Paint it yellow

Rang De Basanti was hyped even more than Mangal Panday, and I couldn't help but wonder if this movie would bomb as spectacularly as Mangal Panday.
I don't think it will. The movie had the audience hooked and hooting and cheering for more - and guess what - the movie managed to tell the Mangal Panday story anyway.
Actually, before I go on to how cool the movie was, it's best to note here that the movie sometimes seemed to try too hard, and the editing was pretty choppy, and it just couldn't pull off the emotional scenes - the theater burst out laughing when Aamir Khaan cries towards the end.
That said, one hell of an attempt man, it was fresh, it was innovative, and it was more often than not, downfuckingright cool.
Basically, what happens is that there are these five guys who act in a documentary about Mangal Panday. The parallels drawn are amazing.
Like there is Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), a Muslim boy who is pretty uncomfortable around Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni), a devout Hindu. There is this scene where Aslam casually sits next to Laxman to eat, and Laxman gets up. Cut to a scene where both are revolutionaries. Laxman asks Aslam to go to Afghanistan and find Muslim support there, who will take him in as one of their own, and Aslam asks Laxman if he is not one of the countrymen. And Laxman hugs Aslam and they run from the brits together.
Basically the Indian Independance struggle is compared to every youth's strugle against the system (They can break your body but not your spirit).
There are some extereme steps, like the main chars imitate the revolutionaries and murder a home minister because of all the (alleged) corruption leading to the MiG accidents.
I go like, what the hell? How can they show the youth that killing the Home Minister is a good thing to do? Is this what the movie is advocating?
And then - the movie shows that doing such a thing will just make martyrs out of these politicians... so they do the next best thing, they spread the word about the politicians after hijacking a radio channel.
The movie intends to motivate the youth to move off their butts and do something about the country - and this it does (at least for as long as you stay inside the theater).

Must watch if you feel like a movie right now. Or else, just buy a pirated DVD at least...