Promising a good year for Bollywood in 2010, 3 Idiots, the first big hit of the year, has easily been wholesome entertainment for the young and the old alike. A full blown laugh riot, the movie offers you a complete package of comedy, suspense, pathos and some good old Munnabhai-style preaching. But unlike Rajkumar HIrani’s earlier Gandhigiri-an , his new version of Rancho (Ranchoddas Shymaldas Chanchad) sticks to talking about the how the education system ought to be.
The movie revolves around three friends Rancho (Aamir Khan), Farhan Quereishi (Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) and their college days at the Imperial College of Engineering which is run by the strict conformist Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani) popularly known as Virus. The film starts out with Farhan and Raju along with the loveable ‘villain’ Chatur or ‘Silencer’ (Omi Vaidya) searching for Rancho who disappeared immediately after passing out of the college. The college days are shown in flashback in which we see how Rancho tries to teach his friends to chase excellence and not success, to not memorise without understanding and to follow their dream and. Around this central theme, the story takes many twists and turns through many places like Delhi, Shimla, Manali to culminate in picturesque Ladakh. Kareena Kapoor plays the role of Pia, Virus’s daughter and Rancho’s love interest.
What is interesting and inherently good about this movie is what it tells us about our education system in which students are taught to win the race for marks and jobs however they can. But at the altar of material success are sacrificed innovative ideas, a thirst for knowledge and even the lives of those students who fall behind or dare to think differently.
But every movie, no matter how seemingly perfect, has flaws too. Some of the scenes, albeit funny, are dragged too long and some border on the plain ridiculous. The scene in which the boys help deliver Pia’s sister’s baby would have been good had it not been for the utterly ridiculous ‘Aal iz well’ kicks.
Though an attempt is made to pull the Rastogi family into the comedy fold, it fails and leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the discerning. [It was quite weird to see people laughing at the scenes which caricature poverty as far away from reality as possible. All those people asking me to stop problematising everything, excuse me!] Of course, the excuse against such a feeling is that the movie is only meant as an entertainer.Sadly, the women have hardly any role to play in the movie. Forget Kareena who is left to dance and shimmy around in the rain, The ICE itself bears the look of an all-male college.
Virus’s character, or more aptly, caricature, is rip-roaring funny and Irani does complete justice to it. Another character portrayal to be applauded is that of the Hindi-deficient Chatur. The actors have done a good job and even manage to convince you that they are 18 year olds. Overall, an entertainer that you can enjoy, laugh at and move on.
The movie revolves around three friends Rancho (Aamir Khan), Farhan Quereishi (Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) and their college days at the Imperial College of Engineering which is run by the strict conformist Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani) popularly known as Virus. The film starts out with Farhan and Raju along with the loveable ‘villain’ Chatur or ‘Silencer’ (Omi Vaidya) searching for Rancho who disappeared immediately after passing out of the college. The college days are shown in flashback in which we see how Rancho tries to teach his friends to chase excellence and not success, to not memorise without understanding and to follow their dream and. Around this central theme, the story takes many twists and turns through many places like Delhi, Shimla, Manali to culminate in picturesque Ladakh. Kareena Kapoor plays the role of Pia, Virus’s daughter and Rancho’s love interest.
What is interesting and inherently good about this movie is what it tells us about our education system in which students are taught to win the race for marks and jobs however they can. But at the altar of material success are sacrificed innovative ideas, a thirst for knowledge and even the lives of those students who fall behind or dare to think differently.
But every movie, no matter how seemingly perfect, has flaws too. Some of the scenes, albeit funny, are dragged too long and some border on the plain ridiculous. The scene in which the boys help deliver Pia’s sister’s baby would have been good had it not been for the utterly ridiculous ‘Aal iz well’ kicks.
Though an attempt is made to pull the Rastogi family into the comedy fold, it fails and leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the discerning. [It was quite weird to see people laughing at the scenes which caricature poverty as far away from reality as possible. All those people asking me to stop problematising everything, excuse me!] Of course, the excuse against such a feeling is that the movie is only meant as an entertainer.Sadly, the women have hardly any role to play in the movie. Forget Kareena who is left to dance and shimmy around in the rain, The ICE itself bears the look of an all-male college.
Virus’s character, or more aptly, caricature, is rip-roaring funny and Irani does complete justice to it. Another character portrayal to be applauded is that of the Hindi-deficient Chatur. The actors have done a good job and even manage to convince you that they are 18 year olds. Overall, an entertainer that you can enjoy, laugh at and move on.
