I shall begin by apologizing to the fans of tamil superstar – RAJNI. Because they may not like what I say here.
Rajni is a scientist who develops a robotic clone of himself – strong, intelligent and obedient. He has every human faculty and attribute except feelings, emotions and physical senses. Rajni is trying to induct his robot into the Indian army for service to the nation. But his noble attempts are frustrated by the head of defence R&D establishment- Danny Dengonzapa, who wants the robot for himself so that he can sell it to international terrorist organizations at a hefty price. The robot keeps messing up at the evaluation stages because of his lack of human judgement. So Rajni teaches him human emotions and feelings. This leads to a different set of complications because the robot now falls in love with the very beautiful fiancé of Rajni – Aishwarya Khan – oops- Rai Bachchan. Perforce Rajni has to dismantle his loved invention to keep Aishwarya to himself. But the dismantled robot is soon rescued by Danny from the dumping grounds of Chennai, and now reprogrammed with an evil chip. This upgraded version covets Aishwarya, and soon begins to wreak havoc on the world, Rajni getting blamed for his deeds in the process. The rest of the movie is about Rajni rescuing his lovely bride and the hapless world from the destruction of evil robot.
This movie is a 3 hour-long extravaganza of resplendent array of dazzling colors permeating everywhere – colorful costumes, sets, locales and characters. It has as many ridiculous costumes to dress a whole town for a Halloween party. It has as much music to fill a first generation iPod! This movie is all about excesses - an excess of a vainglorious, self worshipping Rajni – who not satisfied with a single or dual role for himself in the movie, goes forth and replicates hundreds of thousands of clones of himself, who prance all over the 70 inches of the silver screen performing endless acrobatic, senseless stunts. It has as many clones to fill 100 episodes of Matrix Reloaded! It has as much special effects and stunts as to make Avatar seem like a 1960’s adaptation of Titanic by a primary school theater. It has as much graphics to keep a small town software designing company employ a 100 people over several years.
The movie is boring and needs to be seen in three to four episodes, and not in one sitting; like chemistry homework. The bar ran out of all the snacks for the day as restless people footed to and fro out of the hall. At the end of two hours the audience was burping, belching and farting with the cola and fries, and on its knees asking for mercy and begging Rajni to let them go. Not everything is bad about the movie -if Alice can talk to red eyed rabbits in wonderland, then our hero can certainly communicate with Avatarish mosquitoes in a Dharavi slum. It is a brave, science fictional, dream like, fantasy story – so leave your disbelief and cynicism at home. The movie can be redone by cutting down the stunt, song and dance and costume circus.
If your idea of romance is to see a grandfatherly figure wooing a motherly, much married middle aged auntie, then this movie is it. It is embarrassing to watch Aish plant daugherly-in-law kisses on Amitabh’s colleague. Amitabh described Rajni as ‘divinity’ – I call him ‘infinity’ – because he haunts the screen infinitely! Rajni, who should be on crutches, can move only with the help of doubles and special effects technicians. To watch his genuine arthritic labors is hurting. His face sags with the truckloads of foundation and makeup. If this is a tribute to the ageing superstar of the south then I hope it is a curtain call for him. Because it is saddening to see north Indians and others, for whom he doesn’t mean anything, laughing at him.
A movie strictly for the Bachchan Khandaan and pagan worshippers of Rajni, only.