer’s name is “Baradwaj”, not “Desipundit”. Do make the effort to get something very basic like that right before you start “questioning analysis”. Otherwise your questioning might not be taken very seriously.
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Hari
January 1, 2010
BR: Can you provide link to your ‘lage raho Munnabhai’ review?
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raj
January 1, 2010
Not a fan of chetan bhagat but it is obvious that the movie is based heavily on the book. If bollywood can be so brazen about a popular writer and a popular book, one wonders how many writers were cheated in making the great intellectual efforts of last few years. why am I not surprised though?
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brangan
January 1, 2010
chhote saab: Mela. Ah! 🙂
santoshbhoopalan / KPV Balaji: Yeah, the character’s almost deification didn’t work for me either. And like argumentativeindian pointed out, “aamir still ends up “owner of 400 patents – and feted by US companies.” Something didn’t quite compute here. It didn’t ring as “true” as the messages in the Munnabhai movies, which worked at a much more elementary level.
Hari: Here’s the review and here’s something I wrote for a special issue of the paper.
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Ramesh
January 2, 2010
Statement from the putative protagonist : All claims about 3 Idiots (based on a novel written by IIMA junior Chetan Bhagat)’s Rancho was based on me (Rambo 1990) are entirely unverified. The putative Oriinal does notconfirm or deny the truth value of any claims made in the movie or the novel about him, both of which are works of fiction with no known basis in fact. Now people , leave me alone on this.
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shammi
January 2, 2010
I liked the bits where the 2 other idiots get miffed that Rancho is cracking the system – I wish they had lingered on that – an IITian tells me that unless you were a serious system-gamer, it was impossible to get to the top of the class by just this “studying only for knowledge” business, which makes Rancho’s sermon a tad suspect. I also got very annoyed by the theme of suicide popping up every so often – of the 4 main characters, each one of them has a brush with suicide or attempted suicide (Rancho sees two, Raju tries one, Farhan promises he won’t try one (meaning he had thought about it and Rancho dissuaded him) and Pia’s brother presumably did) – is the message meant to be that this is a generation of wimps that will cop out the minute parents and the system gets a bit tough? I agree with P. Sahni (who seems to be making a career of playing the tough but caring father to errant sons) when he says “no point having a debate – because you will threaten me with suicide) – and aaargh, the maudlin bits in the second half – why can’t we have just comedies which don’t turn on the waterworks – like chupke chupke or angoor – or gol maal – that sustained the zaniness. that black and white scene with the belan and the ointment was soo funny and irreverent, why couldn’t they keep up that tempo? btw, did you read the hilarious comic strip in the Mumbai Mirror blog which got all the fans hassled?
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shammi
January 2, 2010
http://www.thevigilidiot.com/2009/12/29/3-idiots/
that’s the url for the hilarious spoof. check out the one on kurbaan as well
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Hari
January 2, 2010
Thanks for those links BR. Enjoyed reading both. Its’ riveting to see you drifting away from your ‘I am not a fan of morality in movies’ stance for a change. It’s also intriguing to notice how you always use the ’specific’ to derive the ‘general’
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Hari
January 2, 2010
Coming to ‘3 idiots’, I would have loved to see the stories explained from the vantage points of all the three protagonists rather than letting just Rancho hog all the limelight. Unlike ‘Munnabhai’, where the characterization of both Munna and Circuit was impeccable in spite of the writer not bothering much about tracing the roots of the latter, here that of Farhan and Raju lacked depth.
Also, it is hard to believe that the narrator could let another character hog the limelight in his story, preferring to take the backstage himself. The three characters explaining their own experiences(warts and all) and leaving to the viewers the process of figuring-out who the real ‘hero’ is could have lent more credence.
It’s relatively easy to script your ‘fairy tale’ if your life happens to be a success story(here, Rancho, in spite of his idiosyncrasies, gets the top-grade, is appreciated by everyone apart from his obvious bete noire). Also, somewhere I got the feeling that the director was trying to portray him as one unique, ‘once-in-a-millenium’ figure who was born with ‘the brain of an Einstein juxtaposed on the charming looks of a Mills & Boon hero and the impressive, towering presence of an emperor’. So, in a sense, what he got eventually, he would have got anyway. The real fun would have lied in exploring the psyche of a character who was not so ‘privileged'(let’s say the character of Jimmy Shergill of Munnabhai) having an average intelligence, fighting his middle-class monotony and coming-up all guns blazing-somehow the characters of Farhan and Raju could not give that picture.
It would not be surprising to find a Tendulkar or a Lara script an autobiography but someone not so successful like Akash Chopra writing about his travails surely resonates powerfully with the reader.
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devraj
January 3, 2010
i didnt like it………it tuk away d “dark comedy thng” dat made d buk so gud and turnd in2 cheap humour and sermonising…
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brangan
January 3, 2010
shammi: yes, I do read those comic strips, and they’re outstanding. I didn’t know they were published in Mumbai Mirror, though.
Hari: It’s not that I have a “stance” against moralising. Just that it’s rarely done invisibly, and that gets to me because I hate being lectured at.
Reg. “Also, it is hard to believe that the narrator could let another character hog the limelight in his story” – you have the makings of a good screenwriter 🙂 Also, there was some very ungainly writing like how they show us Raju in the present day, hale and hearty, and then ask us to care about his accident in the flashback. The attempts at reviving him go on and on, and the outcome is never in doubt.
They could have done away with this suicide attempt. As shammi points out above, there’s a bit too much suicide-drama here for one film.
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Vivek Gupta
January 3, 2010
BR is prone to use a signifcantly higher discount factor in rating other aspects of a movie that venturers into the territory of moralising and preaching. Why else would he give an average rating to 3 Idiots (“a funny, heartfelt,and timely movie” ), straight into the dubious company of surefire clasics for the bollywood house of infamy such as Golmaal returns, Chadani Chowk to China, Drona, etc. I mean really, you hated the movie so much or did you just happen to catch it in a bad mood? What else can explain you putting it just a tad above radioactive waste like Vivaah and Victory? Granted, the idiots has its flaws, but it gives the audience a rollicking good time while you are in the hall for 3 something hours, that is more than one can say for some of your picks in the Good category (Sarkar Raaj, Delhi-6). Three Idiots is no masterpiece like Munnabhai-2 but it deserves to be called at least a solid Above Average in my humble opinion and if one is in a generous frame of mind then perhaps, a qualified Good.
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Virginia
January 4, 2010
Persuasive, though I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it and in particular liked the “real Bollywood” feel of the mashup between real-life and fable, etc.
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Thinking about Rancho leading others to steal the test paper – agree it doesn’t seem right as the action of an Embodied Virtue, though in a slightly different movie of the same story, it could be made clear to us that you can’t face down evil by following the Girl Scout manual.
.
In the moral universe of this movie, though, probably better if Boman Irani’s character is punished by -? – some governing entity, for his ethical failure in acting intentionally against a student, which goes beyond his just being mean and a jerk.
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Ramesh
January 4, 2010
@vrkx yeah if there was a christian god, he’ll surely get his comeuppance on the day of judgement. If I were the filmmaker i would have had a flowerpot fall on his head from he window sherman joshi jumped off of, thus completing a duex et machina in the film.
but in terms of the “Authorities” “punishing ” him, I doubt if in real life there can be anything that pins him to the deaths.
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Utkal
January 4, 2010
Hari, you say “The real fun would have lied in exploring the psyche of a character who was not so ‘privileged’(let’s say the character of Jimmy Shergill of Munnabhai)”. Then why don’t make him the protagonist of Munnabai. No! fiction dies not work that way. Heroes have to have heroic qulaities.
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joe tempo
January 5, 2010
me thinks the reviewer has over-analysed the film. for someone who found merit in a Delhi-6, this film should be a masterpiece.
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prasun
January 5, 2010
PK: Medical colleges (as described by you) and Engg colleges are very different. At least, speaking from personal experience, fellow engineers usually don’t view each other as competitors. At IITs there is the concept of a “wing” (set of 10 or so consecutive rooms in the hostel) – wingmates generally turn into friends for life.
Baradwaj: The suicide scene is from the book, but the situation is different. It happens after the question paper incident and seems more justified there. Five point someone, if nothing else, was a racy read and would probably qualify as good screenplay — the best scene of the book (which is deliciously salacious) is absent from the movie. Unfortunately (for me at least, it seems to be doing more than well at the box office) it turned out to be a superhero farce with contrived twists in the tale that would have been more appropriate in an Abbas-Mastan feature.
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Sandhya
January 6, 2010
Baradwaj Maama – I love you to death BUT any Bollywood movie that manages to bind together elements like induction motors, eczema, Tibetan innovators, Tamilian Ugandan geeks, flour-mills running on scooters, dholkas, Iraqi missiles, Hungarian wildlife experts, animated sperms, NASA pens, conduction abilities of salt water, Rubiks cubes, Lamborginis, power naps, concertos, sanksrit sholkas, flatulence and Raj Kapoor, to name a few is BEYOND REPROACH.
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Ramesh
January 6, 2010
I completely agree with sandhya mami.
..ramesh ammanga.
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Ashok
January 7, 2010
Can anyone tell me the meaning of the sanskrit shloka in Chatur’s speech? Would love to know what it means.
And can someone identify the opera that Virus listens to during his ‘Power Sleep’?
Loved the names that the scriptwriter dreamed up : Ranchoddas Shaymaldas Chanchad, Funsukh Wangdoo, Viru Sahasrabudhdhe etc Better that the usual Raj, Arjun, Anjali etc that is the staple of your typical Hindi movie!
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Arif Attar
January 7, 2010
Could at least add a couple more to Sandhya Says’ list: Hippocratic Oath, functioning of vacuum cleaners.
Which makes the success of the film even more remarkable. At one end the film is being criticised as being too ‘Bollywoodish’ and caters to the single screen audiences and at the other end we have this list of concepts used in the film coupled with the fact that so much of the film is in the English language (Virus even uses the word ‘sympathy’ over ‘humdardi’). Have Hirani and Joshi hit the right balance here then?
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Shreeny
January 9, 2010
“Part of my disappointment, I admit, has to do with my expectations from both Hirani as well as Aamir…It would be a terrible tragedy if Hirani ended up the Madhur Bhandarkar of the feel-good genre, saving the world one profession at a time”
Super review. You almost exactly voiced my thoughts on the movie!
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Raghav
January 14, 2010
Hey BR could you also please do a column/post on the ads(any ads..incl Amul!) u liked..please?
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brangan
February 13, 2010
letter to the paper
hello sir,
i am vineeth from kerala. i am a medical student, a constant reader of your column in the NIE, and a cinema lover.
Though i’ve been reading you ever since we started subscribing the NIE 3 years ago, its now that i feel like writing to you, thanks to ‘3 idiots’. I was confused getting out of the cinema watching 3 idiots. Every face had wide smiles, all seemed so happy, like they’ve seen the best film of the decade. i seriously doubted my cinema appreciating ability and was confused if it was because i was not well-versed in hindi.
i felt the movie was just another typical bollywood bullshit. i was stunned at seeing it tagged best movie made on india’s educational system blah-blah. the whole plot structure seemed so typical and run-of-the-mill , stuffed in a contemporary outfit. i was the only one who hated the movie in my class and was brutally anatematized just for that reason. however, i liked a few things in the movie, for instance the black and white depiction of raju’s family.
some said the movie had a good message in it about our educational system. might be true, but then, that message couldn’t have been conveyed worse. if a movie conveying some goddamn good message is incontrovertibly judged good no matter how it is conveyed , then just amir khan’s sermons would be enough, why waste money on the integral ingredients of good cinema?
i was happy reading your article dated january 17th on i witness about the ‘versatile actor’. i found someone else who was not happy.
thanking you
vineeth
N.B- could u pls list some movies which you love the most. i watch all languages. thank you again 🙂
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Anu
September 12, 2013
Great review.
I totally agree about two very important points you have made.
1. the bad writing of the final birthing scene. Infact, this movie sufffers from ill-timed Rancho_worship in many other scenes but this one stands out like a sore thumb.
2. The very fact that Rancho steals the paper. I was okay with the movie trivializing big issues like poverty, paralysis etc. and even characters being caricaturized.
However, a movie where the hero is supposed to be the torch bearer for the new frontiers of education, casually commits a crime that is considered as one of the most heinous crimes by hard-working students or teachers. Why? to help his suicidal friend. really? This only shows how Raju Hirani is only scratching the surface and has no real knowledge of the very subject he is talking about.
I can see that it was just a premise to show raju’s recovery from his fear of failure, but the scene clunked badly and it kinda cheapened rancho’s character for me. we had already seen Raju’s transformation in the interview scene. Why drag it further? and as you have rightly pointed out, it distracted us from seeing farhan finding a closure. If the scene had ended after that grandpa speech and applause, it would have been great.
Its all because the director was too afraid to leave Racho’s awesomeness out of even a single storyline.
Otherwise, its an okay entertaining movie just like munnabhai and has a decent message that the whole world knows already.
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