All is well.....
Raj Kumar Hirani is the bearer of a lost art, the art of story telling. The problem is sometimes, he overlaps his piece of art with another of his own, that is still fresh in your memory.
And I’ll try to keep the review clean of any spoilers.
3 idiots is a movie ‘loosely’ based on one of India’s ‘best-selling’ novels, “Five point Someone, what not to do at IIT“, by Chetan Bhagat. A book, that critics love to hate and take a jab at it’s ‘popularity’, while a particular section of the readers who may not be into serious literature can skim through it with the ease of reading a tabloid magazine. Having read the book a few years back, and having lived with not really disliking it for some reasons and not liking it too well either, let me say this – reading or not reading the book may not really make a difference with respect to your movie experience.
Except a minor plot or two (actually, make that three) that do form an integral part of the story, the feel good, subtly emotional, humorous and pleasant movie is fun to watch. It may however, remind you (a lot) of the Munnabhai series. To begin with, the character artists are mostly in repetitive roles as the Munnabhai series, facing similar circumstances, and you feel a sense of familiarity with introduction of new roommates in a hostel, the unique hazing (or ragging) rituals, the challenges in classroom between a student and a professor, dramatized hospital recovery scenes, and some well known anecdotes that you may have received in forwarded e-mails ( a few thousand times) in the past several years that have been incorporated in the movie… those are the familiar parts. ‘Jaadu ki jhappi’ turns into ‘All is well’, but has a humorous application in the most chaotic circumstances. The group of friends (Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi) were also a group of friends in ‘Rang De Basanti’ a group that we may have already begin to love before we know what their characters are like.
The humor in a few scenes combined with Aamir Khan’s ever lovable, cheeky delivery, and keeping the heroine to one character and NOT compulsorily introducing two more (unnecessary) female characters, for the other two in the group (Madhavan, Sharman) keeps the plot manageable and engaging.
The beauty of it is while regional cinema (especially Telugu cinema) takes you to Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand for the song and dance sequences that have no relation to the plot, Raj Kumar Hirani takes you to Ladakh and Himachal (as seen in the movie as well as the end credits), albeit for a few minutes and sticking to the plot line and actually having a scene or two at these locations.
The speech by ‘Chatur Ramalingam’ who does not understand Hindi as well as he would like to, is by far one of the most hilarious scenes in a Hindi movie that I’ve seen in years.
This movie is probably a box office winner, going by Aamir Khan’s fan following, but is definitely worth watching for its humor quotient alone. Hope this gives you a reason to get out of home during this holiday season, and stop looking at movie reviews 
.
Cheers.
Psst – movie credits, here.
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