MyRating: YYYY1/2Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, Omi Vaidya
I was not exposed to many Indian movies in my life. This is indeed the second movies I watched in the cinema after such a long time (maybe I watched one or two when I was a kid, but I can't really remember). The first one I watched this year is My Name is Khan (I've also already made the review). And both of the films were a blast. Since its release in 2009, 3 Idiots has broken all box office records in India and becoming the highest grossing Bollywood movie of all time in India. And it has grossed Rs 400 crore (around US$ 90 Million) worldwide. This movie also has already won many awards in India.
Bollywood is the biggest movie industry in the world for the number of movies produced per year. Yes, not Hollywood. Each year, Bollywood produces around 1,200 movies, while Hollywood produces around 600. So, twice as much. The thing about Bollywood movies is the Indian people love to watch and admire their own movies so much, more than any other movies from other countries, and this kind of good fanaticism has helped to support Bollywood to become a huge movie industry in the world, not only in terms of quantity, but also quality.
Here is the story. Ten years after being humiliated in front of the whole college by the 3 idiots, Chatur Ramalingam (Vaidya) invites the 3 idiots to come to their ex-college rooftop where he had vowed to seek revenge by swearing that he will become more successful than them in life in ten years time. He proves his words as he has become rich now, has a successful career, a beautiful house and fancy cars. But he only can shows his success to two of the 3 idiots, Farhan Qureshi (Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Joshi), as the third idiot, Rancho Chanchad (Khan) is nowhere to be found since he dissappeared after their graduation.
The story is then flashback to their time at college. Rancho, Farhan and Raju are three engineering students at one of the best engineering colleges in India, who share the same room in the college hostel. Farhan and Raju are below average students, who seem to enter college for the wrong reasons. Farhan has a passion to become a wildlife photographer, but he joins engineering merely to fulfill his father's wish. While Raju, who lives with many fears towards life, desperately wants to improve his family's life from their poor condition, since his father had suffered a stoke. Both of them do not qualify as a good engineering student. But not Rancho.
Rancho is a genius student, who comes from a rich family. He loves fixing machines. But he takes a totally different approach towards studying, as he studies only for the excitements of studying, not for pursuing good grades and high ranks. However, he always ends up at the top of his class. He is a rebellious student with an outside of the box way of thinking, as he is against the strict and rigid education system in his college. He thinks that the education system in India is wrong, as there is a very high rate of suicides amongst the students across the country, due to the high pressures put by their teachers. With this kind of attitudes, he soon provokes the anger and hate of the dean of his college, Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (Irani), whom the students giving him a nickname as ViruS. ViruS is an old fashioned dean, who runs his college with iron fists and no mercy. He prefers an obedient student like Chatur (the "Silencer"), a bootlicker who always comes second after Rancho, rather than Rancho and his friends, whom ViruS calls as idiots. And he tries his best to separate the three friends, and if possible, expelling Rancho from the college.
The situation becomes complicated when Rancho falls in love with ViruS' medical student daughter, Pia (Kapoor), who already has an arrogant boyfriend. As their friendship grows, Rancho finds out that this girl may also have a mutual attraction to him. So, not only Rancho has to survive his college until graduation, he also has to bring out the best from his two best friends and finally to win the heart of the woman of his life. But will he succeed? And will his genius also make him success in life, better than Chatur whom he always beat at college?
This movie is hilarious and very enjoyable. The story is charming and heartfelt, with clever intermittent flashbacks. And the characters are very interesting, especially the characters of Rancho, ViruS and Chatur. Aamir Khan, one of the Indian's heartthrob, gave a great performance as Rancho. His character is the center of this movie, with his smart but rebellious spirit. He played his character so well that makes us cannot not to fall in love with him. On the other side, Boman Irani was standout as ViruS. His acting and expressions are excellent as the cruel and heartless dean, with his good caricature impersonation. And Omi Vaidya was just awesome with his strong comedic performance as Chatur. Very solid actings.
A Bollywood movie is not complete without songs and dances. The songs in this movie are great, especially a song named "All is Well", the words that the Rancho character says a lot in the movie when he is facing with an extremely difficult situation. Another memorable songs are "Give Me Some Sunshine" and "Zoobi Doobi". The dances? They are just awesome to watch. You will find yourself move your head and shoulders along with the melody. (To listen to the songs from this movie, please click the song links below.)
This is another wonderful experience I had in the cinema after My Name is Khan, that I will remember for a very long time. Love it! Definitely worth seeing. (MJ)
Song Links from 3 Idiots: (To not exit this page - open the songs in new windows with right click)
- All Izz Well
- Give Me Some Sunshine
- Zoobi Doobi
- Jaane Nahen Denge
- Bahti Hawa Sa Tha Woh
