Satyagraha movie review : An augmented reality gone wrong

Satyagraha Movie Poster
Satyagraha Movie Poster

Satyagraha Movie Review : Prakash Jha fails to deliver what could have been a superb sociopolitical drama.

Satyagraha was supposed to be an augmented reality of Anna Hazare’s movement for Jan Lokpal Bill but it came out wrong. Satyagraha releases after Madras Cafe, and it acts as a drawback for the movie. A higher level of expectation from Prakash Jha’s Satyagraha makes it slightly weaker than what it is.

You will not lose out during the movie but Satyagraha fails to penetrate into what could have been a thought-provoking act. We wait for our blood to boil, but it does not comes in that hard on emotional expectations. With so much of distraction in the script from from the main storyline we see good acting being subsided by a weak story.

We see Ajay Devgn acting as Manav Raghvendra,the protagonist and reel version of Arvind Kejriwal. While the story timelines over events in Manav’s life, it tries to chase Dwarka Anand‘s(Amitabh Bachchan) life more seriously. Amitabh being a better actor makes Ajay look weak relatively, however we see Ajay picking up strongly in second half of the movie.

The story starts with Manav‘s friend, a civil engineer marrying Sumitra(played by Amrita Rao). We see everything setting place in first half an hour with a satisfied civil engineer, his father Dwarka Anand shown as a retired morally upfront and strong headmaster and supportive wife Sumitra. His friend Manav, a business minded,law-abusing ambitious person climbing up the ladder. We also see Kareena Kapoor as Yasmin Ahmed, a reporter with strong ethical values and Arjun Rampal as  Arjun, who is a local political student leader.

Satyagraha starts picking up on the tempo when Manav‘s friend dies in an accident, and Balram Singh(played by Manoj Bajpayee), a corrupt politician announces to provide 25 lakh rupees as compensation/financial aid to his family. Sumitra gets frustrated by running around the corrupted government staff for getting the money sanctioned. Amidst all this Dwarka Anand slaps the district magistrate, and is put behind the bars. Manav joins in and uses social media to launch a campaign to get his Dwarka out of jail by taking help from Yasmin and Arjun. Once Dwarka gets out of jail,he pledges to clean the system and starts the official satyagraha. The rest is what can be predicted by Anna’s Movement. It is beautiful indeed how finely the story traces towards the satyagraha.

The movie hits a low when we see Manav & Yasmin romancing on Aadesh’s Ras ke bhare tore nain song. It could have easily been removed form the movie. However the script once again pulls tight and we experience an high point when Salim Sulaiman’s  Raghupati Raghav Raja Raam tune sets in when a scene where Dwarka Anand is on a fast-until-death is in progress. While the script waver at times during the movie, we still see an excellent acting by the performers.

Background scores are nicely blended with realistic cinematography and fine direction complemented by good acting. We almost had it, in this Prakash Jha movie but because of a weak script we see the movie falling short of an excellence.

Satyagraha makes a nice remembrance of Anna Hazare’s memories. But why does it not strike as hard as it could have been ? Maybe because it is a bit diluted or are we revisiting Anna’s story too soon ?

Go Ahead and watch it yourself. Satyagraha earns a rating of 3 on 5 on blog to bollywood with a slight miss from target.

Shoot back with your take on Prakash Jha’s Satyagraha.

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