Where Omkara and Gangaajal paved the way, Raajneeti takes it forward. These are the films that take you in 
the wonderful landscape of India beyond the 100km radius of big cities. Yeah, the kind of world the urban yuppies go into for ‘excursions’ over weekends and take pictures as if they are foreign tourists.
Back to the film.
Firstly, it’s an ensemble cast film. Prakash Jha (director) has done a great job of putting the perfect actor in the perfect place (even the hip looking Arjun Rampal seems to oddly right in place with the character). A subdued and underplayed Nana Patekar was fantastic, to begin with. Ajay Devgan, big shot he is, playing a non-central character only added to the underscoring what his character was about – which was of a reluctant second fiddle. Manoj Vajpai did well to get back from his excursion into lead-role dreams, and Katrina Kaif is a worthy wallflower, until you see Kubrick-esq transformation – the audience is perfectly setup for that bait-and-switch.
Secondly, with about 8-10 strong characters, it’s near-impossible to develop characters at the same time as building a story (look up the film Salaam-E-Ishq). For instance, Arjun Rampal abuses a female party worker in one his early scenes, who, later in the film, becomes a pawn in the opposition hands. Flows flawlessly into the story, without an awkward jump in narration. This would’ve been written as a simple drunken-assault scene in any other film – but here, the abuse is linked to party nomination process run by Arjun Rampal, shedding a ton of light into the ethics of his character. Simply put, story moves forward from shot-one, and characters build along the way.
Though somewhat of a longish film at about 3 hours (with some very good-sounding songs cut nicely short), this movies is brisk due to some very compact scenes. Fantastic pace and editing to keep you in the story and in your seats. I found myself stepping back into the film a few times to catch the nuances of the story. Definitely not a lean-back film., and not definitely for those that can’t appreciate the earthy hindi language (use of the word ‘yone soshan‘ for promiscuity).
It’s nice to see sophisticated well-films for the rest of the country, by the masters of the craft. Watch the film – but not in a multi-plex. That would be somewhat of a incongruous – like eating pani puri in Oberoy. Watch it in a “Cinema Ghar“, as the trailer puts it.
YouTube DirektRaajneeti - Theatrical Trailer
sub note: the grocery stores used to charge a rental for the videos. then, it turned to giving the rental for free if you bought $20 worth of groceries. now they are giving away the damn DVDs – no need to even bother returning them.