Raajneeti - How to copy a classic and how to make babies..

The movie is a straight through adaptation of the Mahabharata. That said I found Shyam Benegal's Kalyug to be a better adaptation.

It has some stellar acting by the masters (Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai and Ajay Devgn) leading to certain very powerful scenes (I am not talking about the steamy sex scenes which have been chopped off by the censor board). Overall the movie is a mix of brilliant and B-grade moments. Just that the brilliant moments are really 'brilliant' making this movie worth watching.

But as usual our movie makers keep forgetting the two cardinal rules of film making:

1) Use an interesting concept don't abuse it! Just because the idea is good doesn't mean it needs to be used over and over again.

2) Some questions are good! Not all threads in the story need to be tied up neatly before the movies end. Just make sure the questions are logical and not the resultant of bad editing or story.

The concept of Mahabharata has been used over and over again till the movies becomes predictable, especially for people who have seen the TV series.
In trying to weave a complex tapestry of a story they end up with a lot of knotted threads.
The movie should have been shorter and the editing definitely could have been better.
For example
- just before the interval we find that Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) has been released from the prison. Now that would have been a good point for the intermission. But no.. we see another short scene where the party leader in hospital throws throws Pritvi out of the party.
- out of nowhere Katrina Kaif suddenly finds a load of loving for Arjun Rampal. So from putting blanket over a sleeping Arjun Rampal, Katrina makes the leap to full blown sex with him in the span of a few scenes. I don't think even a Ferrari can do a 0-100kmph that fast!

There are also some really funny dialogs lifted right out of the Mahabharata TV series ('tum mere jeshth putra ho').

This is one of those movies which you can neither recommend nor ask people to stay away.
My advice: wait for the DVD or at least wait for the public interest to die, instead of sitting through it in a housefull theatre.