I just got back from seeing 'Lakshya'. Here at last is an unabashedly patriotic film that one can watch without wincing over the overt jingoism and foolhardy heroism. Here the heroism – marvellously shown in the cliff-scaling sequence – is quite believable and the jingoism is restrained to the bit where one of the Muslim characters, in response to the enemy's query about his religion, answers, "For you, I'm only an Indian!". I have a problem with that – I don't think Muslims in this country should need to justify their Indianness anymore than anybody else. They're part of the culture, the fabric, and that says it all.
Anyway, both Javed Akhtar, who wrote the script, and his son Farhan Akhtar, who directed it, have done a damn good job otherwise. This is Farhan Akhtar's second film. His first 'Dil Chhata Hai' was a smash hit and tremendously enjoyable – it may sound a little snooty to add surprisingly enjoyable, but, actually, given the standard mindless fare from Bollywood, it came as a real refreshing change – a story that for once was intelligent and not just the framework for the overworked boy-meets-girl theme. The characters were very well-etched, had great lines, and were extremely well enacted. The music was so well-composed too, and the songs were logically interspersed. It was a totally impressive debut, so, of course, the expectations were high for this second film. Well, these expectations have been more than fulfilled. It's a totally terrific film. Even better than the first one.
The film attracts and holds from the very first frame. It was shot in Ladakh and the cinematography by Christopher Popp just takes your breath away. The music, as before by the trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, goes well with it – just the right sort to swell up in the background when you're contemplating the magnificence of the Himalayas – unintrusively inspiring. Like in the first film, Farhan Akhtar makes use of interesting camera angles and beautiful unspoken moments, both welcome reliefs. Hrithik Roshan, as the main character Karan, is simply brilliant – I had liked him too in Mission Kashmir and Fiza, although his conventional romantic films and the over-exposure had been somewhat of a turn off – you see him everyday, someone told me, just like the milk-man. Well, this shows what he's capable of, given a good script and director. Preity Zinta as Romi and Sushant Singh as the patriotic Muslim Akbar both come across as likeable. Amitabh Bachhan , Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Sharad Kapoor have commendable cameo roles.
The story background is set around the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan, and concerns a rich, never-do-well college undergraduate from Delhi named Karan Shergill. College is drawing to an end, and everybody is making plans for further studies. Everybody except the good-natured, easy-going Karan. He hasn't even given the matter any thought at all, until his girlfriend Romi's father and his own father drop heavy hints. Everyone agrees that Karan is without any 'Lakshya' or definite goal in life. But wait and see, says Romi, who knows him the best, the day he makes up his mind about what he is going to do, he'll make everyone sit up!
Karan talks to his friends and finds that they all have something definite lined up. One is going to study Engineering, another is going for Hotel Management, his firebrand girlfriend Romi is going to be a journalist. Another friend, a soft, lazy chap, surprises them all by announcing that he is going into the Indian Army. My country needs me, he says. Karan goes home inspired by this and wakes up the next morning to see a well-muscled Arnold Schwarzenegger blasting away at the enemy. Suddenly the idea of going into the Army seems even more appealing and he decides, okay, this is what I'm going to do. He sends off an application to the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun and both he and his friend receive calls for the entrance exam. And this is when the friend chickens out. What he really wants to do, he says, is go for an MBA in the U.S.A. and earn lots of money. Karan is furious to hear this. How can I go into the Army all by myself, he snaps. He probably would have given up the idea himself, except back home that night he is confronted with his angry father, who is furious that he applied without informing him and moreover thinks it's a stupid idea – you're not going into the Army, he tells him, you're going to do exactly what I tell you. Enraged by his father's clear-cut contempt for him, Karan storms off to Romi's house and tells her that he IS going into the Army and nothing and noone is going to stop him. It's MY life afterall, he says, and I'm going to make my own decisions. And so that decided, off he goes to give the Military entrance test and amazingly enough gets selected. He then asks Romi to marry him in two years time and goes off for the training. His father is not worried. I know him, he says to his wife, he'll be back in four days.
At the Academy, Karan doesn't get off to a good start. He has never had much to do with discipline his entire life and it's difficult to get adjusted. He doesn't jump out of bed the minute the bugle sounds, he can't keep his attention focused on the lectures, he bungles the physical exercises.Consequently he finds himself heaped with one punishment after another. At last, he thinks he's been humiliated enough and runs away home. His unsurprised father gives him a lecture about having a work ethic, his mother says he should start helping his father in the business. He then goes to see Romi. Here he receives a shock. She is totally disappointed in him and not accepting of this latest adventure like his parents. She says, if you can't stick it out, if you can't respect yourself, how do I know you'll respect me? I don't want to have anything to do with someone like you. And she breaks up with him and goes off. Karan, shocked and ashamed, goes back to the Academy and readily accepts the disciplinary actions against him. He is now a changed person. He works hard and eventually graduates with honor. Romi meanwhile has finished her Journalism Course and has been accepted into one of the leading News Agencies as a Television reporter. He calls her to tell her of his graduation and she suggests they meet. But she had hurt him terribly before and he says, you decided about breaking up, so I'll be the one to decide if and when we should meet again.
He doesn't call her for the longest time after this. and, since they're no longer together, she gets involved with a businessman she has met earlier in course of her work and agrees to marry him. Karan, who has been posted to the India-Pakistan border in the Himalayas and has no idea she is getting engaged to someone else , now has second thoughts and returns to Delhi to see her. He is informed about the new state of affairs by their mutual friend Ashu and is crushed. That very night there is news on T.V. about trouble on the border and he receives a call from his Commanding Officer – his leave has been cancelled and he is to return at once.
And so he returns and finds himself in the thick of the Kargil action. He also runs again into Romi, who, as the War correpondent for Global News, is there to cover the conflict. She has broken off her engagment with her Fiance after he reveals a chauvinistic side and high-handedly forbids her from going to the war zone. Now she and Karan rekindle their romance.
This whole second part, in which Karan finally grows up and starts behaving responsibly, is handled extremely well and with sensitivity. The war sequences are shot without any unnecessary glorification – nobody goes down in blazing glory, taking a dozen enemy soldiers with them. The Indian Side is understandably angry with things – Romi receives a tongue-lashing from Sakhet, a soldier who has just lost his best friend in the enemy bombardment, when she talks about peace and compromise as being a better option to war – what should we do, he demands, give up defending ourselves and just hand over our country to them? Amitabh Bachhan, in a cameo role as the CO Sunil Damle, meets with silent displeasure from his soldiers when he orders the dead insurgents to be properly buried - their dead colleagues had been returned by the Pakistanis with their bodies defiled. So he tells them, "There is a difference between them and us – and there should be – just think, what kind of an army is this, that is refusing to take back the bodies of their own men... We are the Indian Army – we maintain a level of decency even in enmity."
In the end, of course, Karan achieves his 'Lakshya' of destroying the last of the Pakistani insurgents and gets the girl too. But he's so deserving of it by then, it's difficult to grudge him such predictability.
Anyway, both Javed Akhtar, who wrote the script, and his son Farhan Akhtar, who directed it, have done a damn good job otherwise. This is Farhan Akhtar's second film. His first 'Dil Chhata Hai' was a smash hit and tremendously enjoyable – it may sound a little snooty to add surprisingly enjoyable, but, actually, given the standard mindless fare from Bollywood, it came as a real refreshing change – a story that for once was intelligent and not just the framework for the overworked boy-meets-girl theme. The characters were very well-etched, had great lines, and were extremely well enacted. The music was so well-composed too, and the songs were logically interspersed. It was a totally impressive debut, so, of course, the expectations were high for this second film. Well, these expectations have been more than fulfilled. It's a totally terrific film. Even better than the first one.
The film attracts and holds from the very first frame. It was shot in Ladakh and the cinematography by Christopher Popp just takes your breath away. The music, as before by the trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, goes well with it – just the right sort to swell up in the background when you're contemplating the magnificence of the Himalayas – unintrusively inspiring. Like in the first film, Farhan Akhtar makes use of interesting camera angles and beautiful unspoken moments, both welcome reliefs. Hrithik Roshan, as the main character Karan, is simply brilliant – I had liked him too in Mission Kashmir and Fiza, although his conventional romantic films and the over-exposure had been somewhat of a turn off – you see him everyday, someone told me, just like the milk-man. Well, this shows what he's capable of, given a good script and director. Preity Zinta as Romi and Sushant Singh as the patriotic Muslim Akbar both come across as likeable. Amitabh Bachhan , Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Sharad Kapoor have commendable cameo roles.
The story background is set around the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan, and concerns a rich, never-do-well college undergraduate from Delhi named Karan Shergill. College is drawing to an end, and everybody is making plans for further studies. Everybody except the good-natured, easy-going Karan. He hasn't even given the matter any thought at all, until his girlfriend Romi's father and his own father drop heavy hints. Everyone agrees that Karan is without any 'Lakshya' or definite goal in life. But wait and see, says Romi, who knows him the best, the day he makes up his mind about what he is going to do, he'll make everyone sit up!
Karan talks to his friends and finds that they all have something definite lined up. One is going to study Engineering, another is going for Hotel Management, his firebrand girlfriend Romi is going to be a journalist. Another friend, a soft, lazy chap, surprises them all by announcing that he is going into the Indian Army. My country needs me, he says. Karan goes home inspired by this and wakes up the next morning to see a well-muscled Arnold Schwarzenegger blasting away at the enemy. Suddenly the idea of going into the Army seems even more appealing and he decides, okay, this is what I'm going to do. He sends off an application to the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun and both he and his friend receive calls for the entrance exam. And this is when the friend chickens out. What he really wants to do, he says, is go for an MBA in the U.S.A. and earn lots of money. Karan is furious to hear this. How can I go into the Army all by myself, he snaps. He probably would have given up the idea himself, except back home that night he is confronted with his angry father, who is furious that he applied without informing him and moreover thinks it's a stupid idea – you're not going into the Army, he tells him, you're going to do exactly what I tell you. Enraged by his father's clear-cut contempt for him, Karan storms off to Romi's house and tells her that he IS going into the Army and nothing and noone is going to stop him. It's MY life afterall, he says, and I'm going to make my own decisions. And so that decided, off he goes to give the Military entrance test and amazingly enough gets selected. He then asks Romi to marry him in two years time and goes off for the training. His father is not worried. I know him, he says to his wife, he'll be back in four days.
At the Academy, Karan doesn't get off to a good start. He has never had much to do with discipline his entire life and it's difficult to get adjusted. He doesn't jump out of bed the minute the bugle sounds, he can't keep his attention focused on the lectures, he bungles the physical exercises.Consequently he finds himself heaped with one punishment after another. At last, he thinks he's been humiliated enough and runs away home. His unsurprised father gives him a lecture about having a work ethic, his mother says he should start helping his father in the business. He then goes to see Romi. Here he receives a shock. She is totally disappointed in him and not accepting of this latest adventure like his parents. She says, if you can't stick it out, if you can't respect yourself, how do I know you'll respect me? I don't want to have anything to do with someone like you. And she breaks up with him and goes off. Karan, shocked and ashamed, goes back to the Academy and readily accepts the disciplinary actions against him. He is now a changed person. He works hard and eventually graduates with honor. Romi meanwhile has finished her Journalism Course and has been accepted into one of the leading News Agencies as a Television reporter. He calls her to tell her of his graduation and she suggests they meet. But she had hurt him terribly before and he says, you decided about breaking up, so I'll be the one to decide if and when we should meet again.
He doesn't call her for the longest time after this. and, since they're no longer together, she gets involved with a businessman she has met earlier in course of her work and agrees to marry him. Karan, who has been posted to the India-Pakistan border in the Himalayas and has no idea she is getting engaged to someone else , now has second thoughts and returns to Delhi to see her. He is informed about the new state of affairs by their mutual friend Ashu and is crushed. That very night there is news on T.V. about trouble on the border and he receives a call from his Commanding Officer – his leave has been cancelled and he is to return at once.
And so he returns and finds himself in the thick of the Kargil action. He also runs again into Romi, who, as the War correpondent for Global News, is there to cover the conflict. She has broken off her engagment with her Fiance after he reveals a chauvinistic side and high-handedly forbids her from going to the war zone. Now she and Karan rekindle their romance.
This whole second part, in which Karan finally grows up and starts behaving responsibly, is handled extremely well and with sensitivity. The war sequences are shot without any unnecessary glorification – nobody goes down in blazing glory, taking a dozen enemy soldiers with them. The Indian Side is understandably angry with things – Romi receives a tongue-lashing from Sakhet, a soldier who has just lost his best friend in the enemy bombardment, when she talks about peace and compromise as being a better option to war – what should we do, he demands, give up defending ourselves and just hand over our country to them? Amitabh Bachhan, in a cameo role as the CO Sunil Damle, meets with silent displeasure from his soldiers when he orders the dead insurgents to be properly buried - their dead colleagues had been returned by the Pakistanis with their bodies defiled. So he tells them, "There is a difference between them and us – and there should be – just think, what kind of an army is this, that is refusing to take back the bodies of their own men... We are the Indian Army – we maintain a level of decency even in enmity."
In the end, of course, Karan achieves his 'Lakshya' of destroying the last of the Pakistani insurgents and gets the girl too. But he's so deserving of it by then, it's difficult to grudge him such predictability.
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