A Wednesday! [* * * * *]

Rating: 9/10
Entertainment value: 9/10
Ethics: 8/10

There's something empowering about the values espoused by this story. You came out thinking, "hell yeah! I can change the system if I put my mind to it!"

I mean, it had *me* laughing that small, superior laugh of a patriotic 'aam admi' who is finally heard [ok, aam aurat in my case, though if I was in the movie I wouldn't have had a role except as a cliche ... but *sigh* lets not quibble about details like sexism during these dangerous terrorist-ridden times. Now is when men can really play men again in the movies, I say! lol ;]

How I loved that there were older men, playing thinkers - so sexy! the men who called the shots - for once. They did have a couple of young men beating people up dishoom-dishoom style (such pretty boys too) and a lovely dusky girl who's ambition makes her an easy pawn ... but it was realistic somehow in it's fiction, the wild kind of appeal that gives hope in a hopeless world.

The movie was based on a fine definition of male power -- as patient, purposeful, silent, unassuming and relentless. Portrayed with clarity by both antagonists - Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah.

Such a show of maturity in Indian scripting! It's sudden twists and it's deeper emotional and intellectual stimulation of a self-defined citizenhood.

It's unfortunate that this movie virtually ignores women - it fixes the woman into the usual prototypes and brushed them aside. (Oh well, easy to punish it here - unlike the real world - by knocking a couple of points off a perfect ten.) But I will grant that the crime was of omission, not commission; they didn't twist the ladies into caricatures, like bollywood movies do - thank god for small mercies. The women were all different and added variety and colour, vaguely, to the he-men around.