Review: 'Aarakshan' is a confused attempt

Film: Aarakshan
Director: Prakash Jha
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Bajpayee, Deepika Padukone and Prateik
Rating: **

Recently, a Kolkata-based newspaper got two filmmakers who had worked with Amitabh Bachchan to speak about what they preferred more -- Bachchan the actor, or Bachchan the star. Aarakshan is proof that there’s no need to choose. In the film, Bachchan puts his best ‘feet’ forward, and makes a spectacle of his role.

As Prabhakar Anand, Bachchan is Aarakshan's soul. Principal Anand runs a private educational institute with an iron fist; anushasan is the key word here. If this reminds you of Bachchan from Mohabbatein, let me tell you it’s a similar character but without the arrogance. In fact, Prabhakar Anand may come across as a pushover a lot of times, but Bachchan lends the role a sense of dignity and charisma that compels you to take him seriously. This is Bachchan how we like him -- as the crusader who will fight back no matter how badly the odds are stacked against him. And he will win.

But while Bachchan is a strong reason to watch Aarakshan, pretty much everything else around him falls apart. To begin with, the film is long. And verbose. And long. Dialogue after dialogue is thrown at you, characters conversing about the same things they discussed in a scene earlier, till they talk about it again in another scene. In the first half, in fact, there are a number of places where you expect the film to break for an interval, only to realise there are some more scenes left. It’s like watching two films: one before the interval and one after, and both seem long.

The length of a film is not what we are talking about here. It’s how long it actually feels. Aarakshan feels like an eternity. Co-writers Prakash Jha and Anjum Rajabali enforce every idea, every thought that the story toils to communicate over and over again. Worse still, they seem to forget and move on to a new one soon after. After spending a little over an hour to establish the evils and goods related to reservation (aarakshan) in educational institutions, the focus is then shifted to the evils of private coaching classes. Since education as a whole is the talking point here (or is it?), why not call the film ‘Shiksha’ instead.  

You would think the film would at least take some sort of a stance on the issue of reservation, but even there Jha chooses to sit on the fence. “Iss desh main do Bharat baste hain.” Smart dialogue, but what’s the point? Zara point pe aao na goes a song in Aarakshan. It’s the most effective of the million or so things said in the film.

While Amitabh is astoundingly efficient, the rest of the cast barely passes muster. Bajpayee, as a teacher who treats education like a business, reminds you of Amrish Puri’s Chaddha from Damini and not in a good way. He can’t pull off the hairstyle, which competes with his twitching face. Prateik is the guy who’s out of focus in every scene. His dialogue delivery is similar to that of a 14-year-old girl in the film who plays a milkman’s daughter keen on getting better at her studies. Prateik needs to get better with his diction.

Saif Ali Khan struggles with dialogues that need command over the Hindi language, but to his credit, manages to come across as honest to his role. Reportedly, the character was originally written for Ajay Devgn, but the actor backed out after getting a raw deal in Raajneeti. You can’t help but wonder if Saif suffered a similar fate on the editing table (which is tacky and abrupt, by the way). Deepika springs a pleasant surprise and delivers a competent performance.

Jha seems to be at a confused juncture as a filmmaker. His intentions seem noble; he continues to take up socio-political issues in the mainstream more often than most filmmakers, but he seems to want to please everyone now. He achieved tremendous commercial success with Raajneeti, and Jha doesn’t seem to want to let go of that -- a clear case of not practising what you preach.

The attention to detail in Aarakshan is astoundingly poor. After repeated dialogues that establish Anand to have been the principal for 35 years, a board in his office says he took over the post in 1983. The film is set in the year 2008. You do the math. In another scene, Saif calls Deepika from the US, and a close up of her phone shows the number starting with 91-22. Call from the production office, eh?

Anand is shown to change the lives of his students, by tutoring them, who then perform outstandingly well in their examinations. All he’s ever shown to teach them, day and night, are equations. If I knew I could be on the merit list without studying anything else, I would have paid more attention to maths in school.

I am not being fussy. These are just stupid, unwanted distractions that come in the way of what could have been an impactful and straightforward film about a principled teacher’s fight to survive in a contemporary, commercialised educational setup. It ends up being many things else.

Should you watch Aarakshan? In keeping with the spirit of the film, I’d say go for Bachchan. But stay away for everything else. Yes, I am sitting on the fence too.