Tuesday, January 10, 2006

how to spoil a movie for people [warning: spoilers follow]

The IAF has put a cog in the wheels of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti by objecting some scenes that depicted the Defence Services and politicians in bad light. While the Rediff article only notes that the MiG crashes were referenced and that the Union Home Ministry was one of the parties referenced in an uncomplimentary fashion. The Indian Express take, however, knocks out the specifics about the department and leaves us with politicians (arguably they're the same thing; but perhaps the references in the movie are to politicians; who knows? I haven't seen the film yet). The Express notes: The IAF has objected to a computer-generated scene showing the crash of a MiG-21 and also to some of the dialogues, which show politicians in poor light. I don't see what's wrong in showing politicians in poor light? Show them in darkness, I say. In fact, cast them into darkness. Force them to watch the collected works of the likes of Emran Hashmi, Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol, Uday Chopra and Asha Parekh.

The Indian Express then goes a step further by courtesly providing us more insight into the details of the plot of the film. While I'm not terribly enthused about the film, it would have been nice to go in knowing as little as possible (so that what meagre offerings might exist in terms of a plot might be appreciated):
The film portrays Madhavan as an Air Force pilot, who dies in a MIG-21 crash. Aamir and his friends there after hold the IAF responsible for the crash.

Another victory for free speech. All this talk about progress, and people can't speak their mind or have a point of view. Meanwhile, it's fine to bandy salacious family-rated porn and cleavage in the name of meaningful[sic] entertainment. I think it's time to remake A Beautiful Mind rewritten to be a story about characters played by Payal Rohatgi, Mona Chopra and Mallika Sherawat.

follow-up: OK, another case of AFNS; the film's been cleared; an IAF officer was quoted as saying We live in a democracy after all. We don't have a problem with the movie. All Hindi films are the same...works of fiction. It can be shown as it has been made. Um, you had to actually watch the film to figure this out?

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