Rajneeti is a star studded movie that came, bombed and disappointed all the audiences earlier this year. I got a chance to watch this movie last night on Netflix for Wii.

Rajneeti is one of those stories which take twists and turns based on the mood of the director. As I have seen many movies like this one in the past, I am used to this style of stories and hence I did not feel bored. Also, this movie has about half a dozen popular stars – Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Katrina Kaif, Arjun Rampol, Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin Shah, etc. Finally one thing happened which I did not expect – everyone except Ranbir and Katrina disappear towards the end of the movie.

The movie is all about a very powerful family that controls the politics of a state (sounds familiar?). The story starts with

a old formula where the mom gives up the new born, as she cannot face the society and wants to help retain the political power and prestige of the family. This kid grows up to become Ajay Devgan, who is now ready to contest the elections on behalf of the poor people from his constituency. From this point on, the movie goes through various twists and turns into a political battle between two major parties.

Ranbir Kapoor comes as the youngest brother in the family and he is doing his PhD in the US. He takes all the logical decisions for his brother’s campaign and runs it successfully. I guess he has joined the crowd of those ‘special artists’ in movie industry who have retired from acting, and just come on the screen with a blank look and feel good about it.

Katrina Kaif comes as the beautiful daughter of an industrialist, and is madly in love with Ranbir Kapoor.

Ajay Devgan seems to be the only star in this movie who has exceled with the acting performance. He comes as this typical leader of the lower caste people, who learns to get things done in politics by taking the right side at the right time.

Arjun Rampal plays the role of Ranbir Kapoor’s elder brother, who is pitched as the next CM after the demise of their father. He has played this role well and I guess he is getting used to playing the second role in all movies that he acts in.

The songs are ok, nothing too great about it.

Some of the obvious flaws in the movie are:

• Naseeruddin Shah leaving his party, ideology and everyone and disappearing to do tapasya, just because he got carried away with a girl.
• Top political candidate to become the CM goes from the airport with his security, and all of them run away to see what the accident in front of them is all about?
• Kingfisher airlines flies to the US!

Overall there are too many flaws in this movie that even the average or below average movie goer tends to get confused.

Rajneeti is a movie released in June 2010 and I was very surprised to find this movie already available under ‘New Arrivals’ in Netflix – it is just three months old!! At this rate, I think Netflix might be slowly trying to the recently released movies also, though they have explicitly said, they will not go after the new movies (just released ones).

Do not waste time watching this movie, unless you want to just see Katrina Kaif come and go in every other scene.