Eklavya The Director – Vidhu Vinod Chopra - reputed with 2 decades of successful cinema under his belt. The star cast – outstanding – Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Saif Ali Khan, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani, Sharmila Tagore, Vidhya Balan, Raima Sen and Parikshit Sahani. The concept – brewing since more than 25 years; the work on the story, screenplay and script – painstaking; the details looked into the production – perfect! The story of Eklavya revolves around the Royal guard – Eklavya, played by Amitabh – of the palace in Devgarh, Rajasthan in post independence era, who's secret of fathering the twins (Saif and Raima) of the queen (Sharmila Tagore) is disclosed on the death of the queen. With this the story unfolds and Amitabh starts performing his duty as a Royal Guard with the murder of the king (Booman Irani) only to know that the murderer is none other than his son – the heir of the kingdom – Saif Ali Khan. Does he kill Saif to perform his Dharma is the question poised in the end. Sanjay Dutt plays the village lower caste cop, Jackie and Jimmy plays the villainous part; Parikshit the Royal driver and Vidhya his daughter.<br /><br />The story is surely interesting, and all actors have performed their part very well and with all the resources it had – it was a sure formula for success!? But a big "NO" is the answer. The movie fails to connect and I felt as if I am viewing a sober re-make of 70-80's movie "Raj Tilak". This is a movie for all students studying Script writing and Director (in that order). It perfectly shows "What one should avoid" when writing a script and directing a movie. I am 100% sure that each and every scene and detail is well crafted out in the script – word by word, image by image, page by page, and that is reflected on the screen.<br /><br />But the whole approach is immature – coming from a veteran director. The characterization is poor, each scene is like a stand alone scene of enacted on stage, each single scene is stretched to unbearable limit of irritation, the music on the over-stretched scene is jarring, the sync sound is badly recorded, each dialogue is a pick-up from 60-70s pot boiler, and even with range of emotions given to the characters, all actors are under-utilized and wasted.<br /><br />A good movie on paper does not necessary result in a good movie on screen – is the big, loud and clear message one gets after seeing this crap.<br /><br />Only saving grace of this movie is the cinematography.<br /><br />Saif Ali Khan's beard reminded me of Rajesh Khanna movies where his hair used to grow long and short within a span of the same scene. It was strange that the palace did not have electricity, but Saif came in a latest helicopter wearing Swatch watch, and traveling by Scorpio and the funny part was when Sanjay Dutt in the last scene mentions about DVD player. Wasn't the impression given to us that the movie was based soon after independence – when India became a Democracy? I think Vidhu Vinod Chopra – got messed up in the historic hangover of timing! Just a trivia – On seeing a long queue waiting for the movie – I told an Indian "Please save yours Euro 10 per ticket – the movie is BAD!" He replied me – "Amitabh is there, so how can the movie be bad? Your outlook is different!" Really? CNN- IBN gave 2 stars out of 5. I am giving it 2.5 stars – but out of 10.<br /><br />(2.5 Stars out of 10)