Somewhere in the second half of the film, Vikram has to emote a variety of feelings just with his eyes. First, a tinge of anticipation mixed with a fear that his lover wouldn’t  recognize/accept him, second, a disappointment due to his lover’s aversion, third, his heightened anticipation when she calls him near her car window, fourth, his inexplicable and sorrow and finally, his sense of utter defeat before the will of God. Vikram does it all.

One has to give it to Vikram for his outstanding performance in scenes like these in the movie and his effort to get into the skin of the character. In every scene that calls for his histrionics, he delivers like no other.

If only his presence had translated into something more meaningful in terms of a wholesome movie. Instead, Director Shankar, squanders away Vikram’s accomplishments and weaves an outdated revenge fare.’ I’ is poor cousin of Director Shankar’s previous films.

I found the basic premise of inflicting wrong and the revenge formula around it, not enough for the story to scale.

• What starts off an interesting aspect, that of an aspiring bodybuilder, doesn’t build into the next level.
• The enemies the hero make, don’t look menacing enough for the hero’s fight against them. They are cliched to say the least. Other than the wrong inflicted on the hero, rest of their villainy comes across as a charade.
• Shankar in his previous films used the cat and mouse game between hero and villain to good effect  (Gentleman, Anniyan, Indian etc). In ‘I’ the villains are more of brawn and less of brain. So, the duels between the hero and villain are less, less physical, given the deformity of hero. On top of that,  Shankar fills up the film with unnecessary stuff to make it a 3hour+ film.
• I guess, inspired by the brawny nature of the plot, Shankar decides for an exact amount for exacting revenge, and his ‘anthaku minchi’ ends up being too fleshy and gory on screen, and with little purpose.  It’s as if he tried a blend of ‘Jeffery Archer’s novel ‘Not a penny more, Not a penny less’ and the movie  ‘Inglorious Bastards’ or ‘Django Unchained’. (I was also reminded of Pran-Jeeven scenes of  ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’)

In the end, ‘I’ ends up a movie only for die hard fans of Vikram and Shankar . It does make you wonder about the 100+crore of the budget of the film. Where did it go? Make-up? Peter Jackson’s Weta? China footage?

Tailpiece : Shankar seems to have applied logic only to the ‘amount’ of revenge and nothing else. Budget included.

Related links:

Amar Akbar Anthony Scene 1: Jeevan – Pran – Robert Mocks Kishenlals Poverty

Amar Akbar Anthony Scene 2: Pran – Kishenlal Teaches Robert A Lesson

Renowned yester year Telugu writer Narasa Raju, in an interview recalled his conversation with the legend Chakrapani about another legend Surayakantham.  Apparently, when he asked Chakrapani about scenes/situations establishing her character in the movie ‘Gundamma Katha’, he tersely replied, ‘What else would the audience expect from her. No need’. This is the absolute clarity the makers had in the past, with their frugality written all over in building a screenplay.

Over the years, directors of Super Star Rajnikanth’s adopted a similar kind of frugality to his portrayal and also extended it to the story line. There are neither lead scenes about his ability to perform death defying stunts, nor a Christopher Nolan’s painstaking attempt to project the transformation into a hero. He is Rajnikanth and he can do whatever he wants, let it be a super-hero or even God.

 No matter what character he plays in the movie, he still does his regular stuff that reflects his on-screen and off-screen image. What is ‘regular’ to Rajnikath has been expanded to cover everything imaginable under sun and made it to silven screen, and what could not, made it to the internet and social media.  And the audience/fans all over the world devoured it in one bite.

‘Lingaa’ is another example where the audience get to see him doing everything that others would do in a dozen movies.(He even does a ‘Mission Impossible’ kind of heist in a song.) Infact, isn’t it the feature of an Indian superstar flick? That you get to watch several movies with one movie ticket? A single movie can become a confluence of global cinema. And, if it is the flick of the superstar of supestars–Rajnikanth–one can imagine what gets packed in a single movie.

‘Lingaa’ is one such ambitious film that picks up elements from many films (including his own) and attempts to package Rajnikath in a coherent way. And it succeeds partially. A few scenes, specially in the second half, gives us a taste of the vintage Super Star.

But, with a duration close to three hours, replete with dull songs, heavy heroines, weak set pieces and insipid gags, the movie misses the mark and one leaves the movie hall a bit disappointed.

Guess, the makers will have to be a less frugal about the storyline? Or is it just a case of  getting the elements right and their execution? These are some of the questions that would haunt the film-makers of the next Rajni film …which even legends like Chakrapani might  find it difficult to crack, if they were around.

Tailpiece: Rajnikanth is shown reading ‘The Hero with a thousand faces’ by Joseph Campbell. Here’s an old blog post on Hero’s journey from this book.

Related links:

Check out the first scene of Gundamma Katha 🙂