Kuala Lumpur, December 12 – It is Rajnikanth’s birthday today and his fans are delighted for the first time in so many years that the release of his new movie coincides with his birthday.
Lingaa is the latest evidence that Rajni still has the charm to mesmerize the crowds despite his age. He has done justice to his role in this movie but it is the ace director K.S.Ravikumar who fails miserably. Having directed several of Rajni movies and given such big hits as “Padaiappa” even some 10 years ago, Ravikumar has failed to capture the Rajni magic as director Shankar did in “Sivaji” and “Endiran”.
Instead Ravikumar has opted to pick out the same old story line and scenes from earlier Rajni movies such as “Muthu” and “Arunachalam” which makes Lingaa very predictable and boring at times.
Having already narrated that it was Rajni’s grand-father who built the dam, Ravikumar puts the audience into boredom by still continuing to explain elaborately for more than one hour, how grand-father Rajni suffers to complete his mission for the people.
The story by Pon.Kumaran is a direct replica of the century old true-story of Major John Pennycuick, the British Engineer who sold his assets in England to build the Mullai Periyar dam for the people of villages around Thekkadi. He is still revered by the people there.
Showing the younger Rajni as a petty-thief also shocks the audience as there could have been so many other better professions Rajni could be doing despite being poor. There are also no family sentiments in the movie, which are general hall marks of Rajni films. Rajni is shown without a family throughout the movie. Even the elder Rajni comes without a family despite being a Maharajah.
First half is entertaining
However the first half of the movie keeps the audience in stitches as Rajni shows off his usual style-ridden antics with comedian Santhanam and group. Santhanam is joining for the first time with Rajni in this movie and he is the one who keeps the movie entertaining till the last scene with his punch-lines.
Rajni stealing a precious diamond necklace with his friends, although comical, becomes too lengthy and boring as we have seen such scenes in so many movies. It is surprising that Ravikumar has completely under-estimated the audience by just re-creating old movie scenes believing that the audience will appreciate it just because of the presence of Rajni.
Between both the heroines it is Sonakshi Sinha who is refreshing and attractive with her jacket-less sultry looks. Anushka looks too old even for Rajni. Her bulky figure is too evident even with her so-called, highly publicised Yoga regime.
Several Telugu actors have been roped in to play important characters as a marketing strategy, bearing in mind Rajni’s huge Telugu fan-base. Even the villain in the movie is a famous Telugu star Jagapathy Babu. Renowned Director K.Viswanath (who gave such memorable hits Salangai Oli and Sangarabaranam) also plays a significant role as the village head-man.
The climax scene is an insult to the Tamil film audience with Rajni jumping from hot-air balloon and kicking a time-bomb. The whole audience bursts into laughter seeing these unbelievable and childish scenes .
On the technical team it is Cinematographer Ratnavelu (who also gave us Endiran) who comes with flying colours with his camera work on the stunning views of the dam and crowd scenes. The fight sequence scenes in the train are also well executed and add credit to Ratnavelu’s efforts.
At the same time, Ratnavelu’s hard-work on the hot-air balloon scenes fails to impress the audience because of the manner director Ravikumar has executed the scenes.
A.R.Rahman’s score is also not impressive when compared to his recent works in Kochadaiyan and Kaviya Thalaivan. The usual Rajni introduction scenes with thundering music is missing to the dismay of his hardcore fans.
We can go on pointing out the good and bad points of the movie but nothing will stop the Indian cinema audience all over the world to flock to the theatres to once again catch a glimpse of the heartthrob style-hero, that is Rajnikanth.
Rajnikanth will not disappoint them, but it is K.S.Ravikumar who has disappointed all of us!
-R.Mutharasan
