Sharply Distilled, Bit Lumpy.

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2015)

"One leg in the past, one leg in the future, this is why we're pissing on the present."
So observes a character in Rang De Basanti. Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that it's men doing all the damage. In a Patriarchal country like the beautiful India, it's more than an implication. There's a cognitive dissonance, a man-made conflict of interests. It's a closed system with two interacting elements; the patriotic and the pecuniary.
The film tells its story, one of mistakably dimming relevance, in a very calculated and inviting fashion. The fight for independence from the British, as a historical documentary being made on a zero(denied)-budget by an ambitious British post-adolescent woman, that needs re-enactments, which shall be done by the boisterously youthful protagonists. (They jump drunkenly off bridges where the original young revolutionaries jumped on moving trains.) This dissonance spills out of the narrative and into the film making craft itself; about 75% of the cuts in the film are truly cinematic, impressively invisible, and serve emotion and storytelling, the rest are so hip-hoppy you think Honey Singh is going to burst into the frame. The Dance Numbers are derivatively progressive.
A subplot of external conflict, with a clique of militant dogmatists who are offended deeply (and paid heftily to take deep offence) by the 'Western-wannabeism' of the protagonists is inflated and paraded for us to notice, then buried for virtually the rest of the film.
A key character crosses over from their side (a big key too, considering he's the one getting the money), gets a role in the documentary, and then only serves as a pair of fists and knees in a plot-hinging fight scene. After that, he's just a diffident extra in the documentary. Anyone paying attention to the story at this point will tell you he has more conflict, both internal and external, than all the other characters aggregated.
That wouldn't leave running time for Aamir Khan's comic relief though, would it? But is this a story that needs relief, from what? The premise itself is a tricky compromise enough. I don't know whether it's the New Bollywood way of tickling the audience's ribs, but there's a whole lot of standing-up-and-stomping-around going on, it gets on your nerves, then bites down and gnaws on them.
Still, the film is very dramatically effective, and there are enough 'realistic' performances from the core cast to sour-down and hair-up the cutesy syrupy moments. Consider, how the director sets up an in-joke about a television that reacts better to a well-timed slap than a turn of the knob. Without repeating the joke too many times, he hurtles the movie forward swiftly and smartly, and right before the intermission, supplies a Soap Opera proposal we don't want to see.
The sly disconnect with which he uses the punchline of the T.V. joke to cut down silly romanticism with grim foreclosure is not only tragi-darkly-comic, it understates one of the movies running themes; "Put your life on the line for your country in this new world, you're not a revolutionary, you're Nuts."
Safer to make movies and documentaries about stuff. Apropos, did Tropic Thunder steal its premise from this, strip away idealism and purpose?
The message seems to be that, inherently oppressive, colonialism (ancestral to anti-nationalism in a way) is an indelible stain that only permeates wider and changes color with time. I heartily agree. However, wherever you stand on this contemplative time curve, you leave a puddle. Blood, tears, or likely, pxss.
Overall, the film is an efficiently constructed, cleverly told and expertly presented crucial bit of overarching history, worth the demand of its running time.