The Prataps are a very influential political family in a fictitious state of India. When the eldest of the Prataps, who also happens to be the CM and state party president, falls for paralytic stroke, fate favours his younger brother and his sons (Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor) insanely irritating his own son (Manoj Bajpai). Now begins the story.
Soon, Manoj is joined by Ajay Devgn as Dalit Leader in family feud for power along with other minor but interesting characters played by Shruti Seth, Katrina Kaif,etc.
Amidst all these chess pawns, is one more central but often behind-the-scenes character played by Nana Patekar who happens to know all the tricks and tips of the power trade.
Please don't expect any story here as I honestly found none. All the events in the movie occurring either as part of revenge or to get upper hand against the rival group are most of the times interesting and glues us into the psyche of the movie which is really a good thing as movies these days are either bore-to-the-core or utterly insipid.
Katrina comes into prominence only in the second half and justifies her Indu character. Unlike the promos, her role is just supportive or rather a pawn in the big game.
With so many stars and characters along with their ego clashes, Prakash Jha has really done a great job in providing enough screen spaces to everybody as per their character needs.
Here are the ones who have maximum impact although the entire cast is deliciously terrific.
Arjun (as both Sonny Carleone and Yudhistir into one) plays his hot headed impulsive character Prithvi rather well but could have been better.
Ajay (Karna) as Dalit leader, Sooraj is okay. Great character but toothless role.
Shruti Seth as some manipulative women group leader is pure lust and juicy.
Naseeruddin Shah in a guest role in the beginning in the film is good who also indirectly happens to turn the events in the movie for good or for worse.
Sarah Thomson as Ranbir's Samar's girlfriend is the only positive character. Her outburst whilst Shruti's kidnapping incident and later on Samar is effective as is her death scene!
Katrina (Draupadi) as Indu is adequate with her chaste and difficult (to her) Hindi lines.
Ranbir (as Arjun) is one conniving but shrewd Samar who is the actual plotter to all the happenings in the movie. His is the most underrated acting in this Raajneeti enterprise.
Nana Patekar (as Krishna) is the main force behind Ranbir's Samar plots and handles all the other characters with absolute finesse. But i feel, Nana as an actor is utterly wasted. The role had great potential but no meat in his characterisation. Blame the director for this.
Finally, Manoj Bajpai(as Duryodhan) or the main antogonist, Veerendra of this huge canvas is, atleast for me, is the hero of the film. With Telugu star, Chiranjeevi's 90's moustache looks, he gets to showcase all kinds of negative emotions in an excellent way. He gets maximum 'productive'screen space, stylish costumes with cool sun glasses and best of chast Hindi uttered in a very powerful manner. Coz, may be, on his side, only Ajay and him are the main leads but on other side, there's Arjun, Ranbir and Nana fighting for screen time.
Last but not the least, the director, Prakash Jha, suffering from Bollywood's most common disease, 'Injustifiable and Improper Ending' syndrome, is fairly efficient. Adapting a mammoth epic with so many varied characters and limiting them to screen is not an easy job although GodFather references are hard to ignore in important scenes. One important character from the epic which i missed is Shakuni. But i think, he is present in all the other portrayed characters in one way or another with most visibility in Ranbir's Samar. One major minus point of the film is that most of the characters are, in the end, are plain caricatures.
Hidden Story? It has resemblances the current Indian politics especially the you-know-who family! :)
My pick? Manoj and Shruti.
Watchable? Definitely.
Rating: 3.5 stars
