Eid Mubarak folks!!!
Wishing for love, peace and understanding to take over all
negative emotions of hatred and destruction across boundaries.
With the Eid holiday falling on Friday, this was a long
awaited weekend and more awaited it was for the temple doors would be thrown open for its worshipers once every
year. And that once was today.
Getting off the bus, the sight before me was greeted with
collective gasps. A lone building stood beside the not-much-frequented road
with hundreds of people crowding the decent empty space it overlooked. The
place was brimming with people who were overflowing onto the nearby road. Long queues of head-strong visitors stood
patiently waiting for the ticket counter to open. Getting tickets won’t be any
easy this time. After all, it was the most awaited day for the holy followers.
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| The devotees waiting patiently for the tickets |
One hour into the line, it started raining. But, even the
rain gods couldn't deter their strong will.
We friends took turns standing in the line for tickets. As, I was serving my turn, I caught myself
blankly staring at the huge poster adorning the front wall of the building. The
afternoon sun’s rays shone on the poster that had the goddess striking a pose with
a knife mostly used by butchers.
The god, not far behind, was in full black attire and black
glares striking another pose of running in the opposite direction. Waiting in
the queue felt like forever. Staring at people and their clothes helped a bit. My
turn, again. Again I looked up. Now, orangish-red light of the setting sun
illuminated the poster. It had been
close to 3 hours. The poster helped immensely in gathering courage whenever we
were losing it out. To spread the word of holding a little more, the pilgrims
shouted his name, 3 times in a row with full devotion and a certain kind of
hope. We were almost there.
| A still from the movie. Photo Courtesy: Internet |
Chuck the not-so-important part. Cut to scene 2.
Inside,
was a spacious hall. Most seats were already occupied. We managed to get the
front seats. It began and the crowd behind welcomed them with whistles, claps,
hoots, screams all overflowing with love. We were on- board on one of the most
awaited movies of 2013 and SRK’s Eid gift for his fans, CHENNAI EXPRESS.
The
movie has a phisss start. Starting credits
have Deepika’s name flashing before SRK’s. Nice! The movie’s scene transitions
have been creatively dealt with. Interesting! Deepika is good. SRK with his
peculiar pose of spreading hands in the air with both legs apart, strikes to
connect with his fan base with his punchline “Don’t underestimate the power of
a common man”. Music by Vishal-Shekhar is soothing. Tera raasta and Title are my
personal favourite. South superstar, Priya Mani comes in for 1 2 3 4 get on the dance floor to
shake a booty with SRK in fluorescent pink and orange glittery skirt blouse.
The movie can be referred to for its excessive display of lungis,
fat strong built, dark skinned men, Tamil twang and words, and the utterly disappointing
but feet thumping Lungi dance song ( Puhhleesss, respect the ‘r’
people! The word is ‘Thalaivar’ and not ‘Thalaiva’ as used by Honey Singh Ji.)
| A poster of the film. Photo Courtesy: Internet |
Rohit Shetty makes his presence felt. Yes! He is there in
the movie. But not as a character but as the colorful cars which keep flying
from this corner to other, blowing up, turtling over in between. Some sequences are illogical. Well, don't look for logic when you are watching a masala Bollywood film like this.Not to forget, a very predictable story-line. Few of the
concluding action sequences can remind you of those from Om Shanty Om. In many
of Rohit’s interviews, when being asked," What is different about your film?", he
spontaneously answers, “SRK”. This can be so vividly felt from watching it. Its
SRK all the way, be it the famous songs from his earlier movies which he aptly
twists to suitably convey whatever he wants to say to Deepika in the presence of
her so-called cousin brothers. 40 % of the movie is in Tamil. Has a long tried
and tested climax of having a lengthy emotional dialogue delivery by the hero wherein he
preaches about the basic message of the film followed by the tussle
between the protagonist and antagonist. No brownie points for guessing. The hero
beats up the villain to near death, getting drenched in blood and mud along the way.
To fill up the frame standing in a corner is the cruel dad holding on tightly
to the daughter’s hand. There, the hero suffers a bone-fracturing punch from
the ugly villains and here the daughter screams his name repeatedly. All this happening
simultaneously for almost 20 minutes. Urrrghhh!!! I m bored! :(
Few sequences after the interval try hard to make you laugh
but fall flat on the face. There is no romance between the lead pair in the
first half and suddenly they make good use of the second half to feel love and
make the other partner realize it. The movie easily loses track just after the
interval. The first half is pretty entertaining with SRK himself taking a
satire on his famous train sequence from DDLJ. SRK tries keeping the audience
in splits and succeeds to some extent. You can’t take out Rahul from SRK. Can you? Or would you?There are a few scenes that give us the uncontrollable giggles but
that wasn’t enough to hold our interest in the film for too long.
I could feel myself floating on the surface of emotions the
film had to offer. My wish was to get drowned in it. Anyways, worth a watch to
have a fine, entertaining evening . And if you ask me, whether it was a paisa vasool movie, after standing for
tickets for 3 long hours, then, well..hmmm... not really.
How do all the bad
reviews matter? After all, whenever God will descend on earth to bless his
devotees, he can be sure to be showered upon unconditional love. ;)
| A still from the movie. Photo Courtesy: Internet |
P.S. If you are a die-hard SRK fan, then I think I can
assure myself that after you have read these 1000 words, my life is critically in danger.
P.S. Any suggestions for future posts? Feel free to send in your suggestions and requests here or on my e-mail id: aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com . Hope to hear from you soon :)
P.S. Any suggestions for future posts? Feel free to send in your suggestions and requests here or on my e-mail id: aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com . Hope to hear from you soon :)
