No matter how much we might want all this to evolve into a powerful commentary on the times that we live in, it doesn't because there's Rajinikanth out there demonstrating his multifarious heroic skills, including those with a nunchaku, and no way can the world stop for him. Moreover, woven into the narrative are two Muslim men in two different periods - they are named Malik and Anwar - and two separate cases of 'love jihad'.īut neither incident triggers any 'big picture' statement about bigotry or moral policing although in the UP sequences Subbaraj repeatedly foregrounds the Islamic structures of Lucknow with noisy processions waving saffron flags and raising threatening slogans. So omnipresent is the megastar in Subbaraj's uneven screenplay that even those plot points that have been yanked from alarming news headlines - in one scene a gang of revivalist goons violently break up a Valentine's Day party, in another a bunch of hoodlums pounce upon a key character after accusing him of the crime of gau-hatya (cow slaughter), both incidents happen in Uttar Pradesh, where parts of the film are set - pale into insignificance. The move pits him against a rightwing politico (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who needs nasal sprays and IV drips for survival and his gangster-son Jithu (Vijay Sethupathi). The film's third act sees him in the guise of a revenge-seeker who relocates to Uttar Pradesh in quest of justice. He loses his wife (Trisha Krishnan) and his best friend (M Sasikumar). The film then goes into a flashback in which Rajinikanth is a rural do-gooder who oversees an interfaith marriage in his village, an act that triggers a violent backlash. In the process, he attracts the belligerent attention of a particularly intransigent student and his strongman father. Kaali also plays guardian angel to a student (Sananth) and his girlfriend (Megha Akash) even as he romances the latter's Pranic healer-mother (Simran). He poops a party thrown for college newbies, stops ragging with an iron hand, and comes down heavily on the substandard food in the canteen.
Kaali swings into action immediately to set the house in order. It is an idyllic campus that has been overrun by unruly students. Once his might has been established beyond question, we see the protagonist, Kaali, take the position of a boys' hostel warden in a college in a hill station.
He is knocked down, gets back on his feet, and then proceeds to demonstrate his infallibility. Rajinikanth's entry scene catches him bang in the middle of a no-holds-barred action sequence. He uses them for entering a space and making his presence felt instantly or for blocking the escape route for his targeted human quarries who are foolhardy enough to cross his path. He does not have to push a door open, It swings open of its own volition when steps before it. He is in familiar terrain playing an unstoppable one-man army who never walks into a room. In Petta, the actor returns to the basics with aplomb. His lines, his dance moves, even a song or two are throwbacks to less complicated times when the megastar and his directors felt no need to think beyond a pure, unadulterated Rajinikanth and of technology-driven ( Enthiran, Kochadaiyan, 2.0) and ideology-inflected ( Kabali, Kaala) screen avatars.
#PETTA MOVIE MOVIE#
Not so much a movie as a fanboy's fond attempt to transport a superstar back in time - to the potboilers that created and defined his phenomenally popular screen persona - Petta, written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj ( Pizza, Mercury, Jigarthanda) and released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, adheres to the Rajinikanth playbook of yore that had fallen a bit by the wayside in recent years.Ī sprightly, power-packed performance from the 68-year-old lead actor that harks back to his Baasha days is bolstered with high-octane action, punchy dialogues and the inimitable swag that separates Rajinikanth from the rest of the world. Cast: Rajinikanth, Vijay Sethupathi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Simran, Trisha