Producer: Prakash Jha, Firoz A. Nadiadwala

 

Music: Shankar Ehsaan and Loy

 

Aarakshan means reservation. This film has been surrounded by controversies right from its inception. As this subject is of an extremely sensitive issue it’s bound to create a hullabaloo. Coming from a director like Prakash Jha who has made power packed cinema in the past like Rajneeti, Apharan and Gangajal one is driven to watch the film.

 

Actors like Amitabh Bachhan (Dr.Prabhakar Ananad) and Manoj Bajpayee (Mithilesh Singh) are the only saving grace in this movie. Deepika tries her best to fit into the character of a simple Bhopali girl (Poorbi) while Prateik is just plain lucky and his acting could be given a miss. Saif Ali Khan (Deepak Kumar) is not as disappointing as a class conscious Dalit.

 

Caste based politics, gender bias and reservation of seats are topics which have been portrayed and lightly touched upon. This film means no harm to any political party or minority; it’s just a threat to the ideology of private coaching classes who are minting money!

 

The plot tends to loose its impact due to the excessive length. At many points it moves away from its concept and drifts towards commercialization of education. Songs fail to capture the pulse; the second half is quite a drag. Compared to the previous hits of Jha this wasn’t worth the hype in the first place.

 

Overall it’s message driven and has hard hitting dialogues. Characters come across as raw and real. This drama is averagely executed and gets two and a half stars out of five.