3 Idiots: Follows Success, Ignores Excellence

Given it's sheer success at the box-office, different people have liked Raju Hirani's latest film on different accounts; the most obvious one being the immense entertainment quotient. I myself have been entertained every bit (including the baby delivery scene) on both occasions when I watched the movie. But after my second viewing, as an aspiring filmmaker I began to dissect the film. So let me confess that whatever is written below is just a different take that goes beyond the obvious entertainment that the film profusely provides.

The film preaches "Don't follow success; follow excellence"; but the film itself follows the success formula and ignores excellence. It shamelessly follows the Bollywood cliches (like the same education system which it complains against) and imparts bookish ideals at regular intervals to entertain those, who funnily and temporarily feel rejuvenated at realizing the ideal through the film. Like Rang de Bansathi, this film has the misleading-the-youth shade as well. Most people don't like studies, not because they are skilled at other things; but because they don't want to do anything. They just want to wander around without learning or doing anything. This film provides ample sunshine for such people to make hay.

Isn't it ironical that a lot of films that preach do not actually follow what they preach. A film that preaches peace, does it only after showcasing an entertainingly shot violent war scene. In most films, the hero winning over the wrong-doer happens only after a temptingly shot rape scene has entertained the front-bench-folks. More worse are those films that showcase sensuous bare-backed-ladies, while calling themselves conservatively traditional family dramas. What's even more crazy about these films is, they turn out to be the bigger block-busters at the ticket-window. With enough mediocrity that excites the Indian massses (including me), '3-Idiots' no doubt is an all-time block-buster.

But inspite of the film theading the success formula, there is one scene in the film which deserves to be called excellent. Rancho, having made some modifications, makes Joy Lobo's heli-camera work. He, along with Farhan and Raju, decide to surprise Joy Lobo with the working machine floating at his window. So, there is an intercut between them and the monitor which displays what the camera is capturing. The helicopter is made to fly across the hostel and everyone are excited to see the video on the monitor. Joy Lobo's room is on the 2nd floor. The helicopter is lifted to the first floor and we see a guy dancing in his breifs. Everyone, including the audience, laugh. The helicopter is lifted higher to Joy Lobo's window. The audience, like the characters in the film, are now tuned to the happy mood; just then, when the helicopter reaches Joy Lobo's window, we are cut back to the monitor to find Joy Lobo hanging from the ceiling of his room. The very next shot, we see the three heroes running as fast as they can to Joy Lobo's room. They see Joy Lobo's dead face above. But, we are only shown his hanging legs. And the focus shifts to the words on the wall: I quit. This scene, in terms of screenplay, editing, acting and background score, is the best scene to have been churned out in the recent Bollywood releases.

For me the excellent part of 3 Idiots is: Joy Lobo.