Guest Post: 3 Idiots is a twisted Patch Adams!

When an actor like Aamir Khan decides to act in a movie after a year from his previous release, and when you have a massive production house backing your movie with a director who had two back to back hits, you tend to expect a lot from a movie.

But instead what you get is three hours of absolute rubbish.

The facts are simple. Add a little bit of humour to a pathetic story and publicise it well and let the cash registers ring. It’s the end of the year and there a billion of Aamir fans who have waited so impatiently for his next movie for over a year. So anything he signs is bound to be an instant hit. And that has been the case for most of his movies for the past decade. Even Mangal Pandey cashed in a lot in the first week.

What mystifies me more is the way Aamir went about publicising this movie. I am still confused and a bit dazzled as to what was the link between the story of the movie and Aamir touring India as your everyday people. Yes it was PR, I suppose.

What mystifies me even more as to what made choose him this movie? There was nothing even close to what you would call challenging in this film, considering his previous performances.

Let’s start with his character Rancho, a college student. Lets be honest, he has played that in so many movies that he could now do that in his sleep. A free thinker who studies and preaches education by his own rules and practicality. Funny, why does Patch Adams just keep springing up? The only difference: Robin Williams was practicing medicine in Patch Adams and Aamir engineering.

There were many one-liners that I heard giggles in the theatre, but not many of them realised that they are so 2000 and late.

Like, for instance, the NASA pen reference or even best gag of the film the comic speech are lifted from either stand-ups of years behind or some old myth busters. Read more here

It was like watching a blend of Patch Adams, Rang de Basanti (for the non-linear events), Munnabhai series for the message (the first one was inspired by Patch Adams as well), and Taare Zameen Par all rolled into one gigantic broth made by too many cooks.

And it was a shambolic mixture to be honest. Even the song "Give me some sunshine" is inspired by an old Hindi ghazal. And I am really annoyed that nobody else realised that, probably because the language was changed. So this will have to be spelt out. Compare the lyrics of this song and a timeless classic by Jagjit Singh, “Woh kaagaz ki kashti”.

You would realise that every bit of this movie is either inspired or lifted from one or the other, in the same manner Ghajini was inspired from a certain Christopher Nolan film.

With Lage Raho…, Hirani stamped his mark of brilliance in many ways. As a director, a story writer and a story teller. It was refreshing and unpredictable. Even the first of the Munnabhai series had plenty of laughs and frowns although that too was mostly an Indian version of Patch Adams.

Mr Hirani, move over the Patch Adams hangover now. It’s high time.

I am sure you might find many other movies in Hollywood that still haven't been Indianised.

Be original for once.

Note: This is a Guest Post by a subscriber