Sivaji - The Boss. Cool?

Rajni Kant is starring in a movie after almost 3 years. The hype, the excitement, the craze, the controversy - it is all expected. With comparisons running wild betwen Rajni and Amitabh, there was bound to be interest from across India and eth world to see how this movie does. Oh yes I am talking about Sivaji - The Boss.

As an aside, I am a big fan of Kamal Hassan and in my opinion hes the best actor India has seen to date. But yes, that does not stop me from being a fan of Rajni :)

I was all excited about watching Sivaji, moreso because I was going to watch it in Melbourne and such are eth times when it gets as close to "India" as possible. My friend, his wife, his parents and I prepared early, left early and reached early and yet found that there were people ahead of us in the queue. An 800 seat capacity theatre was all but sold out. The atmosphere was exciting to say the least. We got in early and took our seats and I enjoyed a good 15-20 mins looking at desi gals wearing salwar kameez and a bindi too.

The movie started and when Rajni made his appearance on screen (when his face first showed up), the noise in the theatre was deafening. I felt like I was watching the movie at Satyam theatre in Chennai. It was so loud that we all missed the first words from Rajnis mouth. Shankar, the director erred in giving Rajni a dialogue too soon after his entry.

The movie was a typical Shankar movie, and a typical Rajni movie. No surprises. It had the style, the comedy, the social service, theputting other ppl before himself effect, the riches to rags to riches transformation. In one word "cliched".

Rajni looked old, but the make up artist had done a damn good job with him. He pulled it off decently well. Rajni was amazing when he was imitating other Tamil actors including Vijay, MGR and Sivaji Ganeshan. He also got to do a Keanu Reeves, thanks to the fight directors direct lift off from The Matrix. If you know what to expect from Rajni, you would not be disappointed.

It was refreshing to see Rajni share screen time with Vivek, who was literally on each frame that Rajni was on, atleast in the first half. Rajni also let Vivek do the punch dialogues this time round. The comedy element was good and I had a good time laughing. Vivek did well.

Shreya/Shriya was stunning. She was cute yet sexy and in some of those dance moves in the song sequences, she reminded me of "Hips dont lie". Curvy indeed. Heroines in Indian cinema, esp Tamil cinema are often nothing more than the heros love interest. Shreya in Sivaji was no different and for that she played her part well.

Guest Nayantara was HOT HOT HOT in the item number -Ballelikha. This song and Sahaana were the only listenable songs of the movie. AR Rahman continues to disappoint and in my personal opinion there is a clear Blaaze-ization of his music. There was too much rap and tunes that we are akin to attributing to 50 cents and the likes. Thotta Dharani did a wonderful job with the sets and they were reason enough to suggest the 100 crore budget.

The movie overall was good. An assumption here is that you have to have your expectations right when you watch a Rajni starrer. For me I had 3.5 hrs of great entertainment, great ambience and good fun. In all it was "Cool".

As an aside again, Rajni, I think is lining up for politics and I think he will strategically enter it when Karunanidhi finds a permanent place on Marina beach.