Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

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 !!

While watching 'Khelein hum jee jaan sey' I felt Gowariker has not gonebeyond that book and neither done further research or took extra efforts to explore central characters like Surjit Sen and Kauolpana* Dutta at their personal level. Director had a lot of scope for that, for example, Surjya Sen was married and he is suffering from guilt that he is responsible for his wife's death or he was in jail before the revolution. Raoul Randolf and Gowariker could explore the character on these facts so that it could made primary conflict more strong. There are too many characters in the film; these characters are not properly defined .Madhur Bhandarkar who always manages to build many characters in his films like Page3, Corporate, Traffic signal and Fashion. I haven't read the book and I believed that one should never compare a book and cinema which is based on the book, both are very different experiences.

Gowariker had a chance to capitalise innocence of teenager against brutal fight for freedom, he succeed in one or two scenes but that was not enough.scenes where teenagers didn't know meaning of 'Vande Materam' and interview sessions between freedom fighters and teenagers.Narration is done by two different persons if one of the teenager could used for it then it would make an impact.

I remembered in 'Rang De basanti' where Binod Pradhan used Sepia tone to recreate old time, they wanted to distinguish two different time periods which is also possible in 'Khelein...." because 'Khelein....' happened within substantial time period. They could use non linear way of storytelling and built two different time period. One time period could be about how they execute the plan and other time period could be about how they sacrifice their lives and made major influence on freedom movement. David fincher has done this in 'The Social Network'.

Second half of the film is all about British hunts down all freedom fighters where it lacks drama element, British wanted to capture them dead or alive but later in the film suddenly British wanted to capture them alive and this question remained unanswered.

The film could ends with scenes like how Chittagong's revolution made positive impact on freedom movement, they concluded whole story in single note.

People r complaining about the length of the movie.....movie being bore.....what they expected from this movie???? a 90 minutes fast paced brainless comedy.....as far as i m concerned i expected a engaging,gripping depiction of a true story about a incident in history of independence of India which is not very well known to most of the public....and i was not disappointed.... In fact movies of this genre are meant to be made in this way....they take there time to narrate various incidents.Various Hollywood movies like Schindlers List, The pianist etc were the movies of same genre telling the true stories from the history and there running time was more than KHJJS and they are regarded as all time masterpieces in west but unfortunately the same type of effort in our country will be stated as lame and boring. This a must watch movie for all the cine goers who prefer meaningful,informative and gripping cinema..... 8.5/10

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.

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