New Delhi: Leander Paes is not known for being secretive about his feelings. At times he expressed the desire of joining the film industry. His dream of getting featured on the silver screen has finally come true with director Ashok Kohli's attempted socio-political drama 'Rajdhani Express'.
The gritty sportsman must have found it difficult to paint the celluloid with the colours of his emotions. Keshav, the character he plays in the film is of highly complex nature. He is fighting several battles at different fronts; basically there is not any particular point where he can actually focus on. This situation is easily comparable to a wayward state where the hero knows nothing other than just facing the camera.
Ashok Kohli attempts to present the palette of sentiments that gets reduced to mere shots, chiefly because of a confused storyline and partly due to rudderless acting. But that didn't stop him from showcasing a wide variety of actors including the likes of Jimmy Shergill, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Sudhansu Pandey, Gulshan Grover, Mukesh Rishi, Shilpa Shukla, Pooja Bose, Sayali Bhagat and Achint Kaur.
The basic storyline has Keshav (Leander Paes) at the helm of affairs who is probably instructed to laugh inconsolably. He has faced a lot in his life and thus has become a bit bitter towards the privileged factions of the society; one would just wish to see the same emotion taking shape on celluloid as well. After going through a really bad patch, Keshav tries to run away to Mumbai from his Delhi based traitors. The train that he boards is of course Rajdhani Express and his fellow passengers make him realise that the world is full of people who believe in class distinction. Alas, the visuals could have demonstrated the noble idea behind the film.
The drama takes a drastic turn when a power hungry and equally confused police officer Yadav (Jimmy Shergill) enters the scene and starts to take his own frustration out on some innocent travellers. From here onwards, it becomes a journey which is really hard to finish.
Leander Paes is the main bait for the movie goers as people would like to see the brilliant sportsman donning a new avatar and trying to put forth the complexities of the Indian social fabric. There are other actors but he is the connecting thread among different sub-plots. However, he is not likely to match up to the mammoth mountain of expectations. On the other hand, his tennis career has also not remained as sparkling as it used to be at one point of time, so he is going to need unconditional blessings of his fans.
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