~~One Genius, Two Idiots and lot of entertainment~. Review on 3 Idiots

Chase your talent ! When Talent gets nurtured, excellence will be the child. When excellence gets matured lady success will follow. She will wear all the finest dresses of fame which will make you wealthy and famous. What each one of us has to do is to focus our attention on our areas of interest. Find out our best of talents and try to be excellent in whatever area we are good at. When we are doing things what we like, work will not bring boredom and it will be like a play. For that reason, the difference between work, play and service is attitude and the enjoyment. 3 Idiots call the audience to follow excellence instead of success.

Fear and Confidence are twin brothers, but infants, born to Mind and belief. Both cannot survive without the nurture of their parent that is mind and belief. Fear has no existence except in our mind. Confidence is only mental state of determination with which we can pursue the journey to excellence, overcoming many difficulties come across. 3 Idiots calls for a success mantra, ‘All Is Well’.

Rancho (Amir Khan) was a genius from his childhood. He was a boy with a high IQ and no wonder he comes up with new ideas and approach. When he joined in an engineering college, it was a systematized place to generate recruits for American Companies instead of stimulating the young minds to invent machines He soon got friendly with his room mates, Farhan (Madhavan) & Raju (Sharman Joshi) to make the 3 company. Rancho was always the leader for his team with his wicked ways. Farhan’s passion is wild life photography but his father is determined to make him as an engineer. Raju is from a very poor family and the entire family’s hope is on him. The film is a retrospect of the ways the 3 friends traveled and their union.

The major plus point and the hero of the film is the concept. It is an inspirational story throughout and the film will be a turning point in the life of many youngsters. The story is successful in sticking the key motto ‘Excellence above Success’ in the minds of audience. The idea spread mainly by Paulo Coelho, ‘Follow your dream’ is stressed as well.

Characterisation of the movie is only partly successful. The hardship of Raju’s family to bring a son to engineering college in those circumstances is less focused, nor the hero Rancho’s background. Farhan’s character is better tailored. Boman Irani’s professor is first class. Kareena’s Doctor is perfect. The writers let down the hero by not giving a proper justification for his action leading others to chase him. Also, the hype on his IQ reduces the impact of his success.

The movie is blessed with many of powerful situations. The scenes where Farhan meet his father and mother in the final part, the scenes where Raju appearing for the interview, The professor’s meeting with Raju and Raju’s dilemma - all were heart touching. The movie is hilarious as well and it is suppose to bring theatres down in laughter in scenes like the ‘Bhalalkar’ episode is happening. Then, there are situations which are patchy and too dramatic. Logic rests most of the final part of the movie to reduce the quality product to a league less. The ‘delivery’ scene was unwanted and even if it has to be there, the created situations are too silly at any standards. (If we find audience laughing all out in such a serious situation that is only thinking about the stupidity of the exercise) Repeating of situations (read 3 suicide attempts and 2 successful, so many stripping scenes, so many pissing scenes, so many toilet scenes, too many back scratch scenes) reduce the impact of them all.

The first half of the movie was perfect in all aspects but falls short of stamina in second half. The plot was dragged to another angle. The stories of Farhan and Raju were concluded in a nice fashion, but Rancho’s episode was dragged to boredom where the so called suspense was very predictable from the beginning. Here, the director needed a good editor for the screen play and for the film.

Amir Khan is a brand and he excelled in all his scenes. It is his ever pleasant ever young presence which compensated for the weakness in characterization and situations. Superb!! This is another mile stone for Madhavan, who has already proved his acting abilities. Brilliant!! Sharman Joshi gives a heart touching performance and well matches the bill. Very good!! Kareena Kapoor got only a short screen presence in an all ‘male’ film (except for guest appearances and crowds) and did her role well. Then, Boman Irani is the best performer in the film without a doubt. The veteran simply carried from his ‘Tare Zameen Par’ character to a much higher level. Omi as the 4th Idiot is cool.

Cinematography of the movie is excellent in most places.

Editing could have been better.

Songs of the movie are very good. Choreography is colourful and good.

For Amir Khan, Tare Zameen Par is way ahead of this movie and for Rajkumar Hirani, I still love Lage Rahe Munna Bhai. Despite the fact that the film didn’t manage to bring the totality on screen, it is way ahead of many other weekend films and pretty different in content and execution. A must watch!

My rating: 4.25 stars