Satyagraha: Linear show by Jha

Satyagraha
Staring: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Manoj Bajpai, Amrita Rao and Vipin Sharma
Rated: 5/10
In one sentence, you can call Prakash Jha’s latest offering Satyagraha a very linear recap of a movement orchestrated on screen, by usual suspects. Usual suspects being his favourite men and women — both in real and on reel. So, you have Amitabh Bachchan as his hero Anna Hazare (with shades of Mahatma Gandhi in him of course), Ajay Devgn as his go-to man Arvind Kejriwal, an aptly quiet man essaying the role of Prashant Bhushan, Kareena Kapoor as the face of media activism and an Arjun Rampal type of local leader collecting all the crowds.
All’s well till here. But Jha gets too ambitious in trying to point out everything that is wrong with the system through just one movie. So you have a side story paying tribute to whistle-blowers like Satyendra Dubey and also Manoj Bajpai signifying all the muck flying around in the corridors of power, the corporate-criminal nexus and the gatbandhan games that play out in the middle of a remote town called Ambikapur.
The problem with the film is that it is too quick a recap of too recent a campaign. As recalls go, Anna Hazare’s movement is still too fresh in popular minds to actually need a recall of any kind. And, if that recall comes without any nuances being added to the show in order to push the viewer to think more than he has actually already done, then there’s this big problem of, in young parlance, “same difference.” Besides, if you try and merge this massive campaign into other simmering issues, there are bound to be pitfalls, like the ones which stare an otherwise seasoned filmmaker Jha in his latest caper.
Unlike Gangajal, or even Aarakshan for that matter, Satyagraha somehow fails to evoke any emotions. Despite it being a very massive people’s movement, Jha strangely fails to splash all the drama around it. Viewers don’t cry, or even feel adequately angry and there’s something to say about Jha’s directorial blues here. No man is more of a veteran in mounting political drama on the big screen as Jha is. But this time round, he seems to have gotten so enmeshed in the goings-on that he failed to take an overall view of what he was meaning to show. The action is all there, captured vividly, but the fire is missing.
Though Amitabh Bachchan can never be praised enough in portraying any role, he is far removed from what our little master Anna Hazare is. Devgn as Kejriwal is best a sidedish despite being the nerve-centre of the entire movement. Kiran Bedi is entirely missing and the role of Prashant Bhushan lacks the flesh. Clearly, Jha supports Kejriwal’s thinking in cleaning the system from within the system so there is not much that he says to end the story which concludes with Devgn joining politics.
Away from all this flatness of being, the film is not a total washout though what a strange item number at a strange juncture is doing in the movie is bewildering. Also, as Jha’s propensity to get the item numbers as punchy as they are raunchy, is nowhere to be seen here with the item girl coming across as a shadowy bubble that burst long back.
The ultimate item number in this one though is Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram... delightfully spruced up by Prasoon Joshi to make janata rock. The lyrics are young, contemporary and inspiring. And, by the way, Jha has used the music of the bhajan beautifully in the background all through the film to depict a whole range of emotions. 
Source: Sunday Pioneer, September 1, 2013

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