ATAullah's thingy

THE FOLLOWING FOUR POSTS HAVE BEEN MY FIRST REAL WORK . I HAVE WRITTEN THESE MOVIE REVIEWS AND ACTOR REVIEWS FOR A WEBSITE, AND GUESS WHAT I GET PAID FOR IT ;) AND HERE IT GOES .

Earlier patriotism in Hindi films often turned jingoistic. It looked forced, at times unreal, it often looked like an attempt to unnecessarily arouse patriotism and nothing seemed to happen. . The genre is treated differently today. Patriotism in Hindi films looks real and more importantly it looks from the view of the common man and the youth.

Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra merges two plots in RANG DE BASANTI. The first is about a group of friends, their bonding, and the carefree lifestyle they lead. The second plot pertains to the past, when freedom fighters sacrificed their lives during the pre-independence era. Without doubt, portions of the movie prick my conscience.

Mehra draws parallels between Indians ruled by the British and Indians ruled by corrupt politicians today. The message is subtle at first, but echoes piercingly before it reaches its finale. The transition of the five friends from meaningless to meaningful existence is done brilliantly.The awakening, after one of their friends dies in an air crash, is master strokes from the writing point of view, the sequence of events that lead to the climax take an idealistic route. The friends enter a radio station, force the staffers to leave the premises, go Live, confess to the world that they’ve gunned down the Defence Minister for certain reasons. By then, the commandos get into action and the radio station turns into a battleground.

Also, RANG DE BASANTI unfolds at a leisurely pace all through. After establishing the characters in the first 30 minutes, the story doesn’t really race forward instead it created a vision for me and I would say oh! I need to be this guy or I need to be that guy . I need to do that; I need to do this from now on.

Products of modern India, the five youngsters initially refuse to be part of the project as they don't identify with these characters from the past. Not surprising, considering that they are a part of a generation of Indians that believes in consumerism. To them issues like patriotism and giving one's life for one's beliefs is the stuff text-books are made of. They would rather party than be patriots.

To conclude on a heavier note, I loved the film on respects of its patriotism and the youthness that it had. The portrayal of transition and portrayal of fun would not be missed. I would actually be so generous to rank it as the movie of the decade. Some have been even more generous. I love the film even more for the realness of display of reaction by the youngsters of different colleges after the gun down by the commandos. I loved the movie because of the on air scenes in the radio station and lastly I loved the movie because I saw myself in the movie .

A movie where you see gore being so beautifully portrayed is not a gore movie, it’s called a wonderful movie. 300 is about 300 Spartans who fight till the last man against a Persian king Xerxes and his army of over a million soldiers . Since birth Spartans have been trained to fight mercilessly and the biggest honor for them is to die while fighting, an honor even bigger than that of the getting victory to the state that was Sparta. Sometimes when you look at the 6 pack abs of the Spartans holding a spear in one hand and a shield in another conjures up jealousy and demands the viewer to actually cry out and ask himself why does he not have those abs!
300 is an adaptation of a novel by frank miller. Little did someone know that a novel to movie culture would give the producer never stagnant bank account? But almost all the credit for the awesome display of war scenes and individual fights goes to that of the graphics and the special effects team.

And all the credit goes to the script writers and the dialogue writers. Dialogues like “tonight we dine in hell”
“Madness? This is Sparta!”
“Give them nothing but take from them everything”, will take your breath way because the delivery is just perfect.

The background music is way from awesome because without the music the movie would have been just plain. It was the music which added effects to the battle scenes. Some of the scenes were blatantly hilarious like the one when the Spartan king eats an apple so casually amidst hundreds of the dead.

I’m glad this movie didn’t pretend to be anything more than what it was marketed to be. It was marketed as a visual treat, and who can say it wasn’t? It was marketed as a straight-up, no holds-barred war movie, and who can say it wasn’t? The cheesy love scenes with the queen in a movie, 300 six-packed testosterone-and-adrenaline-filled dudes on a killing spree would have satisfied me enough yet I’m not going to complain about a naked woman.