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. 

 

Review of Kaala - No masala

The movie is a classic example of what is wrong with Tamil movies – the promise of a good story and plotline, compromised to accommodate the image of the lead actor and a Director who equally sees himself to be a messiah of sorts.

The movie does have some “mass moments” made for Rajni and he still delivers them with ease. The scene when Kaala and Hari meet is hands-down, the high-point of the movie. Sadly, there isn’t much else of substance except, the second direct meeting between these two. I think the Director basically gave all his focus only to these two scenes.

As you may have heard by now, Kaala is an old Don who is still wielding significant influence with his men in Daravi. Bad politicians are trying to promote the space to build infra projects and Kaala tries to stop it. Rather, stops it. Ho-hum. Seen in too many movies. And will be seen in many more to come too. So, not a new story by any stretch of imagination.

However, the first half of the movie did make you sit up, primarily because of the introduction of a character that comes to help these slum-dwellers. While this too is probably standard, the interesting aspect is that she is a former lover of Kaala. And this fact is known to all and sundry. And we also get to see them interact and make it clear that the past should be left in the past. It was quite a welcome change from the regulation in Tamil movies, where true love means death, when circumstances split lovers. Then, these two are also at loggerheads with the first project that is proposed and you start thinking that, the scorned woman is going to seek revenge. That doesn’t happen and by the time the movie ends, you realize that the only reason for having that character is to show some white skin in an otherwise dark-skinned movie – yet another trap that Tamil cinema can’t get out of. 

Otherwise, you get to see all the standard tropes laid out one after the other. Young kid suddenly being giving advice usually means he is going to be killed or would turn out to be a traitor. Son who is the brawn for the ageing Daddy Don, gets killed. Don’s wife gets killed right after a "cute" scene. Hindu Don offering Namaz. One son who is defiant and others who want to. Etc.

The Director presents the protagonist always in black and the antagonist always in white, when usually it is the other way around. I felt it was a nice touch, but sadly, he ruined it by literally spelling it out in the second one-on-one meeting between these two. And this second scene is almost a replay of the first scene with all roles swapped; in a way it is an interesting premise.

A jarring note in the entire movie is that none of them speak properly. The Director should have concentrated more in fine-tuning the dialogue delivery of Eshwari Rao – her Telugu accent makes its presence above the Tirunelveli slang, thereby dampening an otherwise awesome performance. Like one reviewer said, this is how one portrays innocence. Similarly, Nana being made to talk in Tamizh is equally jarring. Agreed, he’s a Mumbai guy (reel and real) and can speak only broken Tamizh, but once it was decided that it had to be Tamizh, he should have at least spoken it loudly.

One must be really blind to miss the subliminal messaging scattered across the movie. You get to see or hear Buddha, Ambedkar or Bhim in every scene or the other – when the good guys are shown. Characters often say they were born in Bhim Nagar. You also see Ram and Ganesh when the bad guys come up. There was an over-sprinkling of Swastik and Om symbols in Nana’s public meeting. In fact, the lead up to the climax has a parallel scene of the Yudha Kandam of Ramayana being narrated at the antagonist’s house. The message, if it was still not clear, Ravana is the victim and Rama is the perpetrator. The Director also doesn’t leave the chance to splash the screen (quite literally) with his favorite colors of Black, Red and Blue. The end credits also show up anti-NEET protests!

Even if you ignore all these aspects, one cannot miss the shadow of the Tuticorin Sterlite agitation looming large over the movie. This movie was not made after the incident, but there are enough scenes that resemble what happened there.

If you treat this as a mass movie, it fails miserably because the protagonist has not really taken direct revenge on the guy who destroyed his direct family and the extended one in the slum. If you want to treat is a non-mass movie, then it fails even more miserably, because all the tropes of a standard masala movie are presented in abundance and there is an obvious lack of story.

Rajni does get some acting scope and his mass scenes still deliver what his fans expect. So yes, you can watch the movie because it is not in the league of Baba or Sura. But you don’t have to feel bad if you don’t.

Enthiran Movie Review

I watched the most anticipated movie of 2010 - Enthiran - at one of the local theatres at Chennai. It was "Rakesh Theatre" an annexe of "Vetri Theatre", Chrompet and the show was at 8 AM! I watched the movie with a couple of my friends from work.

In a nutshell, this movie mainly deals with the conflicts that arise in an Android robot created by a scientist, when he programs the robot to start experiencing human emotions.

That one-liner by itself is something that the Tamil movie industry has not dealt with ever. For that matter, I really cannot think of a Tamil movie that has actually brought science to the forefront, except for the classic variations of mental illnesses like amnesia, schizophrenia etc. The best attempt in dealing with science was perhaps Dasavatharam and that was a movie made only to deal with megalomaniacal needs of one actor, not necessarily to talk about the impact of biological warfare.

Enthiran, on the other hand, deals with Robotics and features Rajni as a scientist who creates an Android (that looks exactly like him), with the aim of introducing such Androids into the Indian Army and save valuable human life. And before he approaches the agency that can certify that the robot is fit enough to be presented to the Armed Forces, he decides to loan it to Aish, his girlfriend, to see how he reacts to the World. And after a few funny sequences and some stupid stunt sequences (they looked better on You Tube), the scientist makes the necessary tweaks and presents it to the agency.

The Board in-charge of granting this permission is headed by Rajni's old professor, Danny Dengzongpa, who is at some level jealous of Rajni and so, ensures that Rajni's robot (named Chitti) does not get the necessary approvals for mass production. The official reasoning given is that, the robot would only follow orders and would not evaluate the emotional aspect of its actions.

So Rajni, starts programming robot to start understanding emotions and lo behold, even the robot realises that Aishwarya Rai (scientist Rajni's girl-friend) is quite attractive. And starts developing feelings of love and affection towards her. That is really where the story starts.

Scientist Rajni again presents the robot to few Army Generals, but the robot starts reciting verses of love. An enraged Rajni then destroys the robot, but the evil Danny goes in search of it in the city's dump yard and restores "life" back to it. Additionally, he gives the robot some negative shades and sets him lose.

Since the robot is now strongly attracted to Aish and has also been given negative traits by Danny, he goes on a mission to abduct Aish and marry her. Along the way, he also manages to create multiple robots like himself and also kills Danny. After kidnapping Aish, there is a rather elaborate sequence where scores of Policemen get killed by the bad robot.

The robot then houses Aish somewhere and tries to convince her to marry him. Scientist Rajni then joins the legions of the robots and tries to sabotage the main bad robot's plans. After a lot of gun-fights, good triumphs over evil and all is settled. The bad robot becomes good again, but the Judiciary orders that it be dismantled. After a poignant speech by the robot, it is laid to rest.

Parts of the story may evoke strong similarities to many Hollywood movies, primarily to Bicentennial Man (which incidentally was released 10 years ago and that is the same 10 years ago that Director Shankar claims to have conceived this movie)!

Now that story narration is done, here are my observations about the movie, covering both the good and the bad, in no specific order:

- Fundamentally, this is not your typical Rajni movie. If you want a Sivaji or a Padaiyappa or even a Chandramukhi type of movie - don't watch Enthiran.
- While it is not a Rajni movie, it is not a proper science fiction either. There are way too many loose ends with the Android and I cannot accept that the robot can be simply programmed to learn emotions in just a couple of weeks.
- The special effects in the movie are good. Then again, it is not at current Hollywood levels for sure. I think the blame for it should not go to technology, but more to the ideation process.
- Rajni the villain is just amazing. We badly need to see him again in a strong negative role. The "black sheep" scene was just awesome.
- Rajni has also completely under-played himself in the role of the scientist. Absolutely no mannerisms, catch-phrases etc.
- Aishwarya Rai looks stunning. And she dances really well, especially in the "Boom Boom Robot da" song.
- The music was quite good and the songs were well picturised. The "Kaadhal Anukkall" song has been shot in an amazing location - some desert that has a stream of water in the middle. Rajni and Aish are the only ones on screen and they are wearing clothes that blend with the location. On the contrary, in the "Kilimanjaro" song, there are way too many group dancers and the costumes are also quite loud. The song has been shot in Machu Picchu, Peru. I felt that the whole loudness of the song and costumes, did not allow the viewer to enjoy the beauty of Machu Picchu.
- The robot is supposed to get charged by using just 2 units of power (1 unit = 1000 Watts per hour). But when the bad robots are all near empty on energy, they simply plug into the batteries of various cars and get full power before you can say WTF. Similarly, in an earlier sequence, the robot charges itself by connecting to a high-tension current from a transformer box.
- The scene that has been setup to prove that while a robot can do amazing things (like rescuing people caught in fire), it cannot react to the emotional needs of people (one of the people caught in the fire is a girl who was having her bath and is hence nude and shouldn't have been brought in public in the same nude state).
- The scene with the robot talking to a mosquito - idiotic.
- Most of the songs have been squeezed into the second-half and sadly, the drag was felt.
- The epilogue of the movie was quite interesting, with a couple of good dialogues. There was an earlier instance too - when the main characters talk about why it is impossible for a machine and human to be married. This scene did not carry the necessary bite and fell flat, primarily due to very bland dialogues.
- The robot's initial interaction with the real world was quite good. Quite a lot of humor was thrown in and they did evoke quite a few guffaws.

In the overall level, I would only give it a 2.5/5. Yes, from now on, my movie reviews are going to get rated.


P.S.: A quick note on the theatre, since I have a feeling that it may have affected my perception of the movie. It was 25 rows long and just wide enough to seat 14 people with a narrow aisle in the middle. The screen was from wall to wall, so you can imagine what a telescopic vision I had of the screen. The fans on the side were actually blocking the end of the screen!
When the first "romantic" scene between Rajni and Aish came up, someone in the audience shouted "Thalaiva, Khabardar", in reference to the speech that Rajni made during the audio launch.
At the very end of the movie, a bunch of school children are shown walking around a museum where the dismantled robot is kept and one of the girls (featured in too many ads and has acted in the movie Sillunu Oru Kaadhal) talks to the robot. The same voice in the audience now yelled "Thalaivaroda adutha pada heroine ready"!

Sivaji - Review of the movie

Its a very fast paced movie and is without doubt the richest movie I've seen in recent times, in terms of visual content. The sets are mind-blowing. The costumes are simply superb.

Rajni is fantastic in the movie. His presence on screen is awesome. Thanks to the "rope technology", he has performed some of his own stunts and it actually looks good. Needless to say his comedy timing is excellent. Also his attempt at mimicking Sivaji Ganeshan and MGR is good too.

Needless to add, thalaivar's style is marvelous. The cigarette was replaced in Chandramukhi itself, by a bubble gum. This time, the way it pops into his mouth is what makes him special. I am definitely gonna try it. :D

He definitely looks quite young in the movie. Call it excellent make-up and fabulous costumes, but it still comes out good on him. In fact my counter to people's comments that his wig and makeup is visible, is this: If you can accept a guy's makeup to make him look like an old man or someone with issues in his face, then why don't you accept this too?

And Boss' getup in the last segment of the movie is out of the world. The mottai thalai and the single line beard suits him perfectly.

Shreya is GORGEOUS. Move over, Asin. I am now replacing you with Shreya as my Dreamgirl #2. This babe looks beautiful, gorgeous, sexy and I think she can give Shakira a run for her money. Shakira says that her hips don't lie and I will say that Shreya's hips have a similar policy.

Now coming to the story - Forget it, ok. As a one liner, it sounds good. The hero uses the "thorn to be taken out by thorn" principle to weed out black money and corruption from the system. If you analyse the methods employed, you will find that they are often quite childish and even comical at some places.

I think, in fact for this very reason, the movie will not have an extended run. The initial hype is definitely going to get it past the post. But I have my own doubts about it running past 100 days.

In spite of the flaws in the movie, I will still say that I didn't find even one minute boring. That itself is a big plus in the movie.

The combo of Vivek and Rajni is awesome. Talking of Vivek, he has pulled off something that no actor in recent times has done. He has practically shared equal screen space with Rajni. He is there in at least 99% of the scenes featuring thalaivar and is absent only in the songs.

And btw, Nayantara has shed some 20 Kgs I think, She is actually falling under the category of slim, going by the intro song.

All in all, the movie is good purely in terms of time-pass. Nothing else.

But my biggest disappointment was the crowd. I had balcony seats and the crowd here was without any doubt very dignified. The people at the ground floor were shouting and screaming. Not really the case in the balcony. So much so, that I started shouting a little bit in the second half, just to make myself happy!

THE MOVIE TICKET

Moral conflict

A couple of days ago, Raghu called me a COP. Apparently, it stands for Chennai's Ozhungu Pillai.

I don't know what made him get such an idea, but I guess he was probably swayed by my general stance against piracy or sticking to road rules to the max extent etc.

So, he was naturally offended when I told him about my intention to watch Sivaji with the ticket price costing me Rs.350/-.

Unfortunately, I think he is under the impression that I bought a "black" ticket. I better clarify to him that its not the case.

Actually, I am only buying the tickets at a premium, and the cost also includes service charges. I am being given the tickets in the office tomorrow and from the theatre to my office, its at least 60 kms. So the guy has to factor in the cost of delivering the tickets to me.

Its just like the earlier days when we used to have the travel agents book railway tickets for us.

Sivaji - The boss

Me eagerly waiting for Rajini's latest release. Totally impressed by the trailer. Especially the "adhiridhu la" and the gun rolling along his shoulder bit.

I am in the process of trying to arrange for a special show for my unit at work. In the meantime we are also trying to book tickets for a show in the first week itself.

I have no qualms in admitting that I like Rajini movies, in spite of numerous loopholes that logic may present.

And its been my desire for many years now, to watch a Rajini movie in the first week itself. Purely to see how the fans reach in theatres. I keep hearing and reading so many stories about it that I actually want to see/experience it first hand.

I hope I get the tickets soon.....