Jailer movie review - more a parole than a release

I watched Jailer this morning and this is my first visit to a movie theater after many years. And it is quite possible that that last movie I saw in a theater was Durbar. 

This is the 3rd day since the movie was released, and I caught a 9 AM show at PVR Cinemas in Express Avenue Mall – again my first visit to any mall in many years! For someone who was visiting every mall in the city every weekend (sometimes many in a single evening https://jawaman.blogspot.com/2006/10/mall-hopping_115981030706845969.html) , this is clearly a sign of advancing age. 

And if you want proof of my ageing, please note that the title of this blog indicates that this is a review of the movie Jailer, but for the past 125+ words, I have talked about many other things. Before I forget, let me begin. Also please beware of spoilers ahead. 

Jailer is a tailor-made movie for an ageing (again age!) Superstar whose fan adulation literally surpasses any logic defined so far in the annals of human history. Thankfully, he plays a character close to his age (a retired Jail warden), has a grandkid, and gets henchmen and sharpshooters to finish off most of the baddies. There is no romance either, even in the flashback. 

This is a revenge movie, of a father who is out to avenge the death of those Idol smugglers who killed his son. The movie runs for around 160 minutes, and to a large extent is well packaged. There are inevitable lulls in the narration, but they are not jarring. There is subtle thread of humour running throughout the movie despite its overall vengeful tone. 

Before I start complaining, I really liked the way the villain was projected. He was a ruthless guy and thankfully, could speak Tamil (but with a mild Mallu accent). And he didn’t do any shenanigans or display weird body language or catch-phrase. It was a solid performance by a good actor of a neatly defined character. On a side note, one of his over-zealous henchmen is possibly one of the best non-main characters one can come across in a movie. The way he complains about having to sit on the lap of a man was just out of the world and I haven’t laughed out hard so much in recent times. 

Now, to some of the loopholes of the plot. Apart from mouthing some platitudes, there is no clear proof of what the Jailer did as part of reforming these the thugs, from whom he takes help in his revenge. One, Jackie Shroff, sends henchmen at the behest of the villain and then regrets it because he didn’t know who the target was; he even appears at the end driving a JCB to help the Jailer. Another, Shivaraj Rajkumar, says he is now a changed guy, but he helps the Jailer with bouncer level bodyguards who are also expert snipers. The last one, Mohanlal, doesn’t seem to have had any interaction in the past with the Jailer, but again supplies heavy artillery to the Jailer. There was one more goon whose ear the Jailer chops off, while in jail, but he sends his Sardar henchmen to support the Jailer. The flashback doesn’t really establish the Jailer as a Do-Ankhen-Barah-Haath kind of warden who reforms prisoners, nor is there any clear debt they owe to the Jailer!

Then there is this whole attempt at a Baasha like transformation of the Hero in front of his family. Now, in Baasha, the step siblings had no clue and so they were really shocked about the change. As audiences, we too didn’t know about the backdrop and so that transformation scene is still a template for many movies. Here, however, everyone – the characters and the audience – knows that this a retired cop. And going by the flashback, he is one who makes his own rules. So why would his wife be shocked by his transformation? 

The biggest letdown however, is the son’s characterisation. He is shown as an honest cop and a loveable family man. He displays no conflict with his father in terms of approach in life either. And to see him suddenly having a negative streak, after being kidnapped by the villain was a little jarring. For him to claim that all his years of investigation and catching the low-level smugglers was just to meet the main villain, with a motive of sharing the loot, didn’t carry much logic. This was a little bit of lazy writing, with the main intent being to present a shock to the audience at the end – the Jailer killing off his own son for being a bad guy. This was treated much better in Indian – where the son is clearly shown as a corrupt fellow and the honest father stabs him to death. The shock that Indian created was certainly absent here. 

And the entire segment about the heist, was quite idiotic to say the least. It added no value to the storyline, and it was hardly a surprise that the Jailer had only stolen a fake crown and the real one was still where it was. That entire portion should have been handled better, and the only good thing that came out of it was the Kaavaalaa song. 

Yet, the movie was still packaged quite well and could tide over some of these irritants. And one doesn’t have to say much about Rajni’s performance. He still has the suave, the style and his screen presence has not waned despite him clearly being a frail 72-year-old man. There are more slow-motion walks than required and he either wears spectacles or sunglasses throughout. Yet, and much to my own chagrin, I couldn’t but howl at the way he lights up the cigar – his first smoking scene in 20+ years. 

All in all, this is a good timepass movie, and with a better heist segment and slightly better writing of the son’s character, this would have been a must watch Rajni movie. 

P.S.: I wanted to shout “Once more” for the Kaavaalaa song. But seeing the nature of the crowd in the theater, I made a sensible decision not to. 

 

I was warned by a Security guard in a mall

First of all, hope you all had a good Vijayadashami.

Second of all, if you thought that I was warned for leering at women or moving around in a suspicious manner or whatever, well you have to wait till I fill out the historical events leading to the said warning.

Today marked the opening of a new mall in Chennai which claims to be one of the biggest in Chennai in some category or the other! It is the Ampa Skywalk mall.

There was an article in The Hindu a few days back about the planned inauguration on Vijayadashami, which is today. Raghu and I christened this mall as pu.pu.ka - Putham Pudhu Kadamai. For those of you who dont remember, pa.ka is Pazhaya Kadamai and represents Spencers and pu.ka is Pudhu Kadamai and stands for City Center.

Anyways, we went to the mall and found that the place was very much under construction. That is to say, the infrastructure was ready, but the shops weren't. Kinda like the cliched phrase "Operation success; Patient dead".

The whole place was basically getting ready with a dais and arranged chairs - a clear indication that some kinda formal inauguration meeting was going to be held. My boss' husband is an architect and worked on this mall. After reaching the mall, I checked with her to find out if any celebrity was expected for this function. She said that Maddy could show up. I asked if Tamanna was expected and she couldn't quite confirm that.

Since there then was no point in staying there, we left the place and decided to head to Ispahani Center for a change. While we were there, Raghu and his wife went to one of the fancy-high-priced-up-market leather goods shop to look out for something. I stepped in to the shop and felt totally out of place. So I came out and decided to wait for them.

While waiting outside, I was leaning on the rail that they have put up to avoid people falling into the atrium. And I was leaning by resting my body against the rail and also had my right leg up on one of the lower rails.

A security guard was walking around and he came towards me. It was clear that he was going to say something and I knew he that he was going to say something objectionable. And he came near me and said "Railings-ல கால் வெக்க கூடாது Sir" (Don't keep your foot on the railings Sir). I asked him why? He only smirked and said "வெக்க கூடாதுன்னு சொல்லிருக்காங்க Sir" (They have said that one should not keep foot on the railings Sir) and then moved away.

I was in a relatively good mood and took my foot away. Luckily Raghu also came out by then and we headed out.

And, that was the warning I got from a Security guard in a mall.

Once again, wish all of you had a good Vijayadashami today!

Bowling record

Was at Mayajal yesterday with Raghu, Madhu and Nilu yesterday evening. Raghu and I had a game of bowling with the other 2 deciding to only watch.

I am not the bragging type but yesterday, I was on a roll. I opened the game with 3 consecutive strikes. I cleared the pins on a couple of other attempts as well. But as the game progressed, lady luck decided to hop on to some other needy soul and I finally ended up with a score of 140.

I know that I am never going to get this type of luck at bowling and I took a picture of the scorecard before Raghu's last attempt. And I am publishing it here for posterity!

I have not converted my Tamizh New Year and other points that don't really warrant separate posts

A couple of months ago, the "illustrious" (sic) Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, introduced this new bill,seeking to change the Tamizh New Year to the first date of the Thai month in stead of the ages old tradition of Chithirai month.

Ordinary folk can afford to make errors due to senility, but letting such individuals be a head of state is bound to cause such official jokes. While he may have his own linguistic chauvinistic reasons to make this change, he basically ignored the religious sentiments of the Tamizh speaking Hindu community.

I don't want to get into more details of this bill which will soon become a law, but to me, my Hindu New Year falls in the Chithirai month. I am least bit bothered about what the Government decides is the New Year. My religion, my tradition, my culture, my customs dictate that my New Year starts with the Chithirai month and I am not planning to deviate from it!

Anyways, this puthaandu started on a relatively low tone at home. The reason was just that with all the painting work going on, things are still not in place (quite literally). So in terms of the Vishu kanee, it was nowhere like usual and definitely not like last time.

And this must be one holiday that I have spent at home without watching much of TV. Once again, the blame is on the painting job and it was only in the late afternoon that I reconnected my Tata Sky to my TV.

Other than that, I have spent quite a lethargic Sunday. Of course, I washed two loads of clothes and still have some left over, but other than that, I didn't do much at home. I did help around in re-hooking many of the screens and putting them back in place. But in general, I guess I was probably I am a bit tired after my outstanding performances of scoring 56,51,64 and 64 in consecutive Hoops games at City Center. I now have around 350 tokens and from next week onwards, I can probably think of redeeming them. I bet its gonna be QUITE embarrassing having to exchange tokens in the midst of kids, but just because I am bigger than some of them, shouldn't make me feel out of place right?

Also, my newspaper agent came by to collect the first month's prepaid coupons for my Times of India subscription. He says it will start tomorrow. Eagerly waiting for it!

On a sad note, the father of one of my superiors in office (in the same unit, but not my line manager) passed away yesterday - may his soul rest in peace. I didn't see the message he sent me and only when a friend of mine called me later, I came to know about it. We couldn't visit him yesterday and today being the festival day, we couldn't go today either. We planned to go tomorrow, but my mother says that the "Dhukkam" rules allow me to visit him only on Thursday. I will decide on the course of action after consulting with my friends at work tomorrow.

Fabulous time at Citi Center

Raghu and I had a great time at Citi Center this evening. As has become the norm of late, his wife refused to accompany us and in a way it suited us well.

The vasool in the mall was simply superb. It may not fit into the top 3 all time vasool days, but it is easily in the top 10. We got to fill out the free parking coupon by giving a wrong phone number. We played Hoops Fever and today was definitely my best effort at the mall till date. We played 5 games and I had scores of 57, 42 and 32 in 3 of the 5 games.

Actually, near the Hoops Fever enclosure, we found 3 hundred rupee notes in a folded manner. There were few girls who were playing before we went there and we first assumed it would be them. I wanted to return it to them or at least to the people at the counter. But Raghu said that anyone might claim it as theirs and asked me to keep it until someone comes in search of it.

None of those girls came around looking for the money and I was a bit sad that they hadn't realised what they lost by not coming to us - I mean it purely in terms of their search for their lost money.

Anyways, we completed our 5 games and decided that the money we recovered would go into some hundial. While we neared the stairs to exit, one of the house keeping staff came up to us and told us that he was the owner of the money. He said that he had lost the notes while he was around that area, cleaning up the consoles. I asked how much he lost and he said 300 rupees. I called in Raghu and he asked him few questions to check the authenticity of the claim.

The fact that he gave the correct amount kinda swung my faith towards him. At one point Raghu also agreed that we could give it to him. I did and while leaving we both agreed that probably we were conned. But I am still consoling myself that since he mentioned the correct amount, he probably did lose it.

Anyways, we roamed around as aimlessly as ever and called it a day after 2 hours in the mall. One thing to be noted is that we actually went to the car park twice in between. Once to keep a small shopping that Raghu did, in the car and the second time, Raghu realised while unlocking the car door that he forgot to buy something. So we returned and both times, we came by the same lift that brought us down. The lift operator must have had a sense of deja vu!

If the mall had a proper surveillance system in place, I am sure some security guard would have spotted our frequent movement between the car park and the mall. Since no such person came to us, we assume that they probably feel we are totally docile and harmless creatures.

Anyways, we finally left the place after 2 hours with a very heavy heart!

Hoops Fever at City Center

Swish.
Swish.
Clang.
Around the ring and inside.
.
.
.
Around the ring and outside.
.
.
.
Three.
Clutter.
Clutter.
Three.
Three.
Three.
Three.
Game over.

I was in prime form at the Hoops Fever machine at City Center yesterday evening. I had gone there with Raghu as usual and we went up to the play zone on cue.

We played 3 games and my scores were 35, 47 and 45 in that order. The 47 marks my highest score till date on these machines. At any rate, I think I have set a new benchmark for myself!

This morning Raghu sent me a message that he felt that our time at City Center was perfect because:
1. We snacked up well
2. Waltzed through Landmark for quite some time without buying anything
3. Shot hoops and got quite a good number of tickets
4. We got free parking since we signed up the coupon as requested by the holiday resort group

But I felt that the "vasool" factor was not that great (especially compared to last week) and so, I feel it was only almost perfect. Hope the next trip sets things right.

Ho hum

The darned extended holiday season is over. Gotta return to work tomorrow and wait until the Christmas week, before I can get such official breaks.

This Deepavali has been one of the best that I can remember. I got to burst a lot of crackers. I didn't spend too much on them - in other words, I spent a lot of money and got lot of crackers (unlike the previous year). I had a lot of sweets and savories. There was no untoward incidents during the festival - burns etc. Saw quite a bit of TV.

Then on Friday, I went to the branch of my office closer home, along with couple of others from my car pool. I did this 'coz my teams at my regular branch were all on leave since they got my permission to compensate last Friday by working the next Saturday. Many teams in my office were doing it and I found it quite a sensible thing to do. I only hope that the organisation also implements it. I say this because, when I went to the office, I found very few people there. Though the car park did look full, I couldn't see enough people around the campus. And one needs to factor in the fact that many people would have come to this branch like me!

That day, I even left the office around 12.45-1.00 and was home by 1.30. Went out that evening as our dear friend Nilu was giving his birthday treat at The Piano in Hotel Savera. Nice dinner buffet and it really helped that I was
wearing my bigger sized trousers. ;-)

Didn't do much on Saturday, other than going to the Sholinganallur house and having it cleaned by a couple of guys whom we took along. The cleaning was mainly for the exterior of the house - too many shrubs and lots of grass had grown. We've arranged for some helping hands to clean up the interior as well. In the evening, I went out and bought my next TV.

Today, I got to meet my college buddy Karthik after nearly 7 years. I last met him in Los Angeles when he and a couple of his friends had come there during the Christmas holiday weekend. Shankar also came along and we had a good time catching up with things at the Fruit Shop.

This evening, I went to Spencers (where else) with Raghu (who else). We were quite shocked by the crowd there. Rather, the shock was due to the lack of crowd. All shops were open, yet there hardly few people around the place. The eating joints were REALLY empty. The Arun Ice Cream outlet guy said that they were barely doing 50% of their regular business. The place was so damn empty, that we left it within an hour's time.

So anyways, the holiday weekend is coming to an end now. I gotta resume my duties at work from tomorrow. Since 24th Dec falls on a Monday, there wont be too much activity that day, what with most people trying to make it a long weekend. The same holds good for Dec 31st as well. So if I can take a day off some 2 weeks from now, I can pace myself through to the end of 2007!

Calm after a storm

You may not have noticed, but for the past week or more, I've not been in a great mood. Mainly because of a raging battle with my mother.

Ever since she heard that astrologer say some dreadful stuff, she's been on my case a bit. Natural at some level. But my short-temper got the better of me and I started talking back.

I said things I SHOULDN'T have and I regret it completely.

But ever since I started telling her some things, she pounced on the opportunity to pin me down to the mat completely. All my failings were dusted and presented to me. Starting from my apparent theru porikki life style (see cash, go roam around; just that i am doing it with more money compared to a slum dweller), indisciplined eating habits (too much masala in my food), absolute disarryed state of hair (no oil, so hair is falling, also hair is picking up sembattai shade and lots of white as well), not completing my MBA (if u had read even one hour every sat and sun over the past 3 years, u could have completed it by now) and probably some more mistakes from my previous births.

All these charges were levelled against me incessantly, especially from Sunday night till Tuesday night. I had absolutely no defence and she was clearly having the upper hand.

It also didnt help, that on Sunday evening I had taken my parents to City Center. Unfortunately, that evening it was VERRRY crowded and there was way too much noise. Obviously, she didnt like that and didnt like the fact that this was my weekend habitat.


Only this morning, I sensed a bit of retreat from her side. It was confirmed the minute she launched into my hair with hair oil in hand and gave me a violent start! I was given a stern warning to not wash it off.

She has been normal this evening, but a lesson for me is to keep my tongue under control - both in terms of speech and in terms of gluttony.

So, I will be less visible in the society for the next couple of weeks. The only break in schedule is, of course, the birthday party of Mrs. & Mr. Raghu and a get-together with Ms.Yi Hsuan - my former boss at Citibank in Los Angeles. She is here on her once/twice a year official visit to Chennai and wanted to see some of her old project mates.

Rain and traffic and a compensatory working day

This week's been quite hectic. Mainly coz of traffic.

Its the annual feature I guess. It rains. Roads get damaged. HUGE craters appear all of a sudden, making you wonder if any meteorite landed there. Naturally, with the next spell, all these craters and their smaller cousins - the potholes - get filled up and hamper traffic flow.

So a normal journey from office, that used to take an hour and 30 minutes, now takes a minimum of 45 minutes more.

The funny things is that, the choke point varies every day. One day it was Chrompet. Another day it was the Airport. Next time it was the Kathipara Junction. The area between the Airport and Kathipara was clogged once. Halda junction took the honors another day. Not to be left out, the stretch between Madhya Kailash and Anna University showed its power by stopping traffic on the surface road and also on the flyover.

Its quite bad to travel by bus in this mess. Thankfully, I now leave by the 6.30 services and so I dont have to share my seat with anyone. Otherwise, I will go mad during 'jam' times.

Only yesterday evening, I had the usual 1.5hr journey. I am guessing that was because the rain has stopped for a couple of days and also because it was a Saturday and so no routine peak-hour traffic.

Yes, my office was working yesterday to compensate for the public holiday we were given for the Tamil Nadu Municipal Elections. But again, the crowd was less in the office, coz some projects still had to come that day and few others made a strategic move to come in last Saturday itself. That was a good strategic move because, since its not an official working day, the bus services are limited and that means less time in the office. I however didnt opt for that option, though in all honesty, that strategy didnt strike me till 2 days back. By which time, I guess it was late.

So basically I have just this one day to recharge myself. The sun also seems to be out. So hopefully I can do some mall visit and also finish up the pending treat to Superthumby and Neeluking.

Mall Hopping

Maybe its not something that I should be proud of, but the truth of the matter is that I went mall hopping today as well.

Just 2 days back, Superthumby and I, went to Spencers in the evening. Did our usual oggling, had a sub @ subway and then left the place. Oh wait, we did visit the Srilankan Trade Center in Phase 3 before we actually left.

Since Superthumby was in a mood to stay away from home, since both his wife and mom were out on golu rounds, we just drove straight to Chennai City Center. Here too we did our usual oggling and pointless roaming around.

The worst part of it was, while returning home, we decided to repeat this soon and in fact we wanted to up the ante. For those who are not aware of the phrase 'up the ante', it only means an increase in the stakes or something like that. Definitely not what it literally sounds like.

And today, him and I, again did Mall Hopping. Started off at Spencers. Went to Music World and bought nothing. Then to Landmark and bought nothing. There was a visit to an Archies Gallery where he bought a Thank You greeting card for his FIL. Then we strolled on to Nuts and Spices, picked up a couple of dry fruit varieties and called it quits at Spencers.

The next halt was Ispahani Center. Man, this place used to so 'happening', but now, its quite practically a desolate place. Only the famous coffee shop had some people in it, but again it was not packed like usual.

We decided to have coffee and scanned the menu. After reading out all the fancy named items listed on the menu, we decided on the regular take out coffee. We placed the order and in 2 minutes we regretted it. Reason - the lady who was manning the counter (lady manning a counter - does that count as an oxymoron?) tore open a milk packer with her index finger.

Yes. Thats what she did. Poked her right index finger into one corner of the milk packet, wiggled it around and finally created a hole through which she started transferring the contents of the milk packet to some other vessel.

If you are still wondering as to what is so wrong about it - well please be informed that she did it with bare fingers. No gloves, no other form of protection. Just plain finger as God intended them to be.

We still went ahead with the coffee hoping that ours was made with milk from some other packet opened by someone else using some other better and civilised mechanism to open milk packets.

Anyways, we finished the coffee and drove straight to City Center. Since it was almost 7.30 when we went inside the mall, we decided to simply head straight to the amazing food court. And we sure did. Placed orders at Gangotree, collected the package and we left.

So, as you can see, it was yet another really fruitful evening spent by us. The sad part was that Niluking couldnt join us today too. Maybe he will be there next week....

Now to the ratings:
1. City Center
2. Spencers
Disqualified:
Ispahani

The ratings were made purely using scientific methods based on biological responses of the evaluators.

Who said India is a poor country???

All said and done, its a frigging plastic water bottle and someone's gonna pay almost 500 ruppees for it??????