Swades

Somewhere into the movie you realize that the director forgot the plot. SOme movies can do this but then your characters have to be well developed. This film does neither and thus fails.

The performances are OK. The Shahrukh/Gayatri pairing works for the most part. The villagers were too one-dimensional. Plus the movie doesn't really tackle major issues of villages...i.e. most of the young people moving to cities, etc. Why do they need electricity? So they can watch "Yadon ki Baarat" in it's entirety?

Villagers aren't portrayed intelligently. If this movie were made by a foreigner or an NRI/ABCD, there would have been protests all across India.

The movie is well intentioned but falls flat. Gowariker should have added an antagonist. (There are people benefitting from keeping villages in the dark!) At least it could have made the three plus hours bearable.