3 Idiots [Hindi] Movie Review

Aamir + Classroom = Superhit!

Yes he will age more. Yes he will gray… but Bollywood should never take Aamir Khan out of the classroom. Whether it’s a puppy eyed college graduate in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or a fiery rebel student in Rang De Basanti or the out-of-the-box teacher in the very recent Taare Zameen Par, there’s something which makes Aamir simply tick in an academic environment.

A not-too-subtle critique of the education system in India, Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘3 Idiots’ is an educative pill which is so well glazed and sugar coated that you do not realize what you have swallowed until it starts kicking your gut (in a good way) within.

And there’s a reason for that.

The film is brilliantly paced with a romantic twist here and raggedly comic moment there, in a manner not too dissimilar from Hirani’s Munnabhai sequels. To popularly ‘contemporize’ the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s times is one hell of a task. And Hirani does it with such aplomb.

Madhavan (Farhan) and Sharman Joshi (Rastogi) are kicked about meeting their former roomie Ranchhoddas Chhanchad (or is he?) (Aamir). When Aamir does not meet them at the place where they are supposed to catch up after five years, they are lured into a journey to Shimla by their former batchmate Chatur (Omi), who claims to know where their maverick, but conscience-provoking friend is holed up, after obtaining the engineering degree from the coveted college they have all studied in.

The eventful journey is interspersed with well entwined flashbacks of their life in college which is virtually ruled by an eccentric, crude but brilliant director Sahasrabuddhe (Boman Irani), who is also the father of Aamir’s love interest Kareena.

Humour, often the most crassly tackled and taken-for-granted element in mainstream Hindi cinema today, is so brilliantly chiseled into the script. Even the very essential randiness of college humour is rounded and very healthy.

The ragging scene (and the use of science to over come the academic torture) and Chatur’s speech at a college function are really, really rocking. Chatur’s south Indian-cum Ugandan accent when he speaks Hindi is really a breath of fresh air vis a vis on screen histrionics.

While the film comes thumbs up as far as the acting larder is concerned, only one person on the top end of this exciting cast appears to disappoint.

Yes, there will be those who swear by Boman Irani and the ease with which he has assayed the doctor in Munnabhai MBBS and a sardar builder/broker in the sequel, but while playing the Sahasrabuddhe character, there seems to be a sense of a jaded sort of a déjà vu which strikes you.

Perhaps Hirani needs to relook Irani (don’t miss the pun) in his film just a wee bit.

‘Three Idiots’ is an unusual success story of the rebel who makes his mark. The same could be said about the film too.

-Movie Review By Bhushan in Goa.