Movie review 'pk': It's engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking!
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Aamir Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Anushka Sharma, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla, Sushant Singh Rajput
Rating: 3 stars
The trinity of Rajkumar Hirani, Aamir Khan and Vidhu Vinod Chopra guarded “pk” with their lives till it was fit for the world to see him. There was a carefully constructed mystery around the film leading us to expect something out-of-the-world from makers of the Munnabhai series and 3 idiots. Well, with an alien protagonist, you do have something that is quite literally out of this world. But pk, even though an outsider, has a heart that’s similar to Munnabhai and Rancho, the brave souls who lay bare the medical, real estate and the education system in Hirani’s previous films.
Almost as if taking a leaf from his predecessors, pk takes on the god-men and the farce called religion. Which is where the subject of pk is not entirely original. The last film that battled it out against the god-men was the delightful Oh My God! starring Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar. It was the sleeper hit of 2012 but even then the buzz it created fell short of what a nude Aamir managed with a transistor on the poster of pk. But that’s another story.
Pk is laced with the Hirani brand of feel-good; it’s a satire, which is hilarious in parts. The script and screenplay penned by Hirani and Abhijat Joshi are the strong points of the film. The story unfolds in Brussels, Rajasthan and Delhi. Jaggu, aka Jagat Janani Anushka Sharma is studying journalism in Brussels where she stumbles upon and falls in love with a Pakistani student Sarfaraz (Sushant Singh Rajput). After getting ditched at the alter, she comes back to her hometown Delhi and takes up a job with a leading news channel. That’s when she encounters this strange creature on the roads (Aamir Khan), he resembles a human, has a wide, unblinking stare, wears a yellow helmet while walking on the streets with a transistor around his neck. More intriguing than his appearance, are his questions. People call him pk. He’s looking for bhagwan because bhagwan has something that belongs to him. His search for his “property” and how his journey exposes the absurdities of not just religion but civilisation on the whole, forms the crux of the story.
There are ample laughs and the surprises happen now and again. While dialogues are the hero, the editing could have been crisper. Aamir gives his all to the role, tries to bring out the childlike curiosity in his mannerisms, but the superstar shines brighter than his character. Perhaps the innocence is a bit too practised. Anushka has a meaty role and she excels the part of a feisty journalist with a story to tell. Boman Irani and Saurabh Shukla make their screen time count with nuanced renditions of their characters.
The first half is fast-paced and gradually dilutes the mystery that pk has been all these months. The second half slumps. While the satire remains sharp, it blends into a dramatic, tear-jerking climax. But are satires meant to make you cry? Some of the songs are a “bhaste of time” but Hirani’s genius lies in that there are no dull moments. Had we not seen OMG!, pk could have been a work of brilliance. It’s engaging, entertaining and even thought-provoking. There’s also an alien in this one, but is it out of the world? Not quite.
From the man who made Munnabhai and 3 Idiots, pk is certainly not his best work. But this is Raju Hirani. Even his average leaves the industry far behind.
