Sivaji @ sharjah !

there are some movies which cannot or should not be reviewed ,Rajni movies definitely fall in that category.Don't get me wrong here , the reason why we cant review it is , reviews dont matter , the story or ensemble cast doesnt matter , a Rajni movie is above all these things , its a phenomenon in itself. A lot of ppl who are not from south may not understand , but Ranjni is not an áctor' in Tamil Nadu (actually entire south ) he is THE 'Superstar'. He appears in only 1 movie in a couple of years and fans eagerly wait for his darshan. By fans its not just rural folk/lower class , but city folks too and a huge crowd of techies/software engineers who are spread all over the world.Blogosphere is full of blogs about how eagerly they are waiting for superstar's movie !
Though im not a big Rajni fan , i feel you just deny the fact the man has the charisma n appeal and is a phenomenon , movies with Rajni needs just Rajni , fans just want a darshan with typical style n mannerisms.So when i set out to watch the movie 'Sivaji' on a hot sultry evening in Dubai , i had my expectations (-> superstar + lots of style , action , some comedy and a cute girl with values as heroine) in the right place , which i believe is important while watching movie of any genre. it was a monday evening in Dubai and the movie hall we were going to had 300 seats , like in India , here also Rajni sells and we could not get tickets at all in Dubai ! So we headed out to nearby city of Sharjah in a cab from dubai ! When the movie had released , i was earlier amused when i heard tales of ppl from Chennai going to other cities to watch the movie and suprisingly here i was doing the same.getting there was in itself an interesting , movie like experience , getting cabbies and arranging the trip to shrajah for 8 of us and seeing a new city was memorable.
We saw lot of southindians out there and saw a shop called madras grocery , where some us bought pickles n such typical tam stuff and then we followed it up with an early dinner @ Saravana bhavan ! it never felt like we were in middle east , we sitting in a huge table and talkin in tamil and the whole place was full of south indians that really set the mood for the evening.
So lemme get straight to the movie , the recipe ( perfected for Rajni movies over years) was there , the ingredients were definetly there , ppl handling it were the best lot of tamil cinema ( shankar n his crew is the best u can think of ) but the final effect was not what i was really looking forward to ! it simply was not what i wanted , something was missing considering the hype , the potential of ppl involved the final effort was def not justified , but who cares , its a Rajni movie they say and he is there and i guess thats all counts for most !for ppl like me who were looking for a 'movie' along with superstar, there's bound to be some dissapointments.Having said that it was not all that bad i definetly though it was worth my dirhams !
Rajni was usual self and was in top form , supporting cast was adequate , Shriya was nice eye-candy and fitted the role , 'item-girl' Nayantara was wow ! Vivek was in top from with his one-liners n his terrific comic timing with Rajni had everyone in splits. The first half was just not what i had in mind , it was a let-down for me personally , a view shared by most ppl in my group. the story was typical Shankar stuff , one man taking on the system for the benefit of masses , it was fight against money laundering /black money in this particular case. But dialogues and pacing of songs ( though masterpieces by themselves ) was really bad !but i guess overall the movie must have addressed Ranji's fan base , it was for the masses, it had all the fantasies of tamil male viewer , there were references to MGR , sivaji and even Rajni's prev films , i liked the bit "enna koduma saravana"and ref to vadivelu during comedy scenes , all in all a movie for the fans ...but still felt that it as a movie lacked the punch we wud have expected ...
i read this one the movie reviews and when i saw the movie , i realised how true it was , there was scene were rajni while trying to woo shriya gets stuck on a track & is about to be run over by the train. the same was true for movie til then , it was bout to be run over by the expectations and if it proceed at that pace would have been smashed to bits n pieces. But shriya comes along waving here duppata n saves the hero and funnily after that point film also gets saved. The pace picks up , Rajni starts to kick ass and get into the role we are familiar with the trademark style satements , superhero stunts and dialogues all fall into place and it is an amzing journey after that. Most of our movies begin well and lose the fizz subsequently and endings are weak points in most of Indian movies , but here was a glorious exception , i absolutely loved the last 15 min , where Rajni transforms himself into MGR from Sivaji , his appearance n screen presence was terrific and the last 15 min made the movie for me ! The movie is supposed to have one of the highest budgets in Tamil Cinema , agreed the sets were grand n all , but still was wondering where all that money went , the final 5-10 min gave me an idea of how so much money was spent ;-)