Much hyped Masala. Review on Sivaji - The Boss Movie

He entered the screen with a shabby coat and dusty look. The gate opened to his query -'Is this Bhairavi's house?'. The dark magnetic face then made history. Rajni, at first was a villain in Tamil screens, and then matured into a different hero with author backed roles like'Mullum Malarum', 'Aarilirundhu Aruvathu varai', 'Bhuvana oru kelvikkuri', 'Johnny' etc. His style was so dynamic, that very soon he became a super star. Gradually, the producers and directors took him away from realistic roles, to build an artificial aura of super stardom around him. And'Batcha' was one film in which his style, mannerism and an intelligent screenplay aimed to reach the masses reached the peak.

Shankar, once an assistant director to S.A.Chandrasekar(father of Vijay) and who was acting in  small comedy roles as a side kick of Janakaraj,   from the beginning concentrated on big budget action movies, and has become one of the costliest directors in the country. He has exploited  all kinds of special effects for his films, the dual role in'Jeans' for instance, and has been using top class technicians .

Actually the role of Arjun in'Mudhalvan' was written for Rajnikanth, and only now in'Sivaji' the two top stars in their respective fields have joined together. The theme is a rehash of mostly all Shankar films - a single man's tirade against the evil and corrupt society and how he wins, right from Gentleman, Indian, Mudhalvan and Anniyan. The same old corrupt govt. offices, officers, ministers, comedy sidekick, unbelievable fights overloaded with special effects and a stupid message in the end, all mixed together to give a super hit.

The hero is a software engineer from the States, and he returns home with 250C and his ambition is to build free Engineering colleges, free Medical Colleges and hospitals for poor students and patients. His parents live in a palatial palace situated in the middle of some acres. He is so innocent or a fool, that he thinks he can straightaway build these buildings and start the institutions in India. And the villain is Adhiseshan, a rowdy turned suave business tycoon who runs chains of colleges and hospitals and earns in crores. It seems he is the only one of this kind here and there are no other private parties like him around. He is irritated of the idea of free institutions, in fear of pulling his shutters down, so he plays spoilsports. The innocent / ignorant hero, though a great software engineer is very poor in managerial skills. He doesn't appoint any executives or managers for the purpose. Alone with his sidekick, he runs from pillar to post to realise his dreams, but alas, the ministers and officers drain him out of his last dollar too. Meanwhile, he is romancing with, of course a new young Shreya, in lengthy and costly dream sets, erected by Thotta Tharani. And the cost of these beautiful and enormous sets should exceed the building of an engineering college itself. Okay, everything, including his wrist watch, has been seized by the bank officials and Sivaji comes to the streets with his parents and sidekick, and without a single naya paisa in his pocket. The generous Adisheshan offers him a new profession - begging and starts it with his'boni' of a one rupee coin.

Once the coin reaches his hand, Sivaji turns worldly wise and intelligent too, like Adi. He uses the coin to give a phone call to Adisheshan, that an income tax raid is going to take place, and asks him to shift his documents to a safe place. And of course these documents reach the hands of Sivaji. He follows the same style with all the black money tycoons in the country and amasses sacks and sacks of currency and documents in an old paper godown. Then he contacts some Hawala people, and makes the black money white, as donations from The States and European countries for the Sivaji foundation. and .Yawn.

Sivaji is killed and another MGR returns, there is a great fight with loads of currency flying in the air, and Adi being killed in a stampede etc etc. and the title rolls announcing that the black money in India has been abolished and prays for the dream to be fulfilled, and the lengthy movie comes to an end.  Rajini has been given a new look in this film, supposed to be young. Loads of pancakes have been applied on his face. Somebody from the north is the costume designer and he has been giving lengthy interviews on how he designed these fabulous designs etc. The hair dresser's interview describes how she toiled to make dozens of different styles of wigs to suit the super star, and the only scenes which are liked by the audience are in which the hero throws all his wigs off and comes naturally as MGR, tapping his head, without a single hair on his top!

And talking of the special effects, even in the first scene, when Sivaji is brought to the jail, the background shots are mixed with b/w and colour layers, God knows why.  The usual fights where the fighters fly and somersault in slow motion or freeze shots come and go. They have used 24 layers in these scenes, and I really don't know what they mean. One thing I found in this film is the clarity of the prints. In an interview, I read that instead of 2k resolution the prints have been enhanced with 4k resolution, and you can feel the difference. The colours and lights are so bright and give a new experience. Many sequences remind of'Chandramukhi' - The first song in the outdoors, the main crew appearing in the song, the hero given a different character towards the climax. Much cannot be said of the songs or bgm. Very loud and ear shattering, and following the lyrics is another difficult job.

Many comments in other reviews of Sivaji say, that in Rajini's film you should not seek logic, why are you seeing it if you hate him etc. etc. No, this is a much hyped film by the producers, directors and the media and must be seen once, for the publicity it has gained, at least. And if you go for it second time. sorry no comments!