Three (Very Old) Idiots

Just caught a glimpse of the teaser promo of Raj Kumar Hirani's Three Idiots, based on the novel by bestseller writer Chetan Bhagat. I hope the film is fun and interesting as Hirani's Munnabhai series. But I felt sad to see Aamir Khan, R Madhavan and Sharmaan Joshi play young IIT students. This is not bad casting, it is about insulting the viewers (to have them believe that these grown-ups are engineering students). Even if the three actors manage to make us believe that they are young guys, it is bad logic on the part of the producer (Vidhu Vinod Chopra. To me, this film starts on the wrong foot with this casting blunder.

Hollywood also makes mistakes in casting, scripting and direction. But it will never have a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt playing a college student or a young lover (unless the story demands as in the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).

But our group of successful Khans are trying hard to get younger by every film they do. Take Om Shanti Om (SRK), Ghajini (Aamir), Love Aaj Kal (Saif) or Wanted (Salman. In all these films, the Khans are romancing heroines who are probably half their age. But then the public accepts the Khans in whichever way they come, as long as it is paisa vasool . In India, everything is forgiven for superstars (in his last film Sivaji, Rajnikanth romanced Shreya Saran, who is probably forty years younger to him. Before him, NTR and Nageswara Rao in Telugu, and Dr Rajkumar in Kannada did the same).

On another side, I found it funny that our media makes a big story out of a rain song featuring Aamir and Kareena in Three Idiots. Is a rain song so important in a film which has the 'Thinking Khan' starring in it. I really wonder why an actor of the calibre of Aamir has to do such a song, and also talk about it to media. Anyway, just hope that the film lives up to its expectations.

Among the few brilliant films I saw this week was the 1970s thriller classic The Getaway, directed by the maverick American director Sam Peckinpah. The film, starring the 'ever cool' Steve Macqueen and Ali McGraw, had edge-of-the-seat action, thrills and suspense right from the word go. Not only did Peckinpah show how to turn every cliche on the head in telling a crime story, he showed that good films like this one always stand the test of time thanks to a great script and narrative. I also saw Solino, a film directed by Fatih Akin, a German filmmaker of Turkish origin (I saw this on NDTV Lumiere, which is turning out to be my favourite movie channel). Solino is a story of an Italian family which emigrates to Germany in the 1970s. The film shows the parallel journeys (emotional, physical) of transition for migrants who are caught between two cultures.