The film starts with Ajay Devgan visiting a small town for his best friend’s wedding. The best friend’s dad (Amitabh Bachchan) is a siddhantwadi, who used to be the principal of a local school. Over a dinner at home, the best friend’s father (let’s call him BFF) asks Ajay the usual stuff, what his future plans are etc. Ajay merely tells him that he wants to set up his own business after studies. Boy, this provokes the BFF enough to launch into a minor tirade accusing him and others of being greedy.
So far as I could tell he was only going to be pursuing a master’s degree at this point. Later in the night while young Ajay is sharing a drink with his best friend, the BFF lands up on the terrace, lectures him some more, convinced that his son is keeping bad company. By the end of the night, young man Ajay takes an auto-rickshaw and heads home even without attending the wedding he had come for. This sets the tone for a hyperbolic, simplistic talkathon that follows for the next two and half hours where we’re not sure exactly what is everyone being all so self-righteous about.
Within three years, Ajay is worth over Rs 6,000 crore, his best friend is no more. The father is in the lock-up for slapping the district magistrate. Within a few minutes, in a turnaround, Ajay starts a movement to free his BFF.
A journalist from Delhi (Kareena Kapoor) pretty much sets up base in a small town. She is a persistent reporter, you can tell, from the number of missed calls she gives: 17 to a minister, 203 to Ajay. She turns down an assignment to interview the PM, the editor can do nothing about it, she even officially joins the anti-corruption movement, never mind the basic ethics of her profession.
By now you know this film is a political thriller. It’s directed by Prakash Jha, who is by now a genre of his own. The location is Bhopal. People speak in a quasi Bihari accent. Almost like a sequel to Jha’s Aarakshan, Amitabh Bachchan plays the calm, conscientious man whose heart bleeds for the concerns of his poor audiences.
The anti-corruption movement you see before you on the screen mirrors the one championed by Anna Hazare in 2011, for passing the Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill. You get the point about corruption. But what exactly is the plot? Lost, while looking for one, the filmmakers go around searching for the murderer of Ajay’s friend, a character inspired by Satyendra Dubey.
Unable to find much meat in there either, we’re back to more public rallies and homilies and simplicities on bhookh, garibi and bhrashtachar. At some point, you hear yourself go, “Ab bas bahut ho gaya yar. Bandh karo bak bak.” We get a lot of this on TV anyway, and at least we know what’s going on there.
This post was originally published here.