Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Vikram, Govinda
Mani Ratnam renowned for delivering golden hits like Roja, Bombay, Nayagan has attempted to tell a modern story through the lens of India's age-old epic, Ramayana. As in the epic, the filmmaker draws parallels in this story to Beera (Abhishek) as Raavan who abducts a police officer Dev's (Aka Ram from the epic played by Vikram) strong-willed wife Ragini (Aka Sita played by Aishwarya). Though intent on killing her within 14 hours of her kidnapping, her spirited attempts to live and evade capture captivates Beera. Instead he falls in love with her. Ragini lives in captivity for a fortnight with the tribals of whom Beera is the leader. Dev, his gang of police officers along with the aid of Sanjeevani (played by Govinda akin to Hanuman in the epic) a forest guard follow in hot pursuit of Beera. We learn that Beera is not quite the villain he's expected to be and neither is Dev the righteous man Ragini thinks him to be.
Govinda provides a much needed reprieve to the otherwise grave tone of the film. Aishwarya fits her part to the tee lending equal measures of strength, vulnerability, and innocence to her character. Rahman's soundtrack with Beera, Behne De, Thok De Killi are catchy and memorable. While the pace of the movie itself is never dull, Mani fails to engage the audience with the central characters. What makes Dev so righteous, what makes Beera so fearful? Then there's Beera's love for Raagini which strikes as farcical as do the antics of his own character.
Rating: Three out of 5.
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I was pretty impressed with the soundtrack of Raavan and was looking forward to the movie.
ReplyDeleteReading your rating of a "Three out of five!" does not sound encouraging. Looks like I would fare better by renting out the Spanish or the French movie ;-)
Lavy
Hey Mrina,
ReplyDeleteRemember me? Agnita from Exchange Transport? How are you? I came across your blog. Nice writings.
I loved Raavanan. Not Raavan. The hindi movie is weak compared to the tamil. The characterization of Veera in Tamil is much stronger by actor called Vikram. Even Dev is better portrayed in Tamil version. Agree that emotions are not as strongly shown as in other Mani movies, but I think that was his purpose....not to feed the audience any bias and show it as a documentary....
Hi Agnita! Nice to hear from you and have you opine on the movie as well. Hope all's well with you. 'Course i remember running into you in the hallways of bldg 34 and our exchanges at Exchange.:) Good times they were!
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