All About Kangna's Effort

Rating : * *

When the end credits start rolling for Rajjo, one thing that is truly warrants acknowledgement is sheer conviction with which Kangna plays her part of Rajjo. Never seeming to be disinterested and enacting the role of a nautch girl with confidence, she attempts to truly make the film her own and raise it to higher standards.

This is the reason why even though the narrative of this Vishwas Patil directed film is a tad uneven, Kangna keeps her head down and approaches the character as the one that must have truly interested her. That could well be true because the middle portion of the film is where films belonging to similar story lines usually end. (Spoilers ahead) Reason being that while in other films the knight in shining armour usually takes the girl into sunset at the very end, it happens in Rajjo at the interval stage itself. What happens to her and the lover boy (newcomer Paras Arora) post that is what forms the second half of the film.

Kangna's past catches up with her, the bad men (led by Prakash Raj) act as roadblocks in her living a normal life, boy's parents disown him, there are troubles with day to day survival - just about everything that could have gone wrong with the couple happens to them. In fact this is also the portion of the film that reminds one of similar stage and setting that was seen in Satish Kaushik's Tere Liye and Indra Kumar's Dil many moons ago.

However Rajjo doesn't quite have similar stranglehold over the proceedings as the sequences do not enthrall you as a viewer while the characters appear cosmetic without making you truly empathise with them. There is further restriction that comes due to film's core setting as well since with bazaar as a background, the very milieu, language and ada that comes on screen appears dated, at least for the audience in the urban centres.

This is where one goes back to performances with Kangna leading from the front and (to some extent) Prakash Raj playing his part well too. Mahesh Manjrekar is another actor who is convincing as a brothel owner though Dalip Tahil is wasted and Upendra Limaye added rather unnecessary to the scheme of things. Paras makes a decent start in a part that doesn't really require him to be a quintessential hero. What is more than just decent are the dances where Kangna gets her moves truly right despite music not really making the cut.

However one wishes that if there were more dramatic encounters in the film with sone high voltage scenes and a streamlined narrative, Kangna's effort would have been better noticed.