Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, tbc, 107mins

Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Sharmila Tagore, Boman Irani

Set in present day Rajasthan, India, this stunningly beautiful film is a worthy, if not largely successful, attempt at commercial Bollywood cinema. It is just under two hours, there are no unnecessary songs, the beautiful stars actually try to act, and best of all, and the subject matter has a resonance to modern India.



Although late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s ratic government abolished the titles, property rights and State benefits accorded to the royal Maharajas from the Rajput states in the early 1970s, many continued to live a life of privilege, and they do so even to today. This film focuses on one such royal dynasty that no longer rules, King Jaya (Boman Irani), a king and his family, without a kingdom.



When the dying Queen Suhasini (Sharmila Tagore) calls out for her faithful royal guard Eklavya (Amitabh Bachchan) on her deathbed, King Jaya is enraged. He suffocates her to death ‘Othello’-style, and orders the return of his heir; the London based Prince Harsh (Saif Ali Khan). When it emerges that Eklavya is the real father of the Prince, King Jaya hatches a plot to eliminate him. But it is the King who is murdered and Eklavya, although a suspect himself to the killing, vows to get revenge for the King’s death.



Former Oscar nominee, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s latest film has a script which is based on one of the many stories from the Hindu literary epic of India, ‘The Mahabharata’. In the book, Eklavya was a low caste warrior with superior archery skills. At the request of his guru, who did not want the low-born archer outclassing his royal pupils, he severed his right thumb, believing that obedience is the highest fulfilment of one’s duty.



This legend is transposed to contemporary Rajasthan for this film, where the fiercely loyal Eklavya of Chopra’s film, is forced to reassess his belief in ‘Dharma’, or duty, and realise that such blind faith can be manipulated by others.



It is a noble idea for a film, and Chopra adopts an approach that twins a 19th century Italian opera with a dose of Shakespearean tragedy. This is achieved by getting his A list cast to deliver subdued performances with Bachchan, as usual, bringing a dignity to his part. Unfortunately, the result is more of a Poirot whodunit. This is because the unfolding of the plot and the identity of the culprit is as predictable as catching travellers sickness on a visit to this scenic state.

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