Plot politics

 

 

Every time you catch Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) with his smart phone in “Raajneeti”, he is seen playing chess on it. It’s a most apt image that Prakash Jha weaves into his epic political saga because all the twist and turns appear like a well planned chess move – some you’ll anticipate and some will catch you blind-sided. It is not, as pre-release speculation would have you believe, a film based on the first family in Indian politics. But it is the story of a political family and the turmoil it goes through when a power struggle ensues as the party leader suffers a stroke. He appoints his younger brother at the party helm but there are Gen-Next kids – the son (Arjun Rampal), the nephew (Manoj Bajpai) and the daughter-in-law (Katrina Kaif) – who are also staking their claim to power. There’s the outsider as well (Ajay Devgn) and pulling all the strings merrily in the background is the schemer, (Nana Patekar) trying to keep everything from falling brutally apart.

Shades of Mahabharata and “The Godfather” converge to create a hue of a saga of succession battles and the twists they spawn. The performances are all top notch. Ranbir defies his age to deliver a top class performance, Manoj Bajpai shines as the desperate son who sees his position fade away, and Nana Patekar is understated as you have never seen him before. This combined with a good background score and well-planned sprawling shots lay the canvas wide for Jha to showcase his brand of filmmaking. Some of the plot points are a bit of stretch (politicians settling feuds themselves in a shootout, “Wild Wild West” style? I don’t think so) but “Raajneeti”, with some sharp dialogues and a well-laid-out storyline is a satisfying watch.

It does not answer any questions about politicians and their ilk but as a chronicle of the murky visage that is politics and how the hunger for power transforms seemingly ordinary people into doing extraordinary things, “Raajneeti” has got to be on your watchlist.