The RAJNI effect!

“The tickets of all the shows for first 20 days got booked in one hour with people queuing outside the theatres from as early as 5 am.”

When I read this line in the newspaper, I was like- “What the f***? Are people there crazy? So crazy that they stood in queue from morning 5 am for a film? And the poster will be showered with milk at the start of 1st show, is it real?”

A Rs.100 ticket guarantees a value of Rs.1000, a profit unheard of in black ticket market in India. And for the record, the superstar doesn’t even promote his film. Just him being part of the film and people knowing it through trailers is good enough for generating a hype known only to HIS films and shows getting booked this fast. Even I am a cinema-addict but I wont go to a theatre getting up at 4 am even if a coup of sorts is managed by some producer getting Sanjay Leela Bhansali to direct a film starring Big B, SRK, Aamir and Hrithik with each star having a credible role in the film to play. Real stars and real fans are, indeed, a different breed altogether, aren’t they?

So when this film released here in Hindi, I made up my mind to watch this film with the masses. Not in the multiplexes, but in those single screen theatres where even a shake of a head by the superstar is greeted with thunderous claps! I decided to go to the theatre with the mindset of a street-vendor of some unknown street in Chennai, who before the release of a RAJNI film saves for an entire month only for the sake of watching the film on the ‘first day’. And I did watch it getting soaked in the atmosphere with myself bajaoing seetis and taalis at every tantrum thrown by the “Demigod” of Tamilians!

I don’t know why exactly nowadays I am getting enamoured by this RAJNIKANTH brand of cinema (Earlier last month came “Dabangg” and now this “Endhiran aka Robot”). Maybe because you don’t need to think much while watching this brand. After enjoying a lot of world-cinema, I think the word “Enjoy” suits this RAJNI-brand the most. This can be explained by the fact that I was never even once serious while watching the film; I was smiling and laughing even at the most serious of junctures when the villain threatened to destroy the world or take away the heroine from the hero! (Hero-Heroine? These words seem so ancient that I felt a discomfort while writing them. They are outdated now. Modern cinema is all about Actors & Actresses but Rajni keeps this outdated concept alive and believable.)

So what about the film? Ever since I watched “I-Robot” five years back, I wanted same kind of movie produced in India with all the Indian masala of emotions and grandeur. And masala is what we get in ROBOT! The tagline “Man, Machine, Mohabbat” couldn’t have been more apt. The ‘mohabbat’ angle adds the much-needed spice to the done-and-dusted formula of Man-machine war. And who better than the eternal beauty Aishwarya Rai to create a soft corner even in a robot?

She’s sweet, cute, hot, and sexy, all at the same time. I got to tell you, everytime I see her onscreen, she mesmerizes so much with her perfect beauty to the extent of being labeled ‘plastic’. But she isn’t plastic for sure. One can safely place all the newcomers like Katrina, Deepika or Priyanka on one side, and Aish on the other. She’s a benchmark. Even the robot accepts in the film, “Insaan ne do hi cheeze acchi banayi hai….ek main aur ek tum.” (By the way, this line got the loudest cheers). Junior B is the luckiest man on the planet.

Coming back to the film, the last 45 odd minutes of the film show the most outrageous stuff going to the extent of being said as downright ridiculous. But you got to give credit to the scriptwriter of the film for imagining those things (though they are a mixture of Hulk-cum-Matrix-cum-Transformers) which are shown and for the director and our dear Rajni to execute it. The budget which they say goes about to 160 crores is rightly justified and every penny is well-spent.

With all the razzmatazz going on in 3 hours, the film doesn’t forget to give a message. A message where the Robot in the film wishes that like his ‘red-chip’ which he (or should I say ‘it’) plugs out in the climax, humans should have had a red chip, which they could throw out and with it all the bad feelings like jealousy, anger, etc could be thrown out. Hmmm… A Rajni film with a message! What more can Rajni-diehards ask for?