Aamir Khan redeems himself completely.

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2006)

There is no doubt about it. Aamir Khan is totally forgiven for the Mangal Pandey disaster. Ketan Mehta did everything possible to mess up Aamir's record, but with Rang De Basanti, Khan's "Rising" mistakes will be forgotten.
The director (only a film old with Aks), is also one of the screenwriters, and has written a compelling, emotional, informational and entertaining storyline.
The story starts of with a British TV producer, Sue, who comes to India to make a film on freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and his compatriots. Her story is based on the diary entries of her grandfather, who was a soldier in the empire during the 1920s. With the help of an Indian friend in Delhi called Sonia (Soha Ali Khan Pataudi), she starts auditions for the cast of her film, at Sonia's college. Here she also meets Sonia's friends: DJ (Aamir Khan), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Sukhi (Sherman Joshi) and Karan (Siddharth Narayan), as well as Sonia's boyfriend Ajay (Madhavan in a guest appearance). This group is soon joined by Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) who is a pro Shiv Sena activist. What follows on from here is an unbelievable ride of fun and emotions. A story that starts out in the middle of a college day with friends playing jokes and having fun (a la Dil Chahta Hai) breaks into an adventure of self discovery.Even at the interval, you will not be able to imagine what the end is like. I wouldn't like to say more about the storyline, you just have t watch it yourself.
Why is is movie a winner? I heard the album before watching the movie and found it to be very average fare from A.R. Rahman. My opinion changed completely after watching the movie. The music is so apt, and plays such an integral role in the film that you can't imagine anyone else having done it. In fact, the scenes there are scenes that are actually memorable BECAUSE of the effect of the music. People tell me that Rahman is losing his touch, since a lot of new music directors have popped up. I disagree. AR Rahman is a person who makes music completely from his soul. His soul needs to understand the feel of the movie. The director needs to tell him what the storyline is, what the scenes are. And I'm sure this director did. He had a crisp story, and a very serious vision of what the feel of every scene is. Once he passes that info on to Rahman, the music director transforms that into a musical piece. Basically, give AR Rahman a clear-cut theme of the movie, and he will create magic. Examples aplenty in Roja, Rangeela, Bombay, Dil Se, 1947 Earth, Lagaan, Saathiya and Yuva.
The casting is a real treat. Its rare to come across an Indian movie where there are no casting mistakes, but this is a unique gem. Not a single character was miscast and every single person gave their best to the role. You can't imagine other actors in these roles. Kunal Kapoor as Aslam is superb, Aamir Khan is brilliant, Soha Al Khan surprised me with her poise and confidence, Sherman Joshi is great, Atul Kulkarni has proved time and again that he is a serious character artist and Siddharth as Karan is another role that comes alive very well. In addition to that, the savior is that they have cast a British woman who actually has some command over the Hindi language, so instead of struggling with her accent, you see her emoting her role really well. The supporting cast, made up of Kiron Kher (as DJ's mom), Anupam Kher (Karan's dad), Madhavan and Waheeda Rahman are finely suited for their roles.
The director has made a brilliant venture into the movie world. I would like to see what else comes out in 2006 because I am having a hard time believing that there will be anything much this year that will beat this film. I rarely rate things this high, and I would have given it a ten if it wasn't for the scene where a certain woman hears bad news about her man on TV, while she is purchasing green chudis. Bit lame.