CriticGirl91 If I hadn't already labeled one of the films that I watched as the worst one ever, this one might have easily taken the spot. To start off, this film is about the romantic life of the PM of the country, and has a singular agenda - to awaken people to the fact that having a live in relationship is the choice of two individuals and nobody else's business. What a deeply coherent and nuanced plot! So we have a very brooding protagonist whose expression seldom changes in the film, except when he attempts to portray joy and ends up reminding us of the last sickly person we've met. He is apparently a superbrain (he wears glasses, duh!) So, this guy arbitrarily gets chosen as the leader of the nation, despite having no relation with politics, which begs the question of his credentials (his girlfriend discusses the same!) The girlfriend is a typical character out of contemporary Bollywood - aggressive, demanding and basically, immature. Still, she's more likable than the hero and acts much better too.So the PM goes around in supposed catwalks (he's too dead to even do that well), making youthful gestures and appealing to his 'youngistaan'. His lack of trust in the 'oldistaan' is never touched upon. The hero is a shrewd one, having a definite vote bank in mind, one that constitutes the majority and will be impressed by his interest in sports, his software career background, his live in relationship, his electronic voting system and his PDA. But let's not forget that he is the Bollywood guy who never does things for selfish reasons. So, true to his role, he makes a farce of leaving the dirty political game while secretly planning to enter the system from behind. He also does his song and dance routine while giving bhashans on unity and prosperity out of the blue while mainly focusing on the demarcation between person and professional living.The hero then flings his invisible magic wand and in a matter of seconds (the rest of the film is about 'live in relationships'), solves issues of youth finances, farmer suicides, collision politics and not to forget, people's opinions about personal and professional lives of other people. Basically, one good person = one good nation.This film is inappropriately titled youngistaan. It barely refers to the youth of the nation, and is neither based on a popular soft drink, but more to the choice of living in versus marriage for the young. I've never despised the living in concept, but now that it's been associated with this film, well! In sum, the film is too superficial to be either meaningful or funny. It tries hard to take a comic take on the everyday life of a most prominent personality. It flops miserably, because it is not daring enough to explore, to get away from the typical heroic image in bollywood. Besides, the less said about the performances, the better. What a waste!

S Rao Just finished watching this movie and found it a little different from the typical Bollywood fare. It has love & politics and relationships but no action sequences to determine which is better - love or politics. I imagine this would reverberate at least a little with the audience at the metro cities in India.The movie is about the son of the PM who takes over as the PM upon the death of his father. And yes - one can see similarities between the actions of some real-life characters in the Indian political system (both past & present).It seemed like the director had a lot of good ideas and wanted to try out all of them in the movie which leads to a pretty disjointed feeling as you go through the movie. Should the focus be on the political maneuvering skills, managing the "uniqueness" of his personal life or trying to charm "young India" with technology? The director has tried to address every possible scenario in the life of a PM which seemed a bit of an overkill. Considering the target audience, it would've been wiser to pick a main plot and build a few sub-plots around it but instead, this turned out to be a serious of parallel stories just moving along.In addition, there are few good characters/actors who seemed wasted with just a few random scenes here & there - one of being Boman Irani Jr. I haven't seen him in any movie after Student of the Year and it was good to see him on screen again but sadly not enough meat in his role.Jacky Bhagnani has done a fairly decent role as the young PM. But his lack of expressions makes the movie a little dull & dragging. Neha Sharma is there to act pretty and nothing more. Farooq Sheikh was of course the best of the lot. This was perhaps amongst his last few movies along with "Yeh Jawani.." Overall, watchable once for the slightly different theme it carries. I didn't watch it in a theater and so it wasn't a couple of waste of time. I watched it at home when I was doing other stuff and hence didn't really feel like I wasted my time!

jmathur_swayamprabha Vasu Bhagnaani's production Youngistaan starring his son Jacky Bhagnaani in lead role was released on 28.03.2014 telling the story of a 28 years old youth becoming the prime minister of India. Less than two months later, the rulers of India changed and we got a new prime minister who is not 28 years old but 64 years old. However the Indian masses have voted him to power with an absolute majority with a lot of expectation. Let's see what he is able to do during his tenure. However the story of Youngistaan is somewhat similar not to that of the current prime minister of India but to that of Late Rajiv Gandhi who had accidentally become the Indian premier at the relatively young age of 40 years on 31.10.1984 after the brutal murder of his mother and the then prime minister of India - Mrs. Indira Gandhi. I watched Youngistaan quite late (after the general elections and the change of rule at the centre) but this movie impressed me so much that I decided to write its review.Abhimanyu Kaul (Jacky Bhagnaani) is the son of the prime minister of India - Mr. Dashrath Kaul (Boman Irani) but having no interest in politics, has always stayed away from it and is pursuing his career as a computer game developer in Japan when he has to rush to India due to his father's being on his death-bed. In order to fulfill the last wish of his father, he has to enter Indian politics quite reluctantly and wear the thorny crown of Indian premiership. His girlfriend Anwita (Neha Sharma) who never wanted him to join politics, is quite unhappy at it but she has to yield before his decision. How Abhimanyu is able to don this role and checkmate his opponents with his deceased father's secretary Akbar Uncle (Farooq Sheikh) being the only trustworthy person for him in this cobweb, forms the remaining part of the movie.After watching I am surprised that most of the professional reviewers have trashed this movie like anything as if it's a very bad product. This is one more illustration of the various biases maintained and nurtured by the Indian film reviewers. Youngistaan may not be a great movie but it's by all means a good, well-made and admirable movie. The movie clearly conveys what it purports to convey without any confusion, ambiguity or digression. The heart of the movie is in the right place and despite being an imaginary and improbable story, the things happening in the corridors of Indian politics have been depicted with a highly realistic approach. In my humble opinion, Youngistaan is a completely no-nonsense movie and the efforts of the team behind its making deserve to be appreciated.Due to the realistic approach only, the movie appears to be monotonous and boring at places. The climax is, therefore, dull and unappealing. However the filmmaker has shown better sense by not inserting too many regular Bollywood formulae and undue melodrama in the narrative and kept the things shown on the screen as straightforward and reliable as possible. Entertainment does not appear to be the motive of the filmmaker though such movies are usually made for entertaining the audience and thereby hauling box office collections. Hence this paradoxical approach of the filmmaker is strange but laudable.The whole milieu of the movie mainly that linked to the corridors of power in India, appears to be out and out real. The body language of the different characters is quite apt according to the assigned roles and the mood of the movie. Sets are impressive. Ditto for cinematography. Dialogs are not theatrical but quite appropriate according to different situations and the characters uttering them. Background score is in order.Music director Jeet Ganguly hasn't composed any super hit numbers for this movie but his musical score alongwith the lyrics of Arijit Singh is certainly good.I have been an admirer of Jacky Bhagnaani since his debut movie Kal Kissne Dekha (2009). He is a handsome as well as talented actor who deserves the right break to give a boost to his career. He has rendered a controlled performance in the lead role of Abhimanyu whose years are tender but personality is mature. Another highly admirable performance has come from Late Farooque Sheikh in the role of the PM's secretary. All others have also fitted the bill.The word Youngistaan represents the youthful part of the Indian population who is open-minded, progress-oriented, free from bigotry and does not believe in any undesirable discrimination among people. This Youngistaan badly needs a youthful, dynamic and open-minded leader at the helm of affairs. The hero of Youngistaan is an imaginary character but we, the right-thinking Indians, wish that it were real.

bobbysing Though politics can easily be quoted as one of the most favorite subjects of general discussion in the public, still for a film adaptation it has always been a dicey one with only few exceptions in the past. So at one end, YOUNGISTAAN can surely be rated as a brave film, trying to en-cash the current political mood of the whole country with a positive message. But on the other, the way it has been presented before the audience with a specific purpose & perfect timing, it more seems to be the part of publicity campaign of one of the leading parties of the nation, rather than being a new Hindi Film in totality.Directed by Syed Ahmad Afzal, it begins too casually with a party song straight away and then starts imitating the real life political scenario of India, focusing completely on the young character of Jacky Bhagnani as the next Prime Minister of the country and nothing else. The boy reaches the reputed post all of a sudden just because of a favourable stroke of destiny and one can easily raise many questions on the sequences depicting his unexpected entry in politics executed so casually. However following a very light, comic progression, the film does manage to hook you up initially due to its novel concept and few enjoyable scenes. But once the script completely goes into politics; everything starts happening too quickly and in quite a childish way too, forgetting that we are actually talking about A President, PM and other prominent figures running our country and not any high profile owners of a big corporate firm doing the routine business.So in real terms, YOUNGISTAAN fails to make an impact as it gets confused between various genres and is not able to follow any particular one throughout. In the first few reels, it is a comedy, in the middle ones it turns into a half heartedly made political thriller and then in the last few it becomes a boring social drama with a message given in a prolonged climax. As a result it can simply be rated as a film with an important & heavy subject, made in an equally light, careless or immature way without having any clear path.To name the plus points, its production design is eye-catching, background score is decent and the soundtrack has got a good song too as 'Suno Na Sangemarmar'. Moroever Jacky once again gives an impressive performance with all his calm charm and Neha Sharma does fine too looking beautiful on the screen. The rest of the cast including Boman Irani, Meeta Vashisht and Kayoze Irani get nothing much to do, except late Farooque Sheikh, who is an absolutely delight to watch and remains the only saving grace in the film right till the end.In short, it's the post interval section of the film which makes it quite boring to watch as we have already seen enough of that stuff on our TV sets since the last few months. Coming to its realistic references, such are the straight similarities of the film with the contemporary Indian Politics and its ruling party that at times one starts thinking that perhaps this has been made by the party only in order to spread a positive wave about their candidates in the next election. For instance, it has a scene wherein Jackie is probably inaugurating a very high rise statue of a key figure (pointing towards Sardar Patel) and then we have a TV interview of him taken by a renowned journalist named Parnab too (reminding you of Arnab of Times Now Channel). Further the film releasing in a very crucial week just before the elections surely puts you in doubts about the real motive of its making and the actual producers.Anyway whatever the truth behind its production might be, the basic point is that the film actually suffers a lot due to the completely confused vision of its director, following which he tries to put in almost everything to woo the audience ranging from a video game developer's job, live in relationship, having a child before the marriage and a lead character named Dashrath wearing a purely Muslim attire (to please both the communities). Moreover YOUNGISTAAN can also be called an entirely filmy take or a questionable fantasy version of the current political situation of our country, wherein there is no strong opposition in the picture and also ready made solutions are available with the Prime Minister for every major problem as if he is still playing a video game knowing all its codes.