Sivaji-Movie Review

Sivaji- The F.L.O.P –(When Rajini became Robinhood! )

or

SIVAJI The L.O.S.S (Loss of Sixth Sense)

If you felt the above caption has some tinkering to do in English grammar, then don’t worry, SIVAJI is bound to surprise you with many such titles at the start of the film, and as time goes on SIVAJI is bound to grip you to your seats, as the guilty feeling of having committed 300 Rs for the film would strike you several times over, during the movie.

The movie is basically a poor attempt at sarcasm and humor , that aims to attract the onlookers based on the make up that makes Rajnikant a good 25 years younger and has all the trappings of being a masala movie without substance. Generally Rajnikant has looked in command when he delivers his punch dialogues, amidst a somewhat OK story in the last few years, but SIVAJI, has only punch dialogues, repeat charisma and a terribly screwed story line.

Sivaji THE B.O.S.S(Bachelor of Social Service) starts off with images of the central jail in Chennai with a car arriving and as soon as the car stops a boot emerges out of the car. The audience in the theater who have been reserving their shrieks and cat calls, wait for the moment of truth and when the boot emerges out of the car, the audience breaks into a frenzy unparralled. Rajnikanth has cleverly used people in the movie who break out into a hysterical chest beating, pretty much on the lines of how Micheal Jackson used to attract his fans. The theatre resembles a mini Eden gardens that erupts every time Rajnikant’s face is flashed on the screen.

Rajnikant, is jailed for embezzling “x” crores and why he was jailed forms the first part of the story before you wait with unabated breath for the signal of intermission. The first half delves into the life of Sivaji, a US Software architect who comes to India with noble aims of building free for all colleges and hospitals. Sivaji, has his entourage and man Friday in the form of the comedian Vivek, who struggles under the shadows of Rajnikant this time. Vivek’s performance as a second fiddle comedian, totally wastes his creativity and his comedy in the movie has only a cursory effect which is so unlike the impact he has had in other movies like Run or Minnale. Vivek does manage to lift your spirits up with some cheeky dialogues, but surely pales in comparison to his previous comedies.


With Vivek as his man Friday, Rajnikant starts to give press conferences on his “free for all model” and asks for support from a politician called “Adiseshan”. Adisheshan , being the perfect politician, is a strict disciplinarian when it comes to making money the illegal way and he bears no grudges about using the politics medium to make money. Adiseshan has an engineering college and a medical college, where he seems to follow only a single window system where he sits near the window and admits students on capitation fees.Adiseshan feels that Rajnikant may eat up into his revenue model and plans to do all he can to ruin him.

Rajnikant sees this and with even renewed vigour begins to start work on his project, but his project has to go through the hurdles of bribery at statistically 16 points indicating the various levels in bribery.He bribes the ministers and starts constructing his dream complex. Meanwhile the “young” Rajnikant tries and woos the sexy shreya, who plays the perfect tamil girl, who falls in love with a hero without even interacting with the hero. Shreya is spotted at a temple and Vivek plays agony aunt, in getting Rajnikant and Shreya together. Shreya seems to have adapted to various costumes well enough. She looks the petite Tam brahm girl by the role, which undergoes a rather 180 degree transformation in the songs where she is reduced to a gaudy slut with too many colours on her, and of course Rajini competing with her on the gaudiness quotient.The way Rajini and Shreya decide to "love" each other is bound to make you laugh, and this is where first instances of loose direction is visible. I still cannot believe that Shankar made the movie and A.R.Rehman composed the music. Songs seem to appear out of nowhere and some crazy and gaudy make up dominates most of the songs except the first song featuring Nayantara. The music is not worth giving a ear to and is a huge let down to A.R.Rehman fans.



Shreya looks the saving grace of the movie, especially if you cant picture Rajnikant as a Keanu Reaves clone, doing the matrix stunts with his phoney American accent of saying “cool cool” every time he asserts his superiority. Shreya, is basically a doll in the movie who seems to have more faith in the theory that if a monkey shows up 10 times at the house and asks her hand for marriage, she would marry. Don’t fume at me, that’s what the story conveys, where Rajnikant does crazy tricks to woo her and tells he wants to marry her, because he likes her at first sight and Shreya keeps avoiding him, before in a bizarre moment she says she likes him, and it’s a Rajni movie, so no questions on story and how things happen. Looks like Director Shankar has taken that fact to his advantage in producing an illogical movie (Read Drivel). Other things that will have you entertained would be Rajini walking in a leather jacket in Chennai, with the sun blazing, Rajini doing a mini Chayya Chayya fight sequence, a so-called angry man rowdies- better -be-beware -look and when he makes Newton and Keanu reaves pale to shame during the fight sequence.



If some did say he/she enjoyed the first half, then I suggest the person needs a vacation in an island all by himself to get back to sanity. An overdose of Rajinikant’s pyro techniques and style can sometimes be too much and can induce sleep as a few of my friends discovered early this morning when we watched the movie. The movie seems to follow a archaic formula which evokes responses of “ been there done that “. Its basically “Ghilli meets Matrix, as Robin Hood and an overdose of Rajnikant to rake up the moolah” . Watching Rajnikant with his so called punch dialogoues and gravity defying acts of warfare you’d throw up your hands in exasperation, if entertainment was all that you wanted in those 180 minutes of pre booking that burnt a huge 300 rs in your purse.

The second half, is all about how our hero reclaims lost property (oops is that a spoiler now? ). Incidentally the second half is a battle between the politician Adi and Rajnikant over how each usrps the others property.

Final Take

1) Lacks finesse in the direction
2) The movie is a formulaic adaptation pandering to the masses
3) Logic is screwed, especially the robin hood one, where he asks all tax payers to give the black money to him so that he routes the money to give it to the poor to build colleges. Shankar has left emotions overtake sense in this movie, with his addiction towards social issues.
4) Audio not too compelling to have you hum the tunes as you get out of the theatre
5) The movie will be a SUPER HIT, because the audience comes in only for Rajini’s moves and not for the story. By the way, don’t search for a story after you have made it to the theatre. Any amount of google search would not find any satisfactory results.


6) Even as I am typing this, I hear “Rajnikant “ being compared to Amitabh Bachan in SUN NEWS. Though Rajnikant’s success in terms of days run can put any actor to pale in comparison, I would go on record to say that Rajnikant is only a fraction of what Amitabh Bachan or a Kamala Hassan in terms of emotive ability and versatility in dialogue delivery.
7) I have decided to cash in on the “RAJINI SIVAJI “ boom by using my MBA lessons to become a millionare by re selling SIVAJI tickets.

Rajnikanth, not quite Marlon Brando yet.... but yes, Keanu Reaves has got some body giving him a run for his money!


Bouqets and Brickbats can start flowing

What makes Rajni tick?

Born as Shivaji Rao Gaikwad 57 years ago, Rajnikanth made his first steps into tinsel town with his first movie "Aboorva Ragangal" in 1975. Since then in the last 31 years.He has won 14 awards for his movies. A harder look statistics reveal that all of Rajnikanth's movies ran for more than 100 days, including his latest movie "Chandramukhi" in 2005.

The above statistic easily makes him the most watched Indian superstar amongst his peers. So what intrigues me is what elavated him to that cult status?

Was it his villainous moves and the angry young man looked he potrayed in some of his earlier movies? Was it the panache he displayed in terms of his unique style of flipping his sunglasses or throwing a cigarette right between his lips. Or was it due to the fact that a majority of people could connect with his "bhola bhala " roles in some of his movies post 80's which had the look of a loser simpleton who won in the end?

Rajnikanth remains an enigma to me, in the few movies of him I have watched. There was nothing spectacular about his acting or dialogue delivery, but I feel some of his earlier movies had this arrogant stylish cocky image that caught the fancy of people and that just stuck on, and by the times the late 80's and 90's came, he blossomed into a " people's hero" with tailor made roles that had a sense of ruralness connected with the way he acted.

I remember the famous line "I can talk English, walk english, laugh english" which instantly made him positioned for the masses, with people easily relating some part of their lives with Rajnikanth. Not that I am against him, but I feel that Rajnikanth's USP was his "pandering to mass" brand positioning that helped him come to the limelihght.

Since his brand has grown over the years like a tsunami gaining force, I see a lot of people accepting Rajnikanth as their "hero" and when Rajnikanth got this vital support from the masses, he started concentrating on throwing in political entendres in his movies, to suggest a hypocratic image of "If I want I can be the CM, but let the people choose me" . Nothing wrong with that too, he is a shrewd guy, who has learnt to capitalise on a certain brand positioning.

But If I were to pick the best Indian actor, I would definetely place Kamala hassan and the late Sivaji Ganesan as one of the most versatile actors of this era. I'd then rate Amitabh Bachan, for his dialogue delivery and that voice that has been the cornerstone of Indian cinema for a long time. If I remember right, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh bachan owed a major portion of their success stories to the erstwhile singer Kishore Kumar, for some mellifluous songs that feature them, just as Rajnikanth owed some of his major successes to movies that had the "loser has the last laugh" image (most Indian movies have that, dont they ? )

Another reason why Amitabh and Rajesh Khanna figure higher than Rajnikanth on my rating would be the fact that the movies and the roles that they acted in were far more decent than some of the movies that Rajnikanth acted. In someways I feel Rajnikanth's roles were limited by the paucity of the quality of Tamil films in the 80's and 90's to leave a lasting impression on the mind of a viewer called Kartik Kannan. Even though some of Rajnikanth's movies were bordering on the run of the mill " I am my Mom's best son" types, it still had a huge fan following, while in the 80's and the 90's , Rajnikanths other adversaries had experimented with better movies and better roles.

So the argument is whether the quality of Rajnikanth's audience a discerning audience at all? Were they swayed too much by the hype of a man, over a stuck up" middle class, loser who wins" image?

I personally felt he had no exceptional qualities as a hero, neither did he have any quality movie (except Dalapati) since the 90's that could match the roles a Kamala Hassan or an Amitabh did. But I must say Rajnikanths star power in terms of the number of days his movies ran, is stil a record for an actor, and I keep wondering whether the brand positioning was what elavated him to his current king status.

Let the discussion begin :