Though politics can easily be quoted as one of the most favorite subjects of general discussion in the public, still for a film adaptation it has always been a dicey one with only few exceptions in the past. So at one end, YOUNGISTAAN can surely be rated as a brave film, trying to en-cash the current political mood of the whole country with a positive message. But on the other, the way it has been presented before the audience with a specific purpose & perfect timing, it more seems to be the part of publicity campaign of one of the leading parties of the nation, rather than being a new Hindi Film in totality.
Directed by Syed Ahmad Afzal, it begins too casually with a party song straight away and then starts imitating the real life political scenario of India, focusing completely on the young character of Jacky Bhagnani as the next Prime Minister of the country and nothing else. The boy reaches the reputed post all of a sudden just because of a favourable stroke of destiny and one can easily raise many questions on the sequences depicting his unexpected entry in politics executed so casually. However following a very light, comic progression, the film does manage to hook you up initially due to its novel concept and few enjoyable scenes. But once the script completely goes into politics; everything starts happening too quickly and in quite a childish way too, forgetting that we are actually talking about A President, PM and other prominent figures running our country and not any high profile owners of a big corporate firm doing the routine business.
So in real terms, YOUNGISTAAN fails to make an impact as it gets confused between various genres and is not able to follow any particular one throughout. In the first few reels, it is a comedy, in the middle ones it turns into a half heartedly made political thriller and then in the last few it becomes a boring social drama with a message given in a prolonged climax. As a result it can simply be rated as a film with an important & heavy subject, made in an equally light, careless or immature way without having any clear path.
To name the plus points, its production design is eye-catching, background score is decent and the soundtrack has got a good song too as 'Suno Na Sangemarmar'. Moroever Jacky once again gives an impressive performance with all his calm charm and Neha Sharma does fine too looking beautiful on the screen. The rest of the cast including Boman Irani, Meeta Vashisht and Kayoze Irani get nothing much to do, except late Farooque Sheikh, who is an absolutely delight to watch and remains the only saving grace in the film right till the end.
In short, it's the post interval section of the film which makes it quite boring to watch as we have already seen enough of that stuff on our TV sets since the last few months. Coming to its realistic references, such are the straight similarities of the film with the contemporary Indian Politics and its ruling party that at times one starts thinking that perhaps this has been made by the party only in order to spread a positive wave about their candidates in the next election. For instance, it has a scene wherein Jackie is probably inaugurating a very high rise statue of a key figure (pointing towards Sardar Patel) and then we have a TV interview of him taken by a renowned journalist named Parnab too (reminding you of Arnab of Times Now Channel). Further the film releasing in a very crucial week just before the elections surely puts you in doubts about the real motive of its making and the actual producers.
Anyway whatever the truth behind its production might be, the basic point is that the film actually suffers a lot due to the completely confused vision of its director, following which he tries to put in almost everything to woo the audience ranging from a video game developer's job, live in relationship, having a child before the marriage and a lead character named Dashrath wearing a purely Muslim attire (to please both the communities). Moreover YOUNGISTAAN can also be called an entirely filmy take or a questionable fantasy version of the current political situation of our country, wherein there is no strong opposition in the picture and also ready made solutions are available with the Prime Minister for every major problem as if he is still playing a video game knowing all its codes.
