3 Idiots - Movie Review

3 Idiots - Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan's new offering is a good movie.

It is light, entertaining and gives the right messages. In some sense, it is also one of the many forms in which art in our country is trying to convey the change in people's mindset.

The movie begins with 2 friends trying to meet their third one who has been missing for some time. And then the story moves back in time when they meet first time. Three engineering hostel roomies - Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi and Ranchhoddas Chanchad become best friends during their studies.

The gag fest begins there. Non-stop. Some of them outrageous, some picked from many of the jokes / anecdotes - of these some are contemporary and some very old. At times, you laugh (and really loudly) and at times you can only smile. But the good part is that the message is always delivered.

There is that element of suspense built up in the middle of the story that is good. But the climax feels contrived and, therefore, slightly stretched.

Aamir is good but his role, as an all-knowing, cannot do anything wrong fellow, seems stretched after some time. Madhavan seems wasted in a rather small role. Boman continues his only-needs-change-of-heart villainy.

Who shines? Sherman Joshi in a more sensitive role, Kareen Kapoor in a small but great role and their Uganda-born Pondicherry educated enamored-with-marks classmate (I don't know the actor's name).

The movie has some fantastic campus scenes, great dialogues and locales.  Raju Hirani continues his mission of spreading the right messages. This certainly looks in line with the earlier Munnabhai episodes. All-in-all, good watch.



Added later to post
The movie has elements of various sources from around the world. The ones I see obvious connections to - Earlier Munnabhai episodes, Taare Zameen Par, Kite Runner (the book), Forrest Gump

Movie Review - All The Best

***&1/2 out of 5*

All the Best is everything you want to end a perfect weekend. The only prerequisite for enjoying this movie - keep your brain outside the cinema hall.

Back in mid-90s when Ajay Devgan was new and was mostly doing forgettable action movies - critics used to pan him at will. One newspaper had called him "oily and retarded" (To be  precise it was "tupkat mandabuddhi chehryacha" in Marathi). Devgan over last 10 years or so has been consistently proving why he should be considered one of the better actors in the industry. This is one more comic addition to those good roles.

The movie is fun. Ajay Devgan (sans the 'a' in last name) plays Prem Chopra and Fardeen Khan - Veer Kapoor they are friends and both are subprime loan cases. However their creditor is a local goon (played by Johnny Lever). Bipasha Basu (as Janhavi) and Mugdha Godse (as Vidya) are their respective lead actresses. Their subprime situation leads to Prem Chopra giving extremely creative ideas to Veer on how to get money from his rich elder brother (Sanjay Dutt playing Dharam) from Africa. These creative ideas lead to confusion that make elder brother think Bipasha is Vidya. The whole movie is on this confusion.

The gags are in dialogues, sight gags, references and every other possible way. That said the jokes are not repetitive, they keep you interested and they don't make you wait long for the next joke.

Ajay Devgn reaffirms why he is a good actor. Almost half the movie is poking fun at his character. Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha are great. Fardeen has increased his expressions to more than 2 and that is encouraging. Johnny Lever is looking better with his translator sidekick. BTW, I loved Sanjay Mishra nicknamed RGV :D  who mimics Pran in the entire movie. He with Atul Parchure are awesome. And finally the ultimate Mallu accent from Ashwini Kalsekar is zimbly awzum.

Endpiece - The experience in this movie and mirth levels in the theatre reminded me of Andaz Apna Apna that I had seen back in 1994.