Sivaji Jives!

Well this is arguably the first public domain review of the would-be block-buster Sivaji!

Thanks to one's residence being in Singapore, it was possible to have a head-start of at least 30 minutes before the first premiere in India started.

First things first...

Story:

Sivaji, a INR 250-crore-less-USD-10, senior software architect returns to India to do the following things in whatever order you want to choose...

(a) To build a huge foundation using 80% of his wealth (you are reminded about 200C throughout the movie)
(b) To get a good "Tam" girl as life-partner.

As is expected he faces troubles on both fronts. Adi Seshan, the educationist places enough road-blocks on the way through the giant machine that is the Indian bureaucracy/legislature. Inspite of oiling the machines appropriately, Sivaji runs into problems galore.

The love-life also does not go that well as Thamizhselvi does not reciprocate the 'feelings' of Sivaji. But Sivaji persists and finally she accepts Sivaji inspite of a strong dose of NO NO by a stain-tongued josiar (Shankar or not, you can't have a Rajini movie nowadays without a God-man!)

In the mean time, Adi engineers a government change to let the bureaucracy/legislature to run amok on the Sivaji Foundation. Our hero loses all the money and Adi in a fit of absolute villainy offers Sivaji a ONE RUPEE COIN as alms.

Post intermission, Sivaji gets a second wind literally and decides to attack the scourge of black money. According to a certain flash presentation on Sivaji's IBM Thinkpad, there is more than INR 200,000 Crores unaccounted money in India. He therefore goes after the big-black-money-baddies and gets their money via good old black-mail.

Thereafter, through some nifty havala transactions, Sivaji launders all the money as donations for Sivaji Foundation and he ends up making at least half of Tamil Nadu yearn for more good through the Foundation. Colleges, hospitals, industries - all acting absolutely above board and only helping the needy.

He plays double jeopardy with the baddies by throwing them into jail as well.

No, the movie is not over yet.

In a strange case of josiar&CBI-induced-fear, Thamizh goes and hands over Sivaji's Thinkpad to CBI and our man gets arrested. But Sivaji, the SSA has implemented a voice-activation-algorithm on the notebook and CBI is lost now.

After a brutal police+Adi interrogation, Sivaji dies.

See you tomorrow.

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Oh, I am sorry. The movie is not over yet.

In a a-la Casino Royale move, Sivaji gets de-fibrillated and comes back as ... no-points-for-guessing... MGR!!!!

In a no-holds-barred, money-raining climax, Adi meets his Maker through poetic justice.

Sivaji aka MGR lives with Thamizhselvi happily ever after.

Review:

Positives:

Rajini is absolutely dashing. Thanks to fantastic make-up artists he looks stunning. Not to mention the various outfits and professional grooming, his style quotient has reached the skies in this movie. I cannot remember another movie where he looked so good. May be Badshah, perhaps. (When will people stop comparing every Rajini movie to Badshah? That is for a separate post) His action and dance sequences are as usual peerless. Surprising to see so much energy in that 'young' man, still.

Sriya - Thanks to better sense prevailing, we did not have another-Sadha (or was it Saadha?) as a heroine. Sufficient glamour quotient. Enough navel displays, discreetly though.

Vivek - As my son said, he acts as the balancing influence on Rajini. Keeps the comedy track pushing through. Shankar has used him intelligently. He brings the house down with quite a few punch dialogues - which Rajini has avoided like anything, except for one phrase அதிருதில்லே?!! (Loosely translated to: Aren't you shaking on seeing/hearing me?)

Suman: After ages, Suman is back with ugly dentures - apparently Shankar wanted him to have those; what all people will do to get into his movies? Tries to exude cool menace. Does not succeed much, though.

Others: Manivannan & Vadivukkarasi (as Rajini's parents) have less chance to act than Sriya's parents (Pattimandram Raja and a Sun TV news reader - Uma?). Solomon Paapiah also provides some comic relief. Almost every other artist from the industry has a presence in the movie: Livingston, Raghuvaran, Chinni Jayanth, Damu, Mayilsamy, Ilavarasu, Shanmugarajan, Vikram Vasu to name a few. Have a vague suspicion that they would have acted without any pay :-)

Songs: Great picturization. It is a pleasure watching Shankar's songs. When the DVD comes up, I am sure we will not be FFWDing the songs. The hardwork is simply amazing and hats off!

Desperate camera-work.
Sleepy re-recording - except for the magudi-like piece whenever Adi appears & the tabla when Rajini taps his head
Tremendous action blocks: if the Binny mill fight is vintage Rajini, the open-air-theatre car fight is new and the climax proves Shankar's fixation towards Matrix-style stunts.
Sujatha has dialogued within the limited framework of a Rajini movie.

Shankar: The effort that has gone in is amazing. As usual, every last detail has been taken care of. Has worked very hard to keep his brand barely afloat in the sea of Rajini-fans' expectations. One could clearly sense that he has worked with one hand tied to the back throughout the movie due to those expectations. He has tried to tell a message (including those post-movie stills) - but in a Rajini movie, the BoSS is THE message. I think that he will make the millions of Rajini fans more than happy and that in itself is a big achievement.

Interesting touches: Drum fight, Rajini as Sivaji, MGR and Kamal, his new styles/mannerisms (watch out for the coin-tossing, sun-glass removals etc.; I loved it!), use of technology - voice-activated laptops, mobile in rice, MMS messages, interesting places to hide your black-money, Tatkal surgery on the minister(influenced by Jeffrey Archer's Not-a-penny-more-Not-a-penny-less ?) ... and several more.

Negatives:

The movie is uni-dimensional. But almost all Rajini movies are so; exceptions are Chandramukhi & Badshah. In C'mukhi, while Rajini played the psychiatrist (or was he a psychologist?), Jyothika played the split-personality-damsel to perfection; this kept the movie taut. Remember Shankar's Anniyan: There were three dimensions of Vikram alone to follow not to forget Prakash Raj...That made the movie more enjoyable.

Padaiyappa was unidimensional but Neelambari character was so powerful that the movie stood on that simple enmity between a right(eous?) man and a wrong(ed?) woman.

Villainy (not Suman as villain) was inadequate. A paying audience wants to see an equal good-vs-evil fight and in the end good should win. It is no fun watching Australia thulping Ireland for five times in a row (it could have been India; but Ireland is just for an effect, you see) And if you are going to send inadequate goondas - who side up with Rajini somewhere along the line, then it is Australia all the way. It is not easy to imagine the unseen villains of the government officers, power-brokers, legislators etc.

Inadequate support characterizations: Except for Rajini, to an extent Suman and Vivek, there are no characters worth the name in the picture. Almost a stand-up drama?

Final Verdict:

Rajini really rocks. Absolutely stylish portrayal. New mannerisms. Great action sequences. Fabulous song picturizations.
Downside, weak and predictable story line. No worthy baddies to fight for.

Is it better than Badshah? No.
Is it better than Anniyan? No.
Is it better than Chandramukhi? No.

But then who cares?

It IS a RAJINI movie after more than two years and

• when you watch him on the screen with 1500 people crying hoarse and whistling throughout the movie,


• when you see people - young, old, executive, blue-collar dancing in the aisles for every move the man makes on the screen,


• when at the end of the movie, you see that satisfied glow on your children's faces which can come only after they had a good time...

...you know that this momentum alone will take the movie past 100 days on its way to being declared a block-buster.

So, go ahead guys. Have a good 185 minutes of fun and close out the issue.