Shivaji-The Boss

How do you a review a movie that isn’t a movie in the traditional sense?
A Rajinikanth film ceased to be just a film at around the same time Rajini himself stopped being just a Star. His elevation to Icon meant his Films became Events.
Brutally self-referencing, the Rajini movie is not for the novice uninitiated in the knowledge of this ex-bus conductor’s meteoric career. A giddy combination of catch phrases, punch dialogues laced with philosophical homilies for the Good and sarcastic put downs for the Bad, the Rajini Film Dialogue aims primarily to reinforce his iconic stature (that is, if the electrifying graphics enhanced top billing he gets at the start of each movie doesn’t drive the point home) even as the Rajini Film Plot relentlessly samples plot lines from his past movies. To see a Rajini hero go from well off to penniless to super rich is to acknowledge a patented character arc that goes back several movies in the past. You KNOW Shivaji’s penurious existence is short-lived because Padayappa before him went from homeless to granite mill owning millionaire in the time it took for 1 song to play out, because orphan Arunachalam inherited real dad’s billions at the Interval point, because milkman Annamalai became a hotel magnate in the time it took for….well, you get the idea.
Let’s face it, even in the bizarre (for the uninitiated) world of Tamil movies, the Rajinikanth movie is in a rarefied stratosphere of its own. Internet chat rooms, blogs and forums buzz with news, rumours and innuendo from it’s first day of Production. Leaked stills are posted, plots discussed and possible screenplays debated months before a single reel of film unspools in cinemas.
Questions like the nature of Rajini’s introduction song, Signature Hand Gesture or Trademark Punch Dialogue is debated with the type of religious fervour normally reserved for Constitutional Amendments.
It all builds to a frenzied crescendo until the day of release.
Then the real mayhem begins….
Scenes of fans breaking coconuts outside and inside cinema halls, pouring milk over a gigantic cut-out of the star and snaking lines of queues outside cinemas hours before ticketing counters open (assuming any are available once scalpers pounce on them to sell it to eager fans with a 400% mark up in price) would make a riveting film in its own right.
In Malaysia, Rajini fans demonstrated the sort of passion that can only come about by a sudden, plunging drop in IQs (not uncommon in situations where large masses of humanity weaned on Tamil Films are squeezed into limited spaces) by breaking glasses, setting fires and beating up a Cinema Manager when technical glitches caused delays in screening.
The expectations, normally high for a Rajini flick, this time sky rocketed to unbelievable heights because, not since Thalapathy has a Rajini film been helmed by a big name director with a style and market of his own.

Nobody does big budget masalas like Shankar. A gifted visual stylist on par with Mani Ratnam, Shankar’s movies operate strictly within the tropes of conventional Tamil Cinema formulas while coating them with a polished sheen of class thanks to an ability to spend the kind of money that not so much require deep pockets as it does bottomless ones.
Like Ratnam, Shankar’s movies are urban-centric, the Chennai of Pizza Huts and cell phones with video streaming but unlike Ratnam’s movies, they never lose sight of an audience for whom the above amenities still remain a pipe dream while delivering topical story lines that crackle with intelligence.
So, it’s a substantial disappointment that this star wattage Actor-Director pairing never takes off to the giddy heights you rightfully expect it to. With a hefty budget, Shankar’s sense of style and a Super Star who’s come to personify that word, this movie should have been a deliriously entertaining roller coaster from the get go.
Instead it gets bogged down by an excruciating first half that has Rajini indulging in some painfully unfunny antics to win the heart of his lady love, and ponderously erratic shifts in pacing and tone. Scenes of dramatic heft where Shivaji’s construction project is thwarted by greedy bureaucrats is followed immediately by him clowning around in Shreya’s house as he and family ingratiate themselves with her parents to win them over. Can this man compartmentalize or what?
The plot is a well flogged Shankar Hobby Horse: Rich NRI Shivaji (Rajini) comes back to Chennai with plans to build a college and hospital for the needy. Greedy politician Adisheshan ( a chunked out and near unrecognizable Suman) with his own money milking university is having none of that and proceeds to put obstacles in our heroes way. Hobbled by corrupt politicians, lackadaisical civil servants and stripped of his wealth, Shivaji fights back with a vengeance, using a plan to rob them of their black money and continue his philanthrophic endeavours.
Rajini’s larger than life image sits uneasily with Shankar’s Every Man hero pitted against a corrupt establishment. Vulnerability is not an aspect of the Super Star’s screen persona. You can believe Kamalahassan’s desperate anguish when faced with bureaucratic hospital officials who demand forms to be filled while his burnt daughter lies dying, and you can easily empathise when Vikram’s straight laced lawyer struggles to convince a man to use his car to transport a dying road accident victim to the hospital, but a Rajini who bows down to pressure and resorts to bribing officials to clear reams of Red Tape because “that’s how things are done in India” strains credulity. This is Rajini, for God’s sake! You expect him to rip the head off the officious fool and shove it up the You Know Where. After saying something cool, of course. But that’s only marginally less painful than watching a Rajini who resorts to painful mugging and love struck antics as he tries to woo Shreya. You believed it when Sada finally fell for Vikram’s pedantic lawyer in Anniyan because it was established why he became that way. In Shivaji, you wonder why Shreya doesn’t slap Shivaji and his entire family with a Restraining Order. There are cringe inducing scenes of Rajini howling in the bathroom after swallowing an orchard’s worth of red chillies in a bid to impress lady love and one of Shreya rushing in front of a train to prevent it running over Shivaji that serves no purpose except to set up a Cleavage Shot. And let’s not get into the Super Star doing a Michael Jackson to whiten himself for his gal. This from a man whose dialogues and song lyrics consistently espouse the virtues of being dark??
So, you breath a sigh of relief when things pick up in the second half and begin resembling a bona fide Rajini flick and it is a guilty pleasure watching him dispatch the baddies with one-liners and oodles of attitude not to mention the now legendary Rajini Spectacle Twirl and a new gimmick involving a coin although I’d like to see how fans imitate the latter as it’s accomplished via graphics. Like Chandramukhi, Rajini doesn’t smoke here, so no flipping of a cigarette into the mouth, although he does the same thing with a chilli or two and a breath mint which as you may well imagine, doesn’t carry the same WOW factor.
Shreya’s the requisite young hottie but even valiant attempts by award worthy make up artists who’ve managed to trim a decade off Rajini’s age can’t quite bridge a sizeable generation gap in their scenes together. Suman makes a passable villain although like every baddie in recent Rajini movies, he’s steadily emasculated as the film progresses.

Shankar’s script, a major plus point especially in scenes highlighting how a corrupt machinery can be dismantled , is diluted here to the point of being dumbed down. And his over reliance on special effects especially during the action scenes, border on over kill. Someone should tell him matrix like freeze frames are old news.

Vivek as always is eminently watchable and the zinger he delivers about other actors imitating Rajini’s finger pointing and punch dialogues is priceless.

A.R.Rahman’s soundtrack is a let down especially after Vidyasagar’s mellifluous score for Chandramukhi. Apart from the gorgeous “Sahana”, the other tracks don’t make an impact in spite of lavishly mounted and superbly choreographed picturisations (always a Shankar plus point) .

There’s a pleasant surprise tucked into this movie somewhere that comes as a pleasant bolt from the blue. No, it’s not the much ballyhooed ”new look” Rajini in the final reels, but a dream sequence that takes place during Rajini and Shreya’s first night. When asked what type of romance she prefers, there’s a delightful montage that shows Rajini spoofing Shivaji (Ganesen), then MGR and finally chief rival Kamal in a rib-tickling send up of their respective song scenes , complete with 70’s style hairstyles, costumes and garish sets.
For a brief moment, you could actually see a star willing to step out of the protective enclosure of his Image to show you the Actor behind the Icon.
But brief is the operative word, and the door soon slams shut on the thespian as the Super Star once again assumes Centre Stage to unleash Pyrotechnic feats to the clarion call of whistles, claps and cheers.

There’s a rabid fan base to satisfy after all.