RAJNEETI - An Honest Attempt At Good Cinema

Stark and hard hitting Prakash Jha s political drama -Rajneeti gives the audience a pragmatic view of Indian politics. The movie unveils the naked face of human vices and follies , lust and greed, plotting and manipulations, democracy and autocracy, power and opportunism, defections and loyalties.Bearing an indistinguishable resemblence to Mahabharat, the movie is the tale of the most powerful political family of a state and the  affray amongst its members to proove their puissance in the main political arena.
The story is about two brothers , their sons, and their fight for power, ie the Kauravs and the Pandavs.So uncanny is the resemblence to Mahabharat, that the movie could be renamed Mahabharat 2010.Despite parallels being drawn to The Godfather, the only semblence i could observe between Rajneeti and The Godfather is the character of Ranbir Kapoor(Samar Pratap, an irenic literato) which is quite similar to that of Al Pachchino s Michele Corleone in the Godfather, barring that the story is the great epic retold.
Apart from a cogent script what sets the movie apart is the display of theatrical skills in its fulgent glory. Nana Patekar as Krishna with his controlled and precise demure, Ranbir kapoor as Arjun with his insoucience charm and Manoj Bajpai as Duryodhan with his brash arrogance have come up with stellar performances, Naseeruddin Shah has a five minute role but has managed to leave an impact in that short span of time as well reinstating the fact that its not the length of a role but the deapth of an actor that defines a character. Ajay Devgan playing the character of Karan manages a decent act, but in scenes where he has shared screen space with Manoj Bajpai he has been completely overshadowed by Bajpai s phenomenal performance.Katrina Kaif has looked stunning but her performance is yet to stun the audience. Without taking the credit away from her improved hindi diction,the actress has failed to live up to the expectations woven around her performance in this particular film. Arjun Rampal has his moments but on the whole has delivered a lack lusture performance.But the star of the movie is undoutedly Prakash Jha who has yet again managed to deliver a spectactular treat in the name of cinema.Ranbir Kpoor proves that he is indeed every inch the blue blodded scion of the Kapoor clan, and is only getting better with every film.
The only flaw visible is the mild ebbing  of the plot towards the second half, while the first half is as gripping as a python s coil. But is a flaw that is more than rectified by the performances and therefore can be easily overlooked.
On the whole Prakash Jha s Rajneeti is a must watch for its jaw dropping performances and hard hitting narration.