*Background
*Art is beyond the mere barriers of language, milieu & creed. Cinema as Art, is a language in itself. Language of color, music, body(especially that of the heroine) & action that attracted me to Sivaji.
This review is my humble effort to demonstrate that-
a) One doesn’t necessarily need to understand the spoken language to appreciate a film.
b) Sivaji is a complete family entertainer, especially for grown up kids [so smoke, alchohol or sex]
c) Tossing a Re 1 coin helps( I did it before writing this review)
Plot
Before Interval(I hope to get right here)
Sivaji (Rajnikant, our hero) is an US returned scholar who possess multiple degrees & holds credit cards, debit cards, passport, international driver’s license & a green card. He has a sidekick cum assistant played by Vivek, who I found to be very handsome & funny. Sivaji had some boring plans to build useless Real Estate like Universities, charity Hospitals etc etc which is not liked by the sweet & puffy villain AdiSeshan(Suman). Adi Seshan proposes more exciting options like Mall & Multiplex, 5 star Hotels & other hot destinations. But Sivaji, being a victim of honestly & handwork chooses the tougher path to go alone. His get his first kick in his G, trying to seek statutory approvals for his projects in the orthodox way. Kicked, he distributed “bags” to the officials & approvals are cleared in no time.
Sivaji finds her love in life in a girl named Tamil ( I got that right!), discovered in a temple. The humble girl works in a music instrument shop, who’s fairer & poorer than Sivaji. Also, the black mouthed astrologer(who has black spots in his tongue) foresees disaster if she married Sivaji. But Sivaji doesn’t believe in superstitions & becomes adamant to marry her. 3 songs & many more romantic family level encounters later she agrees happily.
Meantime, Adi buys the officials out & an evil conspiracy is planned. Sivaji falls in the trap, loses all his property & literally comes to the road. He even he loses his Suitcases, Mercedes S class to pay advance to his lawyers. He tosses the coin just before the interval to decide whether he should fight back or retreat.
*Second Half
*Sivaji’s coin toss compels him to adopt the age old strategy: “Loha lohe ko katka hai”. He sources Tamilnadu’s RS 200 billion(13 zeros, precisely) black money hidden inside unsuspected places like rice bags, well water, gobar etc. He converts the back money to white US$ through hawala & entraps Adi . After many more songs & encounter with the corrupt officials he completes his Project, gets arrested, loses his love, dies.
Will he be alive again? Will he be able to fulfill his dream? What happens to Tamil? Will truth win over evil? Will the movie end happily?
[Spoiler warning
Dead Sivaji is recovered by his friends & well wishers, revived to life secretly & returns as a Vinod Kambli- like bald look as MGR & kick ash of Adi Seshan. Currency notes flies in the air, Adi Seshan dies.
Spoiler ends here]
Dialouges I understood 10% dialogues like “cool” which is time & again uttered by Rajni. Then there was “ gimme a break” & “that was a coincidence” which gave me vital clues on the plot.
Also there was a seeti maar dialogue about Adi Seshan & Alseshan(Alsatian, the dog) which was quite funny as everyone was laughing, so I laughed loudly too).
fe gets knocked out -
Shriya Saran- What a look, man. What a figure(Size “A” as disclosed in the movie). Her looks impeccable, her belly button divine. Her expressions & smiles can melt polar ice caps. She is a great dancer. She fits in traditional Indian, western attire with ease. I wish Rajni were a bit younger to court her. The current pair looked a little skewed age wise, but that’s absorbed. She is fairer too, but everything is fair in love & Rajni movies. I wish she enchanted us in Hindi films too.
Rajikant the superhero- Nothing less is expected from him & he fulfills is all aspects, dialogues, style, drama, action, emotion. He rocks the screen. I was amazed to note that he has quit on screen smoking, but only to replace it with chewing gum. Throwing a chewing gum was never so cool. In Sivaji the fans were also lucky to see a fair Rajni, a visual delight. Rajni is much techno savvy now with his voice enabled password to his IBM notebook. I will describe the amazing scenes separately, but to summarize- Rajnikant was, he is & he will be. Period.
Suman the Adi Seshan- He is a sweet cuddly villain. Very handsome & stylish in his dhoti & Ray Ban. But his evil side is surfaced when he folds & tightens his dhoti above his knees, oiled the dunda to beat Rajni black & blue. He is a true depiction of power & prowess. He dies a relevant & symbolic death under heaps of currency notes, asphyxiated.
Songs- The first song in the greens under the blue sky is a visual treat to eyes. Huge put bellied gentlemen with slim sexy womenfolk danced around Rajni. The male bellies were painted as faces of lions, tigers, designer pots & finally the face of Rajni.
The scene with 100 painted faces in the bellies thumping & original Rajni at the center was superbly orchestrated.
A dreamy translucent colored glass number & another tech-no western number moved me. Finally the action packet Desperado influenced Latino number that steals the show. Rajni comes in a Fatboy Harley, shoots from his guitar, stops a bullet by simple staring at it. He also fires a missile from his guitar case. Awesome.
Scenes- The description of all my favorites may spoil the prospective viewer’s expectation & exceed the character limit of this review. The entire Cinematography is mind-blowing. Hence I will only hint on the special scenes, which must have cost a fortune to Director Shankar.
Musical fight scene – Rajni beats up a gang in Tamil’s music shop. Psyxx would faint seeing the extent of damage to musical instruments.
One man Army fight- See it to believe it, Rajni fights hundreds of armed men single handedly, Matrix style. Few of the men later joins him, indebted as Rajni brings supplied to them in hospital.
Stabbing scene-Rajni stabs a minister in his office to get his sign. The dagger is a designer piece with an eagle in it’s grip. A pre-organized doctor stitches his stomach, without anesthesia of course. Part of the scene is shown as if the camera is placed inside the stomach.
King Kong Scene- Rajni fights many cars driving his Toyota SUV in the drive in theatre, finally he flies his car & rips the screen & enters the mouth of a screaming King Kong. Repeated showing of this scene can cure* Psyxx*.
The final shock scene- a beaten to half-death Rajni disconnects an high voltage electrical supply cable and self-shocks to & death.
…
The movie ends. Another Rajnikant fan is born…….
Ps: fe does not understand Tamil so asks for forgiveness if any factual error is noticed.