Avoid getting on the train babyyyy!!!

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.

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 :)