petty woman , to win the bet she gave wrong direction.

This is a film, coming as it does after the defeat of 'India Shining' campaign in last year's elections, for urbanites/NRIs to show them what Indian villages look like and what can be done about the problems with rural India. And it does nothing but reaffirm this superficial 'concern' for a fictional rural poor (not that there isn't such a category in reality, but this particular type in the movie is a work of fiction). Mohan's self realization is at the center here, not the 'simple' village folk who move in and out of his life as and when needed. There is not a shred of realism and people's accents, their costumes and their general disposition makes it seem that this particular village is a blend of UP, Bihar, Kerala all at once. And the methods for 'swades' brand of rural upliftment are highly innovative too-- dance sequences and technological utopianism. AR Rehman's music is, though, a high point of the movie, as are a couple of performances, mostly by the Lagaan cast. SRK does what he's best at-- shedding tears; and here he finds a willing companion--his old nanny. Some of the camera shots are 'inspired' by 'The Motorcycle Diaries', and incidentally, they're the best of the lot. In the end, the tagline 'We, the people' is a misnomer. Instead the movie turns out to be 'SRK, the saviour'.

After a long, long time I saw a Hindi movie which has no villains, but still illustrates vividly the miseries of life, which has no feuding families but still manages to bring out the realities of love, marriage, and adjustments. There are no corrupt politicians but rather heads of the village, with real issues and real ego; but still clearly human; the real people. There are no events for shock values but still the storyline is gripping. Perhaps it is not for teens and young people in twenties, who would rather be in a dream world idolizing a person with super powers. The movie is as realistic as any of my Desi colleagues I meet everyday at work here away from my Swades. Such a simple story but so well presented. After having to watch stupid Hindi TV soaps every evening where women are either screaming or slapping each other and less said about the male roles the better, it was a real nice change to spend yesterday evening watching this beautiful movie with the whole family. I really like movies that leave me in a happy state of mind. This was definitely the one; a rare one; a jewel.

Swades is a mediocre followup to Gowarikar's previous effort Lagaan. Lagaan was a standard issue Bollywood fantasy which came together extremely well. Since it was a fantasy, clichéd dialog and cardboard characters were not a problem. In fact, quite the opposite since they provided comic relief when needed. Swades tries to be a quasi-serious movie and completely fails because no effort has been made to have serious dialog and fully fleshed out characters. (In contrast, see Shwaas for real situations, fully fleshed out characters and normal conversation.) Instead, we have quasi-seriousness imposed on a Bollywood fantasy background which is jarring to say the least. Oddly enough, Shah Rukh Khan delivers a reasonably good, understated performance. The new actress, Gayathri Joshi's nonverbal performance is top notch. Unfortunately, she's all dolled up (well coiffed and manicured at that) and nowhere to go since she's supposed to be living in a poor village which makes her look ludicrous. No attempt was made to make her less glamorous. Instead, we have someone who looks like Queen Elizabeth living in a slum. Finally, while Lagaan had a good screenplay, there's no story here and no payoff in the end. While the cinematography is excellent and the village backdrop authentic, it all amounts to a wasted effort. In summary, Gowarikar has lowered our expectations which is a very good thing for him and hopefully for us as well.

Some movies in you life are precious, and this is one among them. I am a movie lover and watch every possible movie released. Swades holds a prima-facie among the limited movie collection i have. I still remember the day when i stood outside the Audio shop in the city next to my village where i traveled over 100km just to get the first copy of the audio cassette, and guess what i grabbed the first cassette that day. Since that day my love for this movie is out of bounds, and still going strong. Believe i am not a fan of Mr.Shahrukh Khan, but after this movie i really fell in love the way he enacted the play. I never missed the release of this movie and watched it the first day. The Aftermath ,9 years later, today, i have completed my medicine degree,this movie made me change my mind to stay with my home place, My beloved parents, friends and everyone in my village. I wanted to pursue my masters in US but i am now a changed mind with pursuing the degree in here in my home land , India. Thanks Mr. Ashutosh for creating this epic master piece. I would be grateful for the rest of my life for this movie you have crafted. The characters simply have life and they are close to hearts, be it Mohan "NRI" Bhargava or "Gitli" Geeta or the Post Man "Nivaranji" who admires the Email as something out of the world invention, the American dream pursuing "MelaRam". Every one is astounding in performance, that makes this movie a special one that you would never want to forget for the rest of your life. For all my NRI cousins and friends, do watch this movie and come back buddies, there is more to pursue in here. regards

Can a movie without garish designer clothes, multi star cast,flesh flashing item songs, silly humour, loud dialogues, trick photography, absurd stunts et al be categorised as a documentary? If your answer is 'yes', then 'Swades' is not for you. 'Swades' is a self exploring journey of Mohan Bhargava(Shahrukh Khan) who is a smart & successful project manager in Nasa's Space Kennedy Centre who after a span of solitude years feels the urge to meet his nanny Kaveriamma and convince her to spend the rest of her life in more pleasures & comforts with him, she has been a motherly figure to him and many. Search of Kaveriamma lands him in a small village of Charanpur in India where she lives with Gita(Gayatri Joshi), a school teacher by profession and choice. Mohan is in a total contrast situation from where he came and his short stay extends when he comes across many vital unsolvable realities of that village, which help to form a ladder to his inner evolution. And of course Gita's simplistic & idealistic personality helps in develop a loving bond between the two.He takes on himself to provide the basic need of Electricity(generate) thru Water and even tries to open the innocent/ ignorant eyes of many to the unknown and known facets of the world. Mohan's every move, every word gets him closer to the rest and himself . Mohan is capable enough of taking any sound decision at this juncture of his life, so does he fall prey to a comfortable lavish lifestyle layering it in the name of career progression and loosing his real identity or does he want to go beyond the norms and return to his roots and make his life more worthwhile? The soulful music and the intertwining of songs in the script keeps you absorbed through out. The movie at no point goes overboard in conveying the thoughts of the director(Ashutosh Gowariker),his penchant for detailing and apt characters placement are worth experiencing. I forgot to mention SRK, this is what you'll feel too cos here Mohan Bhargava is at forte which says a lot about the actor himself and even the director who has the capability to extract effective performances from one and all. The only downside maybe the duration of the movie, but the sincerity of the movie will gently glide you all the way. 'Swades' will be remembered for several firsts(or in a long time) to its credit: * The title of the film. * The promo pictures of the film very different which doesn't emphasise the hero, but the people. * First Indian Cinema to be shot in Nasa. * Subtle romantic moments between the lead actor & actress. * Debut of a senior veteran director Lekh Tandon. * A main-stream cinema not following a rigid path of 'entertaining' cinema. Someone correctly said 'It is difficult to be simple', but its not at all difficult to watch and muse over this simple piece of work!

This movie is without doubt ...one of the greatest Hindi movies ever made.This movies combines with superb direction and amazing performances from all the artists.And Sharukh khan..........he comes up with the outstanding performance and proves that...he is an amazing actor....i feel he is not utilized properly by other directors except few for his talent......hope he does more movies like this.Gayatri was beautiful and perfect and no one could have done better than her.The music and background theme is awesome and hits perfectly to the scenes.I watch this movie at least twice in a year.Truly masterpiece from Auhotosh ans Srk.As few jerks say its boring...i promise it does not bore even for a min....i recommend this Gem of movie to all who love movie which is entertaining as well as thought provoking....and truly inspiring.......watch it least once in lifetime.........Swades :)

To continue... they like a movie if a reviewer has given it 5 star and dislike if a reviewer gives it 1 star. Don't you guys know professional reviewers have to survive in the industry they cant afford to offend a big shot director, even if he make a crap like this. So the review starts The movie is trying to make a point that a person will get more satisfaction if he comes back to his "Motherland" and help poor people. This is absolutely wrong message. A laymen will like it because he will get one more scientist burning his nights for his benefit in his Mother India but the argument is flawed 1. Scientists are a citizen of the world, they are the torchbearers of a generation.Politicizing them on the basis of country is like politicizing elections on the basis of religion 2. Indian scientific community is in the trap of bureaucracy. a person who wants to make some real contribution to science and concentrate solely on his work rather than politics will never come back and should not come back to India (especially if he is in one of the worlds greatest institution like NASA). 3. The direction is lackluster, no grip, no anticipation, everyone knows this loser will come back to India from the very first scene of the movie ( it is obvious he doesn't have a life in the states, here in his village people gave him some attention, and he is so desperate to get it that he leaves everything. Not to mention the girl probably the only one he ever and will ever touch )and still it , drags on and on for unthinkable point of time. 4. This is a cheap, no, pardon me, a cruel attempt to play with the emotions of naive people. not to mention the pain it causes the Indian scientific diaspora and their family members who are actually making a real contribution to science abroad. 5. The emotions of Shah Rukh are not as good under the direction of Asitosh Gowariker, as it were under Bhansali, he can not even touch his performance that he gave in Devdas Pleas people apply some reason and logic instead of emotion to judge an idea. As for the movie, don't go by the name but by the performance

Shahrukh Khan has done good 'acting' instead of just being a star (for a welcome change). Gayatri Joshi has put in a good subdued performance. The songs are great. Picturization is pretty good too. Unfortunately, the story sucks. It is hackneyed, clichéd, re-hashes whatever you've seen / heard ten times before and the actions of the characters are absolutely unbelievable. It tries to be sweet and cute and ends up being fake (along with sickly sweet and sickly cute). Idealistic films would be more idealistic if they portrayed reality and showed shades of gray in their main characters too. Fairyland movies such as Swades fall woefully short of real idealism.

Going against most reviews here, i am giving a 1 for vote because there is no 0 to give. This movie was just a real disappointment to me, since the beginning it was just awful cinematography, really bad colours and really bad shots. Not to mention that it starts with publicity to a north American corporation, which gives the movie a really bad start level, the next 10 minutes where just full of clichés, i counted 8 in total, not to mention more publicity to another corporation which made the radio that is in the main actor's van. After this terrible 10 minutes experience i could not watch it any longer. There are great Indian movies out there, but this is definitely not one of them.