Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

For me, Kheley Hum Jee Jaan Se will probably be the last time I am going to invest time and money in a Ashutosh Gowariker movie. It marks a very sad decline for someone regarded as one of India's finest directors not too many years back. While length had always been his weakness, his story telling has now become a joke. What started off in the laborious Jodhaa Akbar has reached the nadir in this movie – the story and screenplay lack any drama, any sense of cinema or emotional highs and lows.

The story of the Chittagong uprising of 1930, a forgotten chapter of our freedom struggle – when revolutionaries under Surya Sen tried to make an example out of Chittagong. They decided to rid Chittagong of all Britishers by taking out five key targets in one audacious night – the telegraph office, the police lines armory, the railway tracks, the European Club and the British Army Cantonment. And if you watch the movie, you will realize how agonizingly close they came to rewriting history of British India.

And I do have to concede - even with his failings as a moviemaker, Ashutosh Gowarker has to be applauded for bringing this forgotten story to light. Because of it, I have a new sense of respect for all those who gave up so much for the fight to free this country. But ironically, I got it not from the movie but only from the end credits - where the photos of all the people who were involved in the Chittagong uprising makes the events of the movie spine-chillingly real. The biggest emotional surge for me came towards the end of the credits when I read the name of some Bengali gentleman who is still living in Bangladesh ! Alive, 80 years after the event !

Kheley Hum Jee Jaan Sey is in two distinct parts. The first part shows all the planning that went into the raids and how the group of rebels got together. The second half shows the actual raid and the aftermath of the raids as the British ruthlessly hunted down every one of the conspirators. The planners of the raid were Surya Sen and couple of his friends. Together they trained and inducted into his plans some 50 odd teenagers, mostly students, for the attack.

Did Surya Sen misuse his position as a teacher to whitewash impressionable minds into the rebellion? The movie doesn't even consider the question relevant – everything is clearly black and white and Masterda Surya Sen never did anything wrong.

In the first half, we are introduced to innumerable number of characters, without any depth or detail on any of them. Even Abhishek Bachhan as Surya Sen seems unreal. He is always straight-faced and speaks only in a measured tone. He has always the right things to say, his shirt is always crisp white and he composure remains unruffled in most situations. Though his actions seem to suggest there is a fire in his belly, one sees no other visible signs of it anywhere. Deepika, with her size-zero, looks completely out of place in the movie – and quite frankly I didn't think this movie needed a leading lady or any romantic angle.

The bad characterization is compounded by the absolute lack of any drama in the screenplay. I have seen documentaries with more emotional highs and lows than this movie. Emotional scenes are wretchedly handled, everything happens with an unreal sense of detachment – as if each actor was gnawing away with doubt about the lines he/she was spouting on the screen. Some actions of a lot of characters are completely unexplained – and things fall into place for the revolutionaries in remarkably convenient ways till the night of the actual assault.

Such a white-washed version of history is a little hard to digest for any intelligent audience – ironically the very same audience this movie is trying to entice. The characters fail to make any connection with the audience because they do not show much more depth than cardboard cutouts. The movie also drags on for the mandatory 3 hours of an Ashutosh Gowariker production. And frankly, the entire second half dedicated to the pursuit and capture of the revolutionaries was quite depressing – it could have been given much less screen time. All it did was to serve as a vehicle to showcase melodramatic deaths of some of the characters. Instead of focusing on their lives

Ashutosh Gowariker retells the astounding true story of the Chittagong uprising of 1930. Led by a fiery school teacher, a band of 64 revolutionaries, most of them school-going teenagers, launched five simultaneous attacks on British strongholds in Chittagong including the cantonment area and the telegraph office Ashutosh recreates this largely forgotten event with sincerity and sweat but unfortunately Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey comes off a high school history lesson: plodding, stilted and in long stretches.

The film's entire first half is the set-up to the event the nuts and bolts of planning a revolt, getting enough investment, planning and co-ordinating each step. Ashutosh introduces us to half a dozen characters but the screenplay doesn't adequately flesh out even one.

The second half has more urgency and momentum and climaxes in the inevitably tragic but rousing finale.The dialogue is always lofty and theatrical and the actors are insistently noble. Abhishek Bachchan, who plays the leader Surjya Sen, is in sober, benevolently smiling mode. We get little hint of the fire in his belly.

This is a great effort to bring such hidden subject in front of us but if you like fast paced cinema then its not your type of movie.

If you love good cinema,watch it. My vote 7 out of 10.

Continuing with his craft of making movies on the literary works of renowned writers, Ashutosh returns to the Historical genre with his "KHELEIN HUM JEE JAAN SE" which surprisingly gets released without any great publicity in the media.

As a Historical movie on a lesser known, Independence movement of Chittagong witnessed in 1930. Looking at the movie from this angle, it is indeed a highly authentic depiction of the historical event of 1930 made with utmost honesty and sincerity. The story is about a team of few young Freedom Fighters allowing the help of more than 50 teenager boys in their violent freedom movement. Ashutosh has no doubt taken care of every little detail of that time and the people involved in it with a superb vision of his own. And along with that, we should be highly thankful to him, to enlighten us all about this hidden chapter of our Indian Independence movement which was not known to most of its viewers living in the Northern Region.

As an artistic project, the film is perfect with great art direction and cinematography, bringing the period of 1930 alive on the screen with near perfection. But I really wish the same perfection had been there in its writing department too which is too slow paced, lengthy and even uninteresting at regular intervals. The costume designing also is just limited to white kurtas being worn by almost everyone in the team and doesn't come up with a great show as required. The film starts at a very lazy note and never picks up in its entire first half, due to which the viewer loses his every hope to see anything great or exceptional from the director with a great line-up in the past. Post intermission too, though the narration picks up with all the action sequences unfolding on the screen, but still its execution is certainly not anything close to Ashutosh's own set standards in his previous films.

The most annoying part of the movie is the portrayal of all the British Officials, who quite shockingly act and look like characters of some school or university stage play. Even the casting of all the actors posing as Britishers is way below the mark and overlooked.

Along with this, the other biggest failure of the film is that it is not able to generate the much needed patriotic feeling in the viewer, which should be a must in a film made on a real-life independence movement. Honestly, the only time I felt patriotic with blood running faster in my veins was when I saw the real pictures of the actual teenager freedom fighters lying dead on the ground (shown in the end credits).

Reviewing KHELEIN HUM JEE JAAN SE on the basis of a movie experience alone is a hurting job as the film has got nothing to offer as far as entertainment is concerned to the audience. In clear words, for most of the viewers it may be quite painful to watch it right till the end.

Putting it differently, actually What a common viewer wishes to feel when he is going to watch a film made on a historical event of Indian Independence? He undoubtedly wants to feel the action, smell the gun powder and would like to give a standing ovation clapping loud at the end of the movie feeling proud to be a citizen of the current world power, India. That was the reason which converted both GADAR & LAGAAN into such big hits. Or on the other side, a film made on the Indian patriotic movement should be so sensitive and emotional that it should make every viewer in the theater go numb with wet eyes in the end as in SHAHEED & GARAM HAWA. Unfortunately, KHELEIN HUM JEE JAAN SE can neither be called as a powerful uplifting movie nor as an emotional enriching experience.

Musically its again a weak soundtrack chosen by the director for his film which ideally should have been a song less movie as per the requirement of its theme. The Background music too is not so engrossing which can take a particular sequence to a different level. Amusingly the "Vande Matram" song running with the end credits made me remember the decades old song from ANANDMATH 1952)which still remains the most inspiring melody composed with the patriotic words of VANDE MATRAM.

Performance wise, KHJJS has some appreciable performances coming from its entire supporting cast other than the lead pair. The whole supporting team of Abhishek along with all the young teenager actors, surely deserves praises for their effortless acts in the film. However I couldn't applaud the casting choices made by Ashutosh in his current project for his lead pair, since both Abhishek and Deepika were not looking great in their out of the routine roles. With quite few scenes in the movie, Deepika is not able to take away the glamour off her face. Still I found her much better than all her previous movies since her debut film. On the other hand, there is a vast difference in the charactersation of Abhishek in pre and post interval of the movie. And for this the blame should actually go to his director.

So as a conclusion, KHJJS cannot be rated as one of the best works of anyone in its entire team including the actors, writers and the director. However, only the ART DIRECTOR can proudly use this movie in his repertoire at the top and it can also be applauded as a pure ORIGINAL in the present Hindi Films scenerio dealing with Inspirations from the West.

Ending on an entertaining note, I still rate the use of "DOGS AND INDIANS NOT ALLOWED" by Manmohan Desai in his Amitabh Bachchan starrer MARD as the best way of addressing the issue on the wide screen.

This movie is definitely an eye opener for those who think that Bollywood is the place of brainless comedies , over hyped romances & sensationalized media exposure , because this movie opens our eyes to a struggle never heard before.

I myself have heard about Surya Sen's freedom struggle , only in class VIIIth standard , when I decided to go deep into it . Through Internet , I heard about this struggle being converted into a great film , "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey." It's another masterpiece of Ashutosh sir , but sadly in India , we don't have creativity & the readiness to accept change & like , Swades , a great masterpiece of India , is ignored by all .

What is the similarity between "The King's Speech" & this movie ? Both were based on historical events. While the former was based on the battle of King George VIth with his speech problem , the latter was based on the Great Chittagong Armory Raid in 1930 , but both the films had different fates.

While King ruled the Oscars , Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey failed to ring the cash registers at the box office. But leaving the negativities of Bollywood , a supreme hats off to Ashutosh sir !!

The intermission of this nearly three hour film serves as an automatic marker at how Gowariker planned the narrative, the first half being the introduction, characterization and planning stage that we get to witness going behind any schemes of this nature of an armed struggle, where the definition of whether one is a terrorist or freedom fighter, is naturally decided in context by the victor in history. A lot of time goes into establishing the character of Masterda Surya Sen, played by Abhishek Bachchan as the school teacher who indoctrinates his class, and other followers of his exploits, into the need to drive the British out and to attain freedom for India, starting with Chittagong (present day located in Bangladesh).

In some ways this film has shed some light that those who persist in armed struggles, never really changed the essence of their modus operandi much. It starts off with a charismatic leader and his ideology, a band of faithful followers, and a mass recruitment of those who have faced the wrong end of oppression, eager to join the cause to exact some form of revenge, now elevated to a greater struggle for something way above the petty personal objectives. We observe how resources get assembled, from the raising of funds through whatever means possible, even if it means in kind instead of cash.

Target surveillance becomes the must do as well in order to prepare for that strategic attacks, and from what we can learn from history, simultaneous attacks on key targets isn't something that's conceived in the new era, but has been used a long time back, with the revolutionaries keeping in mind the importance of timing, and to hit places controlling communications, weapons depot, and of course the places where the foreigners congregate. There's this sense of chill when watching the film, because these are lessons obviously not learnt, and it's about time we wise up to see that the jungle too serves as an attractive training ground away from prying eyes and ears either to train on weapon handling, or to assemble explosives.

But for the gripping set up, the second half turned out to be somewhat of a letdown, and I do not mean what had actually happened in history, which of course cannot be changed lest this film becomes a farce. There were enough elements here that made it the action packed second half it was meant to be, with the firing of weapons and the proverbial Murphy paying the revolutionaries a visit and really screwing up their plans. All these translated to edge of your seat excitement worthy of any thriller, and we see how the execution of the plan turn the perpetrators from hunters into prey.

A lot of things got muted in the movie, which is something not quite typical of an Ashutosh Gowariker film. Known for the opulence and grandeur of his productions, this one seemed a little bit toned down and stripped down to reflect the state of the revolutionaries, being required to work with bare minimum resources, and with faulty intelligence as well, being caught off guard in their plans, especially the more critical factors in ammunition and prisoners / hostages. It's quite back to basics for Gowariker, whom I felt if given the allowance for a longer runtime like almost all his previous works, could have told a more complete and robust story.

Abishek Bachchan performed credibly as the legendary historical character, although the storyline, in having a number of notable revolutionaries to focus on, tended to dilute the importance of his character, and hence an opportunity for him to shine. Deepika Padukone plays Kalpana Dutta, also another historical character, and the much talked about scene is of her character playing badminton in her introduction was relatively short to begin with. The actress continues to be paired opposite big name counterparts, but is able to hold her own without being awed. There's some romantic tension between the two lead characters here, though it served more as a distraction and soon got canned before it even had the chance to start.

As it stands, most of the last act turned out to be quite rushed, with fairly little being given to characterization, opting instead for quick resolution often through action sequences which do get tired after a while. Englishmen all play the token bad guys, and we don't see a lot as to how nasty they actually are, as compared to the oppression dished out by those portrayed in Lagaan. The courtroom drama also seemed to be cursory rather than to provide for a platform, and lacked the usual legalese oomph to have made an impact to an audience, having everything seem a little bit routine, well, even if it may be true in real life. Music by Sohail Sen, who had worked on the previous Gowariker film What's Your Rashee, is commendable, especially its rousing themes that will get to grow on you.

This is Ashutosh Gowariker's equivalent of Braveheart or any other freedom fighters' struggle to gain freedom for their motherland, but we could all have benefited from a little bit more of walking around inside Masterda Surjya Sen and going deeper into his beliefs and motivation. While it's still an epic scale and its presentation of the opening credits mimics that of epic greats, it somehow didn't manage to live up to its potential that we know Gowariker is capable of, and this is coming from a fan.