I'm a
die-hard Shanatic. R...Rajkumar is full of Shawesomeness. (You can read my
review here)
I'm not at
all a fan of masala movies. I mostly find them stupid. I've always been baffled
by how Salman's masala movies could be so successful. I had fun making
fun of these movies. But beware, somewhere in the middle of watching
R...Rajkumar I had an epiphany:
For people
who love Salman as much as I love Shahid (though why one would choose to love
Salman when one could love Shahid is a mystery to me :D) stupid Salman masala
movies are full of Salman-ness, hence they enjoy them so much! Salman fans, you
were right and I was wrong. Aap sab
humme maaf kar dijiye!
It was
always my opinion that success or failure at the box office says little about
the quality of a movie. Objectively, R...Rajkumar has its weaknesses and I
won't hold it against critics to point them out. What I do hold against them is
the gleefulbashing of R...Rajkumar
that's going on, when none of these critics dare to utter a word against a
Salman movie out of fear of getting on his wrong side. Even if critics don't
like the movie, how can they presume to tell people not to watch a movie! It's
their job to watch movies and be objective about them even if they don't like
them.
And in case
of R...Rajkumar's BO success despite critics' best efforts to bring it down:
When I first heard Shahid would do Vishal Bhardwaj's Hamlet remake, I was one happy fangirl. Kaminey is one of my all-time fave movies and sealed the deal on Shahid and on the whole of Bollywood for me, so there couldn't have been better news. When I first heard the rumours that Shahid would go bald for Haider, I had a bad feeling about it.
I was pretty sure it was true. And then Shahid confirmed it. And went on to do all the R...Rajkumar promos with a head full of his longish, black, gorgeous, silky ( I know it's silky. A good friend of mine touched it, and she said it was silky. Which I knew it would be. SIGH.) and voluminous hair. And I thought: "Please don't shave!" And then I watched R...Rajkumar. And he ran his fingers through his hair. And I thought: "PLEASE DON'T SHAVE!!!!"
As service for you, esteemed reader, so you can better understand where I'm coming from, here are 8 reasons why Shahid Kapoor really shouldn't shave his longish, black, gorgeous, silky and voluminous hair:
Number 1:
Number 2:
Number 3:
Number 4:
Number 5:
Number 6:
Number 7:
OMG, Javed!
Number 8:
Romeo, oh Romeo, thou are seriously gonna shave THAT hair?
Yes, I know. Shahid is amazing and loves his art and it is super admirable of him to do this. And I will keep loving and supporting him if he never grows another hair on his head (on his shoulders - shoutout to the GL girls :D) ever again. But that doesn't mean I can't whine. Fair warning: I will whine until his black, gorgeous, silky and voluminous hair will have grown back to where it is now. So if Shahid should decide (please, god, no!) to sport short hair for a while after Haider, I guess I'll get to know who my real friends are, because they are the ones who will tolerate or maybe even join my whining :D
This review contains major spoilers. Do not read, unless you've seen the movie. You have been warned.
Critics love to bash movies, even more so when the
lead actor is not someone who has the cushion of a filmi family to soften the
blows. So they are having a field day trashing R...Rajkumar. Is R...Rajkumar a
formulaic movie? Yes, of course it is. But so are most Hollywood films (Thor,
anyone? And I love Thor!). Sure, out of the box movies are nice, but familiar
fare is also nice, especially with a young, daring, intense, ruggedly handsome
looking Shahid Kapoor in the lead. Shahid plays Romeo Rajkumar, who is a
character with shades of grey, given that he works for a drug lord. While he is
not actually seen murdering anyone, save one exception in the end, he does
quite a lot of questionable deeds. Despite that, if I only had one word to
describe Romeo, it would be: COOL. The intensity Shahid brings to the character
is overwhelming. I loved the parts where Romeo was in charge, playing with
Shivraj and putting Chanda's sleazebag of an uncle into his place.
My country is a Bollywood desert, so the only
Bollywood movies I get to watch are those produced by Eros (thank you, Eros!).
So every time Shahid signs with them, I do a happy dance. Seeing Shahid on the
big screen is a rare and special treat for me (as it is for my lovely friend
Bia, who drove 7.5 hours to watch R...Rajkumar - hats off to you, girl!) and
getting to enjoy Shahid's superb dancing on the big screen made my year. I'm so
glad someone used his dancing skills properly for a change. Thank you, Prabhu
Sir!
In one scene, right before the movie launched into
Dhokha Dhadi, Shahid runs his fingers through his hair. I sighed. Loud. Bia
sitting next to me had to laugh. :) But his hair is so gorgeous and he's gonna
shave it ... argh! I mean, this blog is named for my love of hair ... sorry, I digress.
I also appreciated the cool visual images, like
Romeo's reflection in the mirror of the truck he just ruined.
What I didn't like all that much about R...Rajkumar
are complaints that I have about most Bollywood movies. I have never understood
and will never understand the "you hate my guts, but I'll totally ignore
that and just stalk you until you love me, nevermind that I never spoke a word with you and just love you deeply because of your looks" thought of school. The Western
world got its dose of supposedly romantic stalking with Twilight, but it's a
staple that Bollywood just loves. Has that approach ever worked in real life? I
can't imagine it has.
Indian masala humour does not work for me, which is
why I liked the second half better than the first, contrary to what seems to be
the majority opinion (Did I mention how intense Shahid is? These scenes happen
more often post interval).
Also, when Romeo said "I could take Chanda
away, but I won't" or something to that account, I was like "why the
hell not"? But hey, it would have deprived of some very cool happenings in
the movie.
There have been accusations of R...Rajkumar being
misogynistic and yes, it is, in the usual Bollywood way. No is not accepted to
mean no, women serve the men, women are reduced to their bodies. I don't like
it and I'm aware it is a problem. Luckily for me I can enjoy movies despite
that. And in R...Rajkumar's defence, I think having Chanda (Sonakshi)
perpetually slap Romeo was their idea of a strong women (not that her strength
helped her any when it came to her arranged marriage, Romeo had to come to her
rescue). I'm not sure what to think about the rape scene. Many agree it was
unnecessary and I think so too. Maybe it was meant to show what an evil asshole the police
officer in question was.
Verdict: R...Rajkumar delivers what it promises -
full on masala. In addition to that Shahid shines in this movie. You'd miss out
on superb action, brilliant dancing and powerful acting if you didn't watch it.
Fair warning: This review contains spoilers. I'm not a
professional reviewer, so I get to include spoilers. Do not read until you've
watched the movie. And I highly recommend you watch it.
I had never seen a Rohit Shetty film before, and
judging from Golmaal etc. trailers, I never wanted to. However, as soon as it
was announced that SRK would do a movie with him, I knew I was doomed to watch
a Rohit Shetty film after all. I was fully be prepared to endure 2 and a half
hours of utter stupidity (of the likes of the dwarf scene), but seeing SRK on the
big screen is such a treat that I was willing to subject myself to whatever. My
relief was huge when I was actually thoroughly entertained by the movie (save
for above mentioned dwarf scene. I don't get what's so funny about them. Or
Johnny Lever.)
When watching the trailer, I was a bit doubtful of the
DDLJ rip-off scene. But it turned out to be hilarious. As were the
"sing-offs" with the various hit songs (Oh-la-la! LOL) . I loved the
references to other Bollywood movies, and am proud of each one I caught (though
I'm sure there's a lot I missed). I love when big stars have the grandeur to
make fun of themselves and SRK was just brilliant. Also kudos to admitting to
being 40 (Ehm. :D) and for the age jokes. I knew beforehand Deepika got first
billing, but it came as a surprise nonetheless. Gotta love SRK for being a
feminist. Also, watching Chennai Express on India's Independence Day, the non-too-subtly
driven home messages of India Unite! and Don't marry your daughters off to
jerks! were extremely fitting.
I watched the movie in a cinema in Austria and it was house
full. Lots of audience members were Asian and there was some light clapping and
whistling, which didn't disturb me at all, actually it was very nice to see
that everyone was enjoying themselves. The German version of ChennaiExpress
has almost 100% subtitles, be it for Tamil or Hindi dialogues, though inexplicably
2 or 3 Tamil dialogues are not subtitled and they forgot to subtitle SRK's
voice over twice. (on the other hand, in some Hindi movies subtitles appear on
screen when there is no dialogues. Go figure. :D ) I've always wondered how
inconvenient it must be for the Hindi speaking audience members to have to
endure German subs, and in getting the Tamil subs in Chennai Express that was
kinda cosmic justice :).
I could have done with a bit more romance, though I
loved the songs. SRK spreading his arms! SRK down on his knees! *fangirly
meltdown* :D
Chennai Express even taught me two Tamil words: Illi
and po :)
My final verdict on Chennai Express: A fun masala
movie that didn't annoy or bore the heck out of me, with actual wit and a
message and the King of Bollywood at his best!
The man who got me into Hindi Films, blowing to bits my typical Western prejudices about "Bollywood", the superb Shahid Kapoor celebrates 10 years in the industry today!
The lovely Mahez (@Mahezabeen on twitter) has documented his journey in write-ups, that are too precious to let them vanish in the depths of twitter, so I collected the links here for you to read and re-read.
