After 'Om Shanti
Om' and 'Ra.One', this is the third of Khan's films where he plays
the regional card to generate humor. Nonetheless, his role in 'Chennai
Express' is less inane; at least, he doesn't eat spaghetti with curds as in
Ra.One. As with any Rohit Shetty film, there are cars flying before they
blow up into pieces.
Rahul, naam
toh suna hoga, as SRK is called in many of his films, is
required to travel to Rameshwaram to immerse his grandfather's ashes. While
he plans to get off the train mid-way and scoot with his friends to Goa, fate
has other plans for him. Incidentally he helps Meena (Deepika Padukone) and
a few goons to get onboard a running train in DDLJ style, played
repeatedly to make it hilarious.
Following the funnily
remixed Antakshari sessions with Meena, attempting to converse in Hindi so
that the Tamilian goons don't understand it, Rahul understands that she is
being Kidnapped. It turns out that Meena's father Durgeshwara
Azhagusundaram (Sathyaraj) is a Don and wants his daughter to marry another
goon, Tangaballi (Nikitin Dheer) and all that stands in between is the common
man, err, Rahul.
The story is extremely
weak and relies upon SRK's histrionics to make it funny. The many parodies
to Khan's old films and popular dialogs evokes laugher. His popular pose
with outstretched arms now comes with the self-depricating line "Don't
underestimate the power of the common man". It is axiomatic not to
expect logic from its wafer-thin plot made like a formulaic Telugu/
Tamil commercial blockbuster.
Obviously, being a high
budget film, the sets and locales look impressive on screen. Dudhsagar
falls, portrayed as the train stop for Meena's village is shown in its monsoon
majesty. The locations for Tamil Nadu have mostly been re-created in
Panchgani & Wai with some scenes filmed in Munnar and a lake in Kerala
where the village set makes it look idyllic. Visually, there is nothing to
complain about.
The film's weakest
link is Deepika's awful accent. She sounds neither like a Tamilian
she portrays nor her native Kannada accent which is evident in television
interviews. To confirm the awfulness, I did check up with a few Tamilians who
watched this film and each of them expressed disgust at the way she
mouthed those lines. Adding to the mess was her overdone facial expression,
must have been a rub-off from SRK.
Other actors like
Sathyaraj or Nikitin Dheer, who played the towering villain in Jodhaa Akbar did
a reasonable job. The goons are very typical of any of Bollywood's
typecast portrayal of south Indians as being dark and fat. But, going by
the trend of south-style flicks raking in the moolah and being lapped up
so lovingly by movie going public, Bollywood junta has lost its bragging
rights about being better than southern films.
The film's humor is
worthy of a special mention. Along with parodies of SRK's movies, which
we have now got used to in many films, the song-humor is well done. One
joke that stands out is when Deepika innocently asks SRK if he were fifty
years old; and when he expresses shock, she asks if he is actually older
than that!
Music is about
average. Songs like 'Titli',
'Kashmir Main Tu Kanyakumari' and the title track are bearable. Fast
paced '1-2-3-4 Get on the Dance
Floor' could potentially
join the Tamil flavored 'Chinta Ta Chita Chita' or 'Dhinka Chika'
as dance floor favorites.
Verdict: An over-the-top film by SRK as usual with tons
of overacting. The only thing that saves the film is the fact that it doesn't
give you a headache and you can get out of the movie hall smiling, either mocking
at the stupidity of the film or having enjoyed jokes in a brain-dead
mode. Commercially though, the film has been successful.
Rating 4/10: Over-The-Top Shah Rukh Khan minus
the headache
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