Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Three Idiots

Me and three of my friends watched '3 idiots' last week. I know there are many reviews floating around the web, raving about how good a movie it is, with more and more people watching it and making it a huge hit. Hence I thought I will also pen down my two cents about the movie.

First of all, the movie tries to deliver a very relevant message. Kudos to the story writer for bringing up a topic which is very relevant in today's times. Being an engineer and MBA myself, I can very well identify with the predicament, because I myself have tried to make sense of all these degrees that I have earned over a period of time.

The movie tries to bring into light the fallacy of 'rote' way of learning which Indian educational system patronizes. Here, the person who memorizes the formulae, theories and even different definitions from the textbook, are given good grades above the person who tries to understand the concepts and applies it. Here is the first point were the movie fells short. Even I had friends in my engineering college who were very thorough with the concepts but didnt adhere to the rote method of learning. Though they were very knowledgeable, they never used to score good marks because of the way students are graded in our educational system. If you can't exactly replicate what is given in the textbooks, you are not given the marks. They did succeed in many of the competitive exams for higher studies and many good colleges around the world recognised their potential is a different story all together. The movie potrays Rancho as someone who understands the concepts and applies it, at the same time, scores more marks than Chathur who crams all day. Afterall, a Bollywood hero has his invincible image to live upto, because I found this something which cannot happen in the real life.

Though the movie progresses very well in the first hour, the second half becomes tad boring with the innumerable bollywood cliched scenes somehow pressed into the movie. Delivering a baby with a vaccuum cleaner, really, whom are we kidding here? The whole drama in the hospital, are they telling us that we wouldn't have known the depth of these friendship or even the good-heartedness of Rancho without these scenes? The film makers themselves kill the novelty of the movie and the wonderful plot they build in the first half with these cliched scenes.

All said and done, the movie truly belongs to Aamir Khan, maestro who surprises us each and every time with his choice of scripts and characters, and the two other idiots, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi who did a commenable job with their characters. Though all of them potray characters which are much younger to their self, their timing of the comedy is just perfect. Had the last half an hour been removed from the movie, I believe 'Three Idiots' could have become a cult classic like 'Dil Chahta Hai', but otherwise it is a bit disappointing from the director who have given us 'Munnabhai MBBS' and 'Lage Raho Munnabhai'. All izz not well with me Mr. Hirani.

Post script: About Chetan Bhagat claiming that he is not due credits for the story, I would like him to go back and read his book again, watch the movie once and then continue commenting on the issue. Except for the three friends, IIT setting and love angle with professor's daughter, I don't think there is any similarity between the movie and the book. I heard Five Point Someone sales have gone up after the movie released. So a little publicity never hurts.

8 Comments:

At January 14, 2010 at 3:27 AM , Blogger Dhanya said...

Me too watched this movie :) Totally agree to ur points..
How r u otherwise?

 
At January 16, 2010 at 5:41 AM , Anonymous Prongs said...

been a long time refreshing this page hoping to hear from you. I totally agree on the Vacuum cleaner scene but the inverter had to come back and get its dues :)
Same background here as well - engg and then mba. I do agree that he needn't have been the topper but I had classmates who were awesome at rote and then those who were really deserving of more marks and plaudits than they did while at college. But as far as I remember, the lab exam results always tended to prove ability on concepts than rote and the marks usually reflected this. (other than a freak 3rd sem when some of the best were singled out for some harsh treatment). And frankly, do we want a movie promoting rote as the way to be the topper?? Atleast fantsy should try to promote understanding over vomiting copy paste.

Look forward to your thoughts.

 
At January 17, 2010 at 5:03 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At January 18, 2010 at 8:56 PM , Anonymous PB said...

nice to see u bloggin' after such a long break :-)

agree with ur thoughts except for the "muggu should get better marks" one ... cant see y someone who is thorough with concepts shudnt top an exam :-)
however, u r spot on with most of the other points ... "3 Idiots" could have been made a much better film!!!

plz keep posting ...

cheers!

 
At January 19, 2010 at 11:57 AM , Blogger Dewdrop said...

@dhanya

I have been really good. Read from your FB status that you watched a movie in theatre after quite a long time. Oh man, I was too surprised to read it. Hope you are also doing fine.

@prongs and PB

I am in no way saying that "muggu should get more marks". I am only saying that that is what happens in a normal scenario. And the film is protraying our hero to be invincible. Anyways nice to see your comments.

 
At January 21, 2010 at 6:05 PM , Blogger Pratibha said...

Great! am so glad to see u blog again..:)
yes, even i liked the movie...liked reading ur post as well..
altho i havent done much writing myself in the recent past...keep goin girl!

 
At January 21, 2010 at 6:38 PM , Blogger Dewdrop said...

@pratibha
Thanks dear :) Btw, I demand more posts in your blog.

 
At February 23, 2010 at 9:46 PM , Anonymous Charu said...

Well, I disagree with you when you say that there is hardly any similarity b/w FPS and 3 idiots.

I have read the book and when I watched the movie, I could relate many many many scenes to the novel. Except for the Javed Jaffery twist, the story is directly picked from the novel.

A few instances:
3 friends, mechanical students, the poverty of one of the friends, 'behan ki shadi' thing, sick father, attempt to suicide, suicide of professor's son for the same reason and his not knowing about it, Chatur character, deflection of one of the 3 friends to Chatur, amir's visit to kareena at night, their stealing papers from college, kareena's help in the stealing and the list goes on and on... I am with Chetan Bhagat on this.

 

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