Dire message, dreadful waste of wonderful Bollywood actors and production

Rating: 1/10 (16 July 2006)

A disturbingly bad film, and a rare example of one that utterly misses its own point: initially it's a call for unity among different religions, and a story of patriotic resistance to the evil repression of authority. At the end the message is: forget legitimate protest, just kill those in power whom you don't like.
Starting off as a pleasant enough Bollywood entertainment about disaffected youth and the western blond girl who engages them in life and reminds them of the heroism of their ancestors against the evil British Colonial rulers (let's not even go there) the second half completely changes track and ends up as a political manifesto advocating violent terrorism as a way for social change.
It's dispiriting that the film's (initial) message of unity, democratic change and resistance to the evils of power could have been done much MORE powerfully without violating the internal logic of the story. The last quarter of the film comes out of the blueit's like you're watching a different movie. There are about 10 different ways the script could have gone differently and held together conceptually, while keeping the message which is (or initially seemed to be) about coming together and resisting oppression: SPOILER ALERT!

the youths could have been awakened to their problems, made a stand, and taken over the radio station, (even been killed and martyred for their beliefs) without killing someone in vigilante fashion

the youths could have discussed their understandable vengeful feelings before acting on them.

the women, originally portrayed as agents of change, could have been included in the decisions, or continued as characters to encourage critical discussion and thinking (instead of being pushed aside and become the clichéd tragic, mourning, passive, victims).

the potentially interesting parallels between the present-day corrupt Indian government with the colonial British one could have been explored, and taken to the logical conclusion, which is that terrorism and violence only continue the cycle, cause more divisiveness and don't work. (Gandhi, Partition, hello!)