What a Boring movie!!. Review on Lagaan

LAGAAN is a movie that has a great message to tell us. It tells us how human spirit can triumph over the biggest of difficulties and/or enemies if everyone unites to-gether and is determined to come out successful.Unfortunately, a extremely good message is put across in the most boring of manners. This film taxes our brains and patience and just seems to go on forever and ever.

The story is set in the year 1893 and is about a village called Champaner. We are told that this village is going through a drought for the second consecutive year but somehow the villagers don't look like they are hard up for food or water. They look as healthy , if not more than their own king. For some flimsy reason the British decide that the villagers will pay double lagaan (Tax) and the villagers promptly go to talk to their beloved king requesting him to forego the lagaan this year. For another flimsy reason, the British captain or major ( iam not sure what he was because I was too bored to notice)challenges Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) to beat them in a game of cricket. If the British lose the villagers will not pay lagaan for 3 years and if the vice versa happens they pay three times the lagaan. Now for some extremely strange reason (which is not explained) the villagers are given three months to prepare for the game. We all know who is going to win the game and we even know how the game will progress and which player from which team will play a good or bad game. For the next 3 hours we have to go through the torture of watching the villagers prepare for the game, the result of which is known to each and everybody sitting in the theatre and in between all this we have the usual song and dance routine and to keep the hindi masala formula in fact we even have a love quadrangle. However, I liked the way in which the Champaner XI is picked up. Bhuvan is the self appointed captain who believes in himself and his ability and is determined to win a.k.a Steve Waugh, then we have a poultry farmer who is picked for his excellent fielding skills (Jonty Rhodes)....years of running behind and catching chickens have made him a excellent fielder. Then we have the vicious spinner (Shane Warne) whose spinners haunt the englishmen through the game. Since the villagers don't know anything about cricket , the english captian's sister starts to coach them. Well, the current Indian cricket team is'nt the first indian team to have a foreign coach. While coaching these villagers the coach falls in love with steve waugh. But, steve waugh loves miss champaner, Gauri (Gracy Singh) and in turn there is a villager who loves Gauri.Cuz steve waugh has miss champaner, this villager turns against him and joins the team to play badly in the match and help the English win. So, he is the Azharuddin of Champaner..the match fixer. Love makes people do strange things..Steve Waugh picks a old chap to gives him the responsiblities of keeping wickets and he is also the physio of the team!! In case you are wondering why a 50+ yr old is taken to be the all important wicket keeper, the answer lies in love. This old man is miss champaner's dad.

The problem with the movie is it's pace. Ashutosh Govatrikar (Director) has a long way to go when it comes to story telling and holding the attention of the viewer. Also, there are a lot of liberties taken while making this movie. Everybody seems to be talking about the liberties taken in Gadar but what about lagaan? If we had the high heels and contact lenses wearing Sakina in Gadar then we have Miss Champaner-Gauri here,who for a village girl of 1893 has perfectly shaped eye-brows, well manicured nails, perfectly waxed upper lip and arms and legs and lovely starched dresses. Also, at times Aamir khan has that perfect Gillette shaved look about him and he is supposed to be a villager from a drought hit village. Also, Gauri and Bhuvan openly romance each other in the village which is extremely difficult to believe. Couples in today's India have to keep their love relationships a secret from their elders but here we have a 19th century village that does'nt bother about free mixing of the sexes. of course all these features can be put down to the freedom a film maker has to take to make a movie but why raise fingers on another film and not on lagaan? Also, I am spelling out these mistakes because a lot of people seem to believe that lagaan is a classic but do classics get made with such glaring and obvious mistakes? Another problem is the ease with which Bhuvan convinces his villagers on accepting the untouchable into the cricket team. Aamir Khan and Ashutosh Govatrikar have no idea of how bad the caste system was in 1893. Instead of wasting time and reels on the love quadrangle , the Director should have concentrated more on the part of Bhuvan convincing his fellow villagers on accepting the untouchable into the team. Another problem is in the depiction of the role of the king. The king of Champaner province is shown to be supportive of the villagers but cannot do anything because the Britisher's protect him from the neighbouring king's attack. Why does'nt the king help the villagers to learn the game of cricket if he supports them? Why does'nt he provide them with money so that they can learn the game with the proper equipment? Despite no help from the king, the villager's including Bhuvan love and respect him. why??

The acting of the cast members redeem the film. Aamir Khanis his usual practised self and so are the other actors and actresses. Aamir should know that he can be a little spontanious in his acting. His performance is always so practised that it's sickening. It's almost like he has given 25 rehearsals for every scene and every time he reacts to anything in the script , you get the feeling that he knew beforehand what was going to happen. Gracy Singh dances with a lot of grace and gives a impressive performance and I do hope we get to see more of her. The British cast members also come up with good performances. Rachel Shelly as the silent lover of Bhuvan is impressive. The Direction as I said earlier fails to hold our attention and even the cricket match was boring to watch. The songs and dances are not at all good to listen to and neither are they watchable on screen. For how many more years is Dance director Saroj khan going to show us the same old dance steps? The dance steps in the song ''kyon na radha jaale'' are so predictable and repetitive.

The problem with the movie was that it failed to hold my attention for even a minute.It's not the length of the movie but the direction and the pace. The movie seems to drag along forever and after a good 3 hours 45 minutes , I still felt like nothing had happened. There have been long films in the past that were gripping from the first to the last frame. Films like Sholay, Titanic, Godfather were all long films and Godfather was also a slow paced movie but the direction had that something in it that kept everybody gripped from the first frame. lagaan has nothing of that sort. Moreover, everybody knows exactly what is going to happen in the cricket match so the element of surprise is just not there. We spend almost three hours watching the villagers prepare for the game, the result of which is known to us even before the toss is done. I hope the next time Aamir khan remembers to appoint a editor for the film.Don't get fooled by the review of Pritish Nandy for this film. I wasted 8 hours on this junk...4 hours watching it and the remaining 4 hours nursing a post lagaan headache.