/> Starring Ajay Devgan, Pankaj Kapoor, Vidya Balan
Written & Directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi
Rating: *** ½

There are some filmmakers who entertain. Others tend to inform. A handful of celluloid visionaries do both.

Raj Kumar Santoshi belongs to the rare breed of filmmakers who opens up thought- processes about the state of the nation without losing the 'cinematic' element in his cinema.

Halla Bol belongs to the same unique hardhitting gut-wrenching genre of cinema as Santoshi Damini, Ghaatak and the under-rated Lajja. The overall product lacks finesse, yes. And parts of the plot (e.g Devgan peeing on the primary paapi's Persian rug) purport to be purely puerile.

But the message that the masses need to arise from slumber, rings out loud and largely clear. Brutality is often superimposed on a laidback lyricism in Santoshi's not-so-mellow-dramas. He sees the middleclass as a collectively cowardly mass waiting to be prodded awake.

Earlier Sunny Deol used to serve up these wakeup calls. Now it's Ajay Devgan for Santoshi.

In Halla Bol the actor gets to grab a glorious graph as he goes from committed street –theatre performer to corrupted celluloid superstar to a socially-conscious citizen who stands up to fight a worthy cause...or shall we, say a wordy cause? Rhetorics (articulately written by Santoshi) flow out of the script with unstoppered passion.

Scenes come alive through the characters' ability to transcend the occasionally-trite material and communicate the gripping drama of social awakening through words and expression that suggest a link between pop-art and a socio-political manifesto.

Disembodied news clippings from news channels coalesce urgently with the larger picture as Santoshi takes stinging wipes at the establishment.

The rise and fall and rise again of the small-time actor Ashfaque to Sameer Khan is peppered with arresting interludes from the entertainment business.

The buzz and the bitching, the hypocrisy and the promiscuity....they all get a wide margin in the cannily-written plot that weaves a conscience into a tale with a frisky flair.

While Devgan gets seriously explorative once again, playing a character who goes from vain and libidinous to repentant and heroic, it's Pankaj Kapoor playing Devgan's guru and conscience-keeper who gives a sterling stand-out performance.

Supremely confident in his space, Kapoor plays a street-theatre artiste who once was warrior. It's by far one of the most interesting and multi-layered characters written for a character actor, and one that gives this under-used actor a chance to deliver rabble rousing rhetorics without getting pulpit-friendly.

In a plot that favours the male actors Vidya Balan makes silent space for herself. She has just three major sequences and she embraces all of them with unconditional pride.

Halla Bol towers over the average potboilers. It puts across home truths in a language that tends to get shrill but never shallow.

The caucus of villains strike distinctly caricatural poses (and it's embarrassing to see Darshan Jariwalla who was Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi My Father give a hammy account of his talent).

But the impotent silence of the mute junta as it watches mob injustice on the streets comes across in sweeping movements of pain and anger.

All of Santoshi's films have scenes showing the brutal mauling of an individual in a public place.

The war cry comes in a raging spurt of indignant creativity in Halla Bol. Effectively scripted and with dialogues that propel the plot to a climax without moving ahead of itself, the narrative simmers with discontent.

On this occasion Santoshi has a lot to say about the conscience and the celebrity.Also about the misuse of the minority card by politicians makes a rather subtle entry into the second-half of the drama.

Though shot with an eye for personality-defining details by cameraman S Natarajan Subramaniam some portions of the tale appear tacky when compared with the enormity of the theme.

Maybe the editor Steven Bernard needed to exercize more economy of expression.

Halla Bol may not strike you as being the epitome of subtle social reformism. Its tone is more of a street play than a Sunday-evening curio at Prithvi Theatres. What's truly remarkable about Santoshi's cinema is the multiplicity of ideas and themes on contemporary India that come into play through distinctly cinematic devices.

If on one end you hear Jackie Shroff discussing Aamir Khan's run-in with the Gujarat government on the other end we have Sayali Bhagat popping in for an item song. The spectrum is vast and baggy. And yes there are strong words against the politics of minorityism and the cult of celebrity-bashing.

You may think Raj Kumar Santoshi has bitten more than he can chew. But that's a fatal mistake. This filmmaker can create tensions in the plot without allowing the pressures of balancing the 'formula' with 'ideas' to show up in the end-product.

The product never actually ends. For Santoshi's morally conflicted protagonists there's always another beginning.