Aarakshan (2011) - Hindi Movie Review

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://adf.ly/35185/banner/https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrdOYpR8kE9Hgt8az-AuuBQ-jy8prfEfAtN6xgPwhRdNBzK5C83ff_rWEA2e3txFHSeYgx2G5zDBAxRJNq_SasK48ghyPsg4BY4XyGx3rObk3rHNmG6G8bKVm_znrNLjmlZVl2_xN0C4/s1600/Aarakshan+%25282011%2529+-+Hindi+Movie+Review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank" title="Aarakshan (2011) - Hindi Movie Review"><img alt="Aarakshan (2011) - Hindi Movie Review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrdOYpR8kE9Hgt8az-AuuBQ-jy8prfEfAtN6xgPwhRdNBzK5C83ff_rWEA2e3txFHSeYgx2G5zDBAxRJNq_SasK48ghyPsg4BY4XyGx3rObk3rHNmG6G8bKVm_znrNLjmlZVl2_xN0C4/s1600/Aarakshan+%25282011%2529+-+Hindi+Movie+Review.jpg" title="Aarakshan (2011) - Hindi Movie Review" width="550" /></a></div><br /><b>Cast:</b><br /><ul><b><i><li>Amitabh Bachchan as Dr. Prabhakar Anand</li><li>Saif Ali Khan as Deepak Kumar</li><li>Manoj Bajpai as Mithilesh Singh</li><li>Deepika Padukone as Poorbi Anand</li><li>Prateek Babbar as Sushant Seth</li><li>Tanvi Azmi as Kavita Anand</li><li>Hema Malini as Shakuntala Thakral (Special appearance)</li><li>Chetan Pandit as Dinkar</li><li>Mukesh Tiwari as Police Inspector</li><li>Yashpal Sharma as Shambhu Yadav</li><li>Darshan Jariwala as Aniruddh Prasad</li><li>Saurabh Shukla as Baburamji</li><li>Vinay Apte as Vishambhar Das</li><li>S. M. Zaheer as Kamta Prasad</li><li>Aanchal Munjal as Munni</li><li>Deepraj Rana as Sanjay Tandon</li><li>Bikramjeet Kanwarpal as Verma</li><li>Rajeev Varma as Damodar Seth</li><li>Saurabh Dubey as Advocate</li><li>Anita Kanwal as Kamta Prasad's Wife</li><li>Amitosh Nagpal as Pandit Dinanath Upadhay</li></i></b></ul><b>Directed by : <i>Prakash Jha</i><br />Produced by : <i>Prakash Jha, Firoz A. Nadiadwala</i><br />Screenplay by : <i>Anjum Rajabali, Prakash Jha</i><br />Singers : <i>Mohit Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Raman Mahadevan, Shankar Mahadevan, Channulal Mishra, Tarun Sagar, Gaurav Gupta, Rehan Khan, Abhijit Vaghani</i><br />Lyricist : <i>Prasoon Joshi</i><br />Music by : <i>Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy</i><br />Cinematography : <i>Sachin Krishn</i><br />Editing by : <i>Santosh Mandal</i><br />Studio : <i>Prakash Jha Productions</i><br />Distributed by : <i>Base Industries Groups</i></b><br /><br />An angry exchange of words erupts between newly appointed junior lecturer Deepak Kumar (Saif Ali Khan) and his mentor and college Principal Dr Prabhakar Anand (Amitabh Bachchan).<br /><br />The former hurls a pointed question at his senior: “What is your position on reservation?” The latter responds in kind but refuses to answer. That’s perfectly in keeping with the underlying spirit of Aarakshan. Words, words, and more words… but no clear pronouncements! So don’t expect any answers from Aarakshan.<br /><br />Prakash Jha’s highly anticipated film isn’t really what the title might suggest: a sledgehammer drama about a simmering political issue that has never been addressed before in a mainstream Hindi film. Instead, it’s a rather safe, superficial and simplistic take on an extremely complex theme. The film lets off steam, and generates some smoke, but the fire is missing.<br /><br />Given all the pre-release brouhaha over its emotive subject matter (leading to several states banning its public screening), Aarakshan is quite a copout.<br /><br />It ends up being more about the depredations of the nation’s education mafia than the vexed question of job and college quotas for backward caste candidates and its fallout.<br /><br />The basic premise is rooted in the real world all right and the film might touch some raw nerves. But the dramatization of the conflict over the quota raj that divides India down the middle tends to border on the excessively shrill, if not completely shallow.<br /><br />A good teacher and a bad teacher–-a hero and a villain cast in the classic Bollywood mould - fight a bitter turf war on the campus of a sprawling college called Shakuntala Thakral Mahavidyalaya. The conflict trickles down to the level of the students, who get sucked into the vortex like a bunch of willing but misguided foot soldiers, sparking off violent disagreements between the two groups.<br /><br />The Supreme Court ruling upholding 27 per cent reservation for OBCs is alluded to and treated as the spark for two of the film’s most dramatic confrontation scenes – the one mentioned above and another one between Deepak Kumar and upper caste student Sushant Seth (Prateik), who also happens to be the son of a member of the private trust that runs the college.<br /><br />And, then, Aarakshan bails out of the danger zone. Essentially, the film is structured like a run-of-the-mill good-versus-evil drama where the characters are convenient cutouts, each representing a particular line of thinking, rather than tangible figures prone to psychological ebbs and tides.<br /><br />So we have a math professor who is perched on a horse so high that he might have been better off in the Vatican. He doesn’t speak; he delivers sermons, as if from a pulpit.<br /><br />He has a wife (Tanvi Azmi) who believes that he is a "real hero" in a world full of "cowards" and a daughter (Deepika Padukone) who is doting, dutiful and forever ready to spring to her dad’s defence. And, of course, this picture wouldn’t be complete without the suave college topper raised by a low-born mother who worked as a maid in the homes of the wealthy.<br /><br />And there is the crafty, creepy college staffer who is so smarmy that he could give Mogambo the heebie-jeebies. But for the measured skills of Manoj Bajpayee, who digs his teeth into this dark persona with great glee, Mithilesh Singh would have been just another evil madcap.<br /><br />In this scenario, words fly thick and fast like bullets as the gunfights of a conventional potboiler are replaced by verbal fireworks. A thriving coaching centre housed in a property that the upright math professor has been duped of and the college principal’s chamber stand in for the den of the baddie.<br /><br />The R word is uttered several times in the first half, but the political ramifications of reservation are only touched upon in passing and then quickly discarded as the film shifts into morality play mode and the protagonist sets up a classroom for the poor in a cowshed.<br /><br />The second half is another film: the title is forgotten and Aarakshan dives into a plot woven around the ageing protagonist’s battle to rescue his students from the clutches of the greedy men who have turned education into a money-spinning racket.<br /><br />The bad teacher tells the good teacher in one scene: "You were a zero, are a zero, and will always be zero." The tables are turned, as expected, on the villain by the time the film comes to an end. By then, Aarakshan stops adding up.</div>

Aarakshan (2011) - Hindi Movie Review

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan as Dr. Prabhakar Anand Saif Ali Khan as Deepak Kumar Manoj Bajpai as Mithilesh Singh Deepika Padukone as Poorbi Anand...

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‘Aarakshan’ screening begins in Uttar Pradesh

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://adf.ly/35185/banner/https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrdOYpR8kE9Hgt8az-AuuBQ-jy8prfEfAtN6xgPwhRdNBzK5C83ff_rWEA2e3txFHSeYgx2G5zDBAxRJNq_SasK48ghyPsg4BY4XyGx3rObk3rHNmG6G8bKVm_znrNLjmlZVl2_xN0C4/s1600/Aarakshan+%25282011%2529+-+Hindi+Movie+Review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank" title="‘Aarakshan’ screening begins in Uttar Pradesh"><img alt="‘Aarakshan’ screening begins in Uttar Pradesh" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrdOYpR8kE9Hgt8az-AuuBQ-jy8prfEfAtN6xgPwhRdNBzK5C83ff_rWEA2e3txFHSeYgx2G5zDBAxRJNq_SasK48ghyPsg4BY4XyGx3rObk3rHNmG6G8bKVm_znrNLjmlZVl2_xN0C4/s1600/Aarakshan+%25282011%2529+-+Hindi+Movie+Review.jpg" title="‘Aarakshan’ screening begins in Uttar Pradesh" width="550" /></a></div><br />Over a week after its worldwide release, multiplexes and cinema halls across Uttar Pradesh started screening Prakash Jha-directed film ‘Aarakshan’ Saturday - a day after the Supreme Court revoked the state government`s ban on the movie.<br /><br />"We have complied with the Supreme Court directions pertaining to the screening of the movie. Cinema halls in Lucknow and other cities have already started screening `Aarakshan`," Chandra Bhanu, secretary of the entertainment tax department, told reporters here Saturday.<br /><br />"We received the copy of the Supreme Court judgment late Friday evening. We have already instructed all district magistrates and entertainment tax officials to make necessary arrangements for screening the movie in their respective regions," he added.<br /><br />Citing fears of law and order problems, Mayawati`s government Aug 10 slapped a two-month ban on the screening of ‘Aarakshan’ across the state.<br /><br />The government was of the view that the release of ‘Aarakshan,’ which deals with the reservation issue, could lead to social unrest.<br /><br />Cinema operators and multiplex managers have expressed happiness over the apex court`s ruling, and expect to earn good profit from the movie.<br /><br />"We were disappointed when the ban was imposed. But now we feel that the back-to-back holidays due to the weekend and Janmashtami holiday will bring in good business," said an official of Wave multiplex that started running five shows of the movie from 10:30 a.m.<br /><br />People in Lucknow too hailed the apex court judgment.<br /><br />"There was just no need to ban the screening of the movie as the censor board had already cleared the movie. The Supreme Court judgment will definitely make the government think twice before banning the screening of any movie now," Mudit Swaroop, a Lucknow University (LU) student, told reporters.<br /><br />Akanksha Mittal, a research scholar here, said: "All of our friends had planned to watch the movie, but were disappointed on learning about the ban. Now, as the court has lifted it, we are again looking forward to enjoy the movie on the big screen."</div>

‘Aarakshan’ screening begins in Uttar Pradesh

Over a week after its worldwide release, multiplexes and cinema halls across Uttar Pradesh started screening Prakash Jha-directed film ‘Aara...

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Deepika and Siddhartha watch Aarakshan together

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://adf.ly/35185/banner/https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2mzp-xOpNPtPsxHGegRLIM2v0I56ESMJXs5MorbD_0ZU-lDsN5G0eUdFiLR6ZPMFaEciz9cRnm81LPXe5U8D0sdZ2fMQPJBs0X6utECoC2ZQdieYLTXCuFbBYANIVBBH0pBNhaILz7dE/s1600/Deepika+Padukone+on+Verve+Magazine+September+2010+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank" title="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together"><img alt="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2mzp-xOpNPtPsxHGegRLIM2v0I56ESMJXs5MorbD_0ZU-lDsN5G0eUdFiLR6ZPMFaEciz9cRnm81LPXe5U8D0sdZ2fMQPJBs0X6utECoC2ZQdieYLTXCuFbBYANIVBBH0pBNhaILz7dE/s1600/Deepika+Padukone+on+Verve+Magazine+September+2010+%25281%2529.jpg" title="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together" /></a></div><br />Deepika Padukone and Siddharth Mallya are literally painting the town red!<br /><br />We know that the two are an item. Or not? And we can also see how the style is perfectly complemented by his beautiful girlfriend Deepika Siddharth and watch. The couple attended the special screening of Aarakshan and was manipulated in red.<br /><br />Red symbolizes love. They have taken the couple’s sense of color too seriously? In the special screening of Aarakshan Deepika, the next version, we saw in a red Anarkali Deepika, it was a shock was that the man has also chosen to show red. Coincidence or coordination … do not know. But Siddharth was only for a red shirt, but the red shoes. After seeing two of them, we think, are just perfect!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://adf.ly/35185/banner/https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9nT0ZrYDI9OmKKXDe2nyS01lLUp2vHtqVQMIRJLUXoJvkysBqu9jSdBVViAdmxTvawnqQW5ey5K9T2bqTUW0OBKwNX7psXP6DFCCJmG_5JAqUqDM0eHUSV0kmJ5ECij1iIc4d1eiP1hg/s1600/Sidhartha+Mallya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank" title="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together"><img alt="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9nT0ZrYDI9OmKKXDe2nyS01lLUp2vHtqVQMIRJLUXoJvkysBqu9jSdBVViAdmxTvawnqQW5ey5K9T2bqTUW0OBKwNX7psXP6DFCCJmG_5JAqUqDM0eHUSV0kmJ5ECij1iIc4d1eiP1hg/s1600/Sidhartha+Mallya.jpg" title="Deepika Padukone and Sidhartha Mallya watch Aarakshan together" /></a></div><br />In fact, the couple has reminded us of Sonam Kapoor and blanket-dovey boyfriend Hate Luv Storys wearing similar color to the bulk of the film.<br /><br />Look at the pictures of lovebirds Deepika Padukone Siddharth Mallya and complement each other as lovers only.</div>

Deepika and Siddhartha watch Aarakshan together

Deepika Padukone and Siddharth Mallya are literally painting the town red! We know that the two are an item. Or not? And we can also see how...

Read more »