Hey Ram is the story of Saket Ram (Kamal Haasan), an archaeologist. He is on a dig in pre-partition Harappa with his buddy Amjad (Shah Rukh Khan) when communal violence erupts in the region and the dig is closed down. Saket Ram goes off to Calcutta to visit his new wife Aparna (Rani Mukherjee). Calcutta is in chaos with religious strife and Ram's wife is brutally assaulted and killed by some Muslim men a few days after his return. He becomes unstable and seeks out the perpetrators of the crime and deals with them. While wandering the streets Ram meets with Abhyankar (Atul Kulkarni) who tells him that his family has suffered a similar fate and that the one man responsible for all this is MK Gandhi. Ram goes off to Tamil Nadu and after seeing Maithili (Vasundhara Das) agrees to marry her. All the time he is still traumatized by Aparna's death and planning revenge. When Abhyankar is paralyzed in a polo accident Ram vows to take his place as the killer of the Mahatma. He moves to Delhi and there he re-encounters his friend Amjad. Now hatred for Muslims and his prior closeness to Amjad are at war and Ram must choose his path - will it be the road to revenge or redemption? The story is excellent and the movie manages to retain its grip on the viewer for over three hours. The direction is for the most part very good. There are a few strange moments that seemed unnecessary to me - why is there the surreal stuff when Ram is shown with Maithili? The Marathi dance seemed unnecessary. Why were the bullets in a cartridge in a pre-partition handgun? Can one talk after one's throat is sliced open? But these are indeed minor quibbles in an overall excellent film.

The background score is a bit intrusive, the songs not memorable. Maybe this is not the best of the Maestro Illayaraja. The beginning song/dance in the club is sort of silly, certainly not needed. Surely bonding between friends can be shown in other ways.

Acting is very good throughout. For me the outstanding performance was given by Rani Mukherjee. She breathed life into Aparna and was at her most attractive and charming as a Bengali Bodhu! Kamal was very good. He showed love, passion, anger, rage, madness very well. And what looks at nearly age 50! The man is awesome. Shah Rukh gave a great performance as Amjad - a very restrained and balanced performance that in the end showed us which path Ram would choose and why. Atul Kulkarni was awesome as the fanatical Abhyanker. Vasundhara Das was luminous and did an excellent job playing Maithili. Naseer Shah as Gandhi, Hema Malini as the mother were all very good. In fact there was no bad performance in the film.

This is a fine piece of movie making and deserves all the accolades it got. If you have not yet seen this film then you are in for a rare treat.