Vivek Agnihotri, who made his directorial debut with Chocolate, a film loosely inspired by The Usual Suspects, has mostly made commercial entertainers, but this time, the director has taken a cinematic detour to come up with Buddha In A Traffic Jam, a thought-provoking film about concepts like idealism, socialism, Naxalism, corruption and other issues.

Sometimes the difference between a good story and a bad one, is the way it's told. You can have the best of motives but if you don't get the fabric of storytelling right, you're not going to impress anyone. While good intentions cannot be totally ignored, they're not merely enough by themselves to make a difference. Buddha In A Traffic Jam has the right ideas. But the way it tells it's story is lackluster. In trying to be relevant and artistic, it loses the plot on more than one occasion.

Dear Indian Right Wingers, You have my sincerest condolences. Propaganda films can be dangerous, influential, misleading -- and that is what they intend to be. The one true requirement of a propaganda film is that it be effective. Emphatic instruments of (mis)information and awareness, instruments geared to trigger a change in mindset, to squelch a way of thinking and to encourage another. It is frequently unsubtle filmmaking that belabours its point, but its work can also be subversive and sly and admittedly clever.

The trailer of 'Buddha In A Traffic Jam' had resonated with me, prompting me to find my own voice, however silent, against corruption. It was expected that the film would be a message on social awakening, but it turned out to be much more than that. Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, 'Buddha In A Traffic Jam' is an extraordinary effort to begin a revolution on the buried political issues of the country. Agnihotri, director of the eminently forgettable 'Chocolate', 'Goal' and 'Hate Story', had not prepared us for this.

Vikram Pandit (Arunoday Singh) is an MBA student at a top notch business school. Highly opinionated and easily influential, Vikram develops a keen interest in one of his professors, Rakesh Batki's (Anupam Kher) approach of teaching. Looking at Vikram's skills, the professor starts to share with his students the materials of writing that he wants Vikram to spread through the youth calling his own. Giving talks on the issues of corruption and the injustice of the downtrodden, Vikram soon becomes a popular student speaker.

It is tricky to make a balanced political drama that holds a mirror at the ugly realities which plague India. Director Vivek Agnihotri smartly raises all the right questions. Finding his muse in socialist thinking, his narrative unravels the workings of the volatile Naxalite Movement which functions aggressively in the sinister underbelly of society.