Kai Po Che! (2013) review

Film name: Kai Po Che
Cast (Lead): Sushant Singh Rajput, Raj Yadav, Amit Sadh and Amrita Puri.
Year of release: 2013
Directed by: Abishek Kapoor

It had been really tough to judge the quality of Kai Po Che! as because I am biased towards Chetan Bhagat's works and ideas. "Kai Po Che!" is a film based upon Bhagat's popular fiction novel, "The 3 Mistakes of my life". It was released on the 22nd of February, 2013. The film stars Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh and Raj Kumar. Kai Po Che is the debut of the later duo, Amit and Raj, so you will get to see some new, fresh faces on the screen. The lead female character is played by Amrita Puri, who's debut film is also, surprisingly, Kai Po Che.

Directed by Abhishek Kapoor, also the director of Rock On, Kai Po Che is perhaps one of the unique, cool and the best film of 2013. It shows friendship between friends- but not like other drama-filled and action filled cinemas. Kapoor has made his effort to concentrate on the friendship and their bond. And I promise, you will get touched. You'll want to watch this film again and again. The film does not end with a happy ending that you see as usual in most films. When Chetan was asked about this, he said that it has a sad ending so that people may realize the true meaning of the film.

Kai Po Che is basically a sweet, short story about unconditional friendship and love. It signifies simplicity and the characters are shown as ordinary boys of Ahmedabad. Sushant potrays Ishaan, a cricket enthusiast who has set up his own cricket coaching club. He finds Ali, a young Muslim lad is gifted with the talent of hitting sixes in Cricket, and he wants to showcase his talent to the whole world. He is crazy and has no interest in doing business as Govind (Raj Yadav) does. Vidya, played by Amrita Puri, is a beautiful lady who is bored in Maths. Ishaan appoints Govind to teach her mathematics, as he had topped the board exams. They soon begin to feel love for each other. Their love, which was an important aspect of the novel, was cut short in the film. Omi is depicted as a religious and pious boy who's uncle is Bittu Mama.

Bittu Mama does have a great role in the film. He is the Hindu party leader and he does not favour the Muslims. Omi has a family relationship with Bittu Mama.

What doesn't work as well is the screenplay. There are stretches in which the film slows down enough to make you restless. In places, the narrative is not fully convincing - the boys recover from a big financial blow (after the earthquake) with little stress. I also found the Gujarati dialogue a little distracting. 

Coming to soundtracks and music, the film has got only 3 songs to offer. It becomes worse that only one of the three songs is good enough: Meethi Boliyan, sung gracefully by Milli Nair and Amit Trivedi. Manjha can be considered as a song which is "good-enough". Shubbarambh is one of the many not-pleading kind of modern song that didn't convince me to mark it as a quality song. 

According to sources, Kai Po Che means "I've cut" in Gujrati. Well, this story of loss, love, friendship and forgiveness has already touched a million hearts. Why are you waiting? Jump out and watch this: It's my guarantee that it'll please you. For, you can't see so many films like this nowadays, and it's a one-of-a-kind and unique. I'll give it a 4 star rating.