Sivaji – BOSSa Overa Sodhapitanda Shankar

By Shankar’s own admission, the hype for Sivaji had gone out of his control. To keep up with such an enormous burden, he had to fire on all cylinders and hold on to his grip steady. Somewhere in the second half, he runs out of gas, freaks out and loses his control over the script and any semblance of direction. I kept rubbing my eyes in disbelief! Was this Shankar at his worst! His letdown was worser than what the Indian team pulled off in the world cup.

Rajnikanth delivers his best effort in recent time – the style, the punch-lines; the works. Blame for the letdown squarely lies on Shankar for screwing up such a great chance. A dashing version of the Superstar that everyone’s been waiting for (and not just his fans) has everyone spell-bound. His sheer appearance invites deafening roars from the audience (first day first show’na summava), which itself is worth the ticket. All I wanted was the storyline to back him. Unfortunately, Shankar tanks and takes the movie down with him.

Here are five reasons I left the theater disappointed with the movie:

1. The Script – Agreed! A story with Rajni playing the lead can’t stray too far to offend his fans; it comes with a bunch of clichés and time-tested formula. For Sivaji, Shankar pulls the proverbial dead horse out of the ground and flogs it to the bone. To me, the story was over within 15 minutes after the “Intermission”. Sivaji gets even with Adhiseshan almost too easily, so you’ve drained all the emotions/adrenaline that you were pumping up when you settled down with your interval popcorn. What goes on beyond that is one excuse after another for stretching the movie for the sake of your ticket.

2. Shankar – The guy practically owns the vigilante genre. He’s pulled it off so many times and every time we’ve felt like he’s got something new to say. Here, he’s not in his elements at all. We don’t find the intelligence of a Gentleman nor the fire one saw in Indian. His brand of realism (thanks to Sujatha’s dialogues), manages only to interfere with the Rajni’s fantastical universe, creating a neither-here-nor-there feel. I’m not sure if he ran out of his creative juice or was simply trying to underplay his skills to satisfy Rajni’s fan base. I can suspend logic for a fight or a song, but how do you digest a half-baked plot?

3. Suman’s role – The universal law for every Superhero is he be taunted a Supervillian, to push us to the edge. Every memorable major Rajni hit had an important ingredient – the all powerful antagonist, who matches wits with the Superstar. An over-the-top Raghuvaran (Baasha), a poisoned Sarath Babu (Annamalai & Muthu), a scheming Radha Ravi (Annamalai) or the egomaniacal Ramya Krishnan (Padayappa) made us happy when Rajni played the tit-for-tat game with them (Ok! Chandramukhi is a different discussion). Suman’s Adhi is as lame as they come. Menacing to start with, he’s mocked and conquered so easily (and so frequently), you have no fear factor for him, as the movie searches for an ending. With every punch delivered to him, in the showdown, I should have gone, “Innum onu semmathaiya andha side podu”, not “Umm, could we be done with this ASAP, we have a revolving AVM sign awaiting us!”. Clearly, Shankar’s isn’t comfortable with the one Hero vs one Villain concept that is so core to generating drama in a Rajnikanth flick; his trademark of compartmentalising the evil-doers into many shapes, sizes and form, does not help here.

4. Action and Songs – Another Shankar forte is his imaginative orchestration of the action/song sequences. The action is uninspired and tacky – awesome at time; mostly tiresome. Turning up the volume does not in anyway make up for a poorly executed stunt. In one of the action scenes, a horde of knief-wielding baddies are supposed to be chasing Rajnikanth. They end up so close, they’re rubbing shoulders with Rajni, yet they seem to have forgotten any intent of hurting him and are more keen out-running him! Again, screw logic, where is the simmering tension! Take that action scene in the open-air theater. Am absolutely fine with a flying Toyota, but where is the nail-bite inducing friction? Where’s the vengeance of the injured lion getting back at its attackers? Whatever happened to blocking, mixing angles, editing and build-up?

Remember the Shankar of Muqabala Muqabala times. If that was him riding the waves, this is definitely him crashing awkwardly onto the shores. Only “Oru Koodai Sunlight…” and “Athiradee…” offer glimpses of Shankar’s magic (with a huge helping from Rajni’s persona). There was something odd about the “Athiradee…” (Rajni upstages El Mariachi) re-recording that prompted some strong curses for A R Rahman.

5. The many Climax(es) – When you’re done with your story and have about an hour’s time left, what to you do? You fill them with fights and songs that make little sense. It is as if Shankar failed to find a slot to fit in a car chase, some van getting blown up, a plug for Nokia and a bunch of other pyrotechnics and threw them all in the end!

***spoiler warning***

What on earth was Shankar thinking when he devised the scheme of killing Sivaji and everything that follows it! Rajni trying to take out his own life must rank amongst the biggest miscalculation by any of his Directors. Even Superheroes aren’t meant to go down like this; the Superstar is totally out of question.