Sivaji
Some style, some punch lines, some action and a wee bit romance, all dotting a story with a populist theme – that’s the recipe for almost every single Rajinikanth movie. Shankar’s latest, Sivaji with Rajini a.k.a Thalaivar in the lead is no exception and has all that and some more.
Shankar’s movies have usually not veered away from the populist path, save for Kadhalan (Humse hain Muqabla) and Boys, to some extent. So Sivaji would have joined that pantheon of Shankar movies where the common man suffers and makes the baddies suffer for subjecting him and the rest of the world around to the suffering. Except that in this case, Thalaivar is actually a rich man. Shankar twists the formula and subjects a rich do-gooder to the same abuse and suffering that the every-man hero went through in the hands of the affluent, in his other movies. The result is a movie that sometimes lacks binding logic, but more than makes up for all these shortcomings by exploiting the charisma of the leading man in question, Superstar Rajinikanth.
The movie opens anonymously, literally. We see a man driven to jail and is instructed by a police officer to cover his face (that we haven’t seen so far) lest people see him and go wild. But, since we are not exactly Klingons, we all know who he is. A few minutes later, when he turns around for the first time, all of us know why we were there today. A multitude of whistles rise up almost in one and the ride begins. Well, what a ride it is. More than three hours later, we walk out, thoroughly spent physically, throats dry and hoarse from the whistling and shouting.
Thalaivar carries this movie on his broad shoulders with minimal help from Shankar’s story and screen play. After a break from procedure in Chandramukhi, where he was absent from the screen for almost 20 min at a stretch at one point, Thalaivar hogs the screen once again here. But the average Thalaivar fan like me cannot complain at all.
Thalaivar rocks the scene in the action sequences. Look out for the scene in the roadside tea shop. And watch out for the sequence where Thalaivar says “singam da, single a dhaan varum”! Goosebump alert! The scenes where tosses the coins up to land into his pockets and the chewing gum popping sequences are very standard Rajini, aimed to rouse the audiences. But as usual Shankar goes a bit overboard on the special effects in some of the sequences and that sort of killed some scenes for me.
As if to offset, Shankar really scores on the song sequences. While Rajini’s past intro songs have set a really high bar, Ballelakka is a nice intro number by itself, with ample references to Rajini’s “son of the soil” image. Nayantara looks really hot in her guest role in this song. Sahana and Vaaji Vaaji have brought out the best from Thotta Tharani (and Shankar’s pocket) with stupendously detailed backdrops. Oru Koodai Sunlight has Thalaivar in a blond wig and is part of the comedy gag. Athiradi is clearly inspired by Roberto Rodriguez’s Mariachi trilogy, complete with the machine gun in the guitar and the rockets in the guitar case, but Thalaivar is a sight to see in this song. Awesome picturization. The choreography credits for this movie include Lawrence, Raju Sundaram and Brinda and if you watch closely (and if you know your South Indian cinema), it is very easy to identify the choreographer for each song.
The make up leads one to think that Shankar has perhaps actually managed to reverse Rajini’s ageing process. If I had one misgiving about the movie after seeing the promos, it was about the hairdos. But after watching the movie itself, I think that my misgivings were unfounded. The blond wig still put me off, but the situation demanded it and is amply backed up by the lyrics. The sequences that have Thalaivar with the shaved head are the best, if you ask me.
Vivek adds to the movie, playing Robin to Thalaivar’s Batman and raises quite a few laughs. The best among these sequences has to be the one where he interrupts Thalaivar and complains about every Tom Dick and Harry uttering punch lines on screen and then proceeds to reel out one such line himself. As usual, Thalaivar is himself a part of the comedy track and shows his comic touch in the “Fair and Lovely” gag that runs through most of the first half of the movie. And watch out for the sequence where he mimics some other Tamil cinema icons. Tamil TV icon Solomon Papaiah is part of the laugh track as well.
Suman’s portrayal is understated and hence more menacing than a lot of villains we have seen in Rajini’s movies. Kanal Kannan makes the now almost obligatory appearance as the negative protagonist in a fight sequence. Pyramid Natrajan, Raghuvaran, Vadivukarasi and Manivannan walk in and out of the movie, while Shreya looks ravishingly gorgeous in a slightly meatier role as Thalaivar’s love interest and key plot device.
But as I mentioned earlier, this is a movie that sometimes lacks binding logic. And it is good that it is a Thalaivar starrer, for no one other than Rajini will be able to pull it off with such a handicap. But you should be really foolish to expect any logic from most Indian movies. So the standard Rajini padam disclaimer applies here too – Watch it with an open mind. This movie is no different in that aspect from a lot of Tamil movies and if you take my advice, you will have some three hours of solid fun.
Personally, I am hunting for tickets to have three more hours of solid fun tomorrow!
Tags: Tamil
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
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Saw the movie. It was boring. Instead of concentrating on the main plot more importance was given to the sub plot ie: the romance plot. Songs were good. Rajnikant, Vivek, Shreya were good. Raghuvaran, Mani Vannan were wasted. Suman looked good as the villain. But more importance was given to Shreya than Suman. So his charector did not look that powerful.
Did not like the movie. :((:((
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@ Anantha…where have you been? Long time dude….Only Rajni could have pulled you out of Hibernation….Been hearing a ton about Sivaji…Got the tickets for Sunday show…eagerly waiting for it…Baasha Onnu Sonren..Naa ru Unn Soonren…( I am sure its way off target..but means..If Baasha says it once or a thousand times..it still means the same)
Dear Fans,
It is a wonderful movie. Start to End Rajni. I saw this in Telugu, Sivaji Veede, NTR Veede is the best action dialogue I liked most and 4 ticks on his head in his tonsured appearance. No doubt he carried the picture on his broad shoulders but Shankar’s picturisation of songs superb. I would like to see it again though I saw it twice.
If one compares this movie of “Shivaj” with BABA. i think baba is best.
comparing it with Chandramukhi or Muthu or Arunachalam etc..
This movie is totally in bad taste.
Im sorry rajni my inspiration for such comment.
please dont disappoint us in SULTAN
Can somebody explain that seen in the film where shivaji after viewing the plan of Adi on mms in a phone sent by constable.
instead forwarding the same to newspapers or tv channels.
Why films are not so techno savy.
Shivaji plans to get electric shock etc…
@kamalkhan – If Sivaji just forwarded the MMS to the press, then AdiSeshan would have been arrested and Sivaji let go. Where is the fun there yaar? We want to see Rajini fight and do outlandish things. Sending it to press is too easy yaar. Then it becomes like a kid complaining to his mom. We want Rajini to make it personal. Get out there and beat the shit out of the villain himself. That’s where the majaa is!
@KamalKhan:: In order to save the money and sivaji foundation he has to die and so follows their plot
:d film is extraordinary wit his styles,and back grounds