Peepli Live Movie Review
PEEPLI LIVE is a brilliant satire which is riveting and heartfelt. Most importantly, it makes you think, and rethink. After LAGAAN this could be yet another journey for producer Aamir Khan all the way to the Kodak Theatre.
Rating: 4.5/5
When Aamir Khan produces a film, or is associated with any film in the capacity of an actor, be prepared for the unpredictable. Films like Taare Zameen Par and 3 Idiots took pot shots at the education system in India and Peepli [Live], directed by Anusha Rizvi, is a tongue-in-cheek satire on the farmers’ suicides and the role of vote-hungry politicians and the over-enthusiastic, TRP-seeking desperate electronic media jostling for eyeballs.
It’s a story of Peepli, a poor farmer Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) and his brother Budhia (Raghubir Yadav) from Mukhya Pradesh, indebted of a government loan and unable to repay it. The threat of his land getting auctioned looms large on them. Natha along with his brother Budhia (Raghubur Yadav) are informed of a government program that provides aid to the family of indebted farmers who have committed suicide. After an argument (hilarious) between the brothers, it’s finally decided that Natha will bear the brunt of ending his life.
Local elections are imminent and after the media comes to know of this development (impending suicide), it snowballs, involving scheming politicians, bureaucrats, local henchmen, all trying to have their share from the pie. Whether Natha will commit suicide or not becomes a matter of national interest.
Omkar Das Manikpuri as Natha
Raghubir Yadav as Budhia
Malaika Shenoy as Nandita Mallik
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Rakesh
Shalini Vatsa as Dhaniya
Farrukh Jaffer as Amma
Vishal O. Sharma as Kumar Deepak
Aamir Khan as Champ
Naseeruddin Shah as Agriculture Minister
Aamir Bashir as Vivek
Dan Hussain as Vijay Ranjan Prasad