R...RAJKUMAR

half a star

Audience Violent Ho Jaayegi

Mini Review:

Just before the end credits rolled, I laughed out loud when Mukul Dev incited the villagers with, ‘Inko Maaro!’ That’s exactly what you will feel about filmmakers too.

Main Review:

This cinema is a paean to the Crude and the Rude. It goes against everything subtle and gentle. This movie defines paucity of civilized thought.

(Do I hear the argument, ‘This cinema is not meant for critics, it is meant for the masses’. Sure. In that case, read on.)

‘The hero’s thighs are smaller than my biceps’ claims the villain. Whattay dialog. Throw coins at the screen if you have finished admiring massaging pehelvaans and their transparent dhotis (he’s wearing black undies thank goodness, because one pajama clad henchman doesn’t), hairy armpits, an over-dose of muscle (the henchmen have found work in every movie since Dabangg) and a crowd of extra-extra large tits and super-large asses who twerk.

Woo-hoo! The masses love that? Then they’ll love the classy fantasy of, ‘Honeymoon ke liye Paris le jaaoonga, tumhari saree utaar ke aise masal doonga aur phir tumhe yahan (points to lips) mmm (add kissing sound) karoonga...Ho-hoh!’

Wow. Every woman in India (and abroad) was waiting with bated breath crammed in her choli (nary a dupatta covering her what the heroine calls, ‘ding-dong’) for such explicit rape fantasy shared by a man who flexes his pecs while being bathed by women.

But wait, there is gender equality there which you must admire, dear masses. The heroine repeats the dialog, except she’s fantasising about the hero. That makes it all right I suppose.

What is not all right are the fights. Maybe they are realistic. I tried breaking a carrom board over the head of the building watchman (for dozing off on duty), but nothing happened… It did not go through the man’s head, neither did it shatter with that deafening sound. Dammit. Must try again.

As a critic, I only see quarter star worth merit in the perfectly shampooed hair of Mukul Dev. What a pleasure to see it in full slo-mo glory through fights…

The other quarter of the half star goes to the man with iktara who runs in and out of the frame of a song that is not Gandi Baat.

I should be offering more, but I felt rather violent (as part of the masses) and violated (as a critic) after seeing this movie. In a country where filmmakers and stars rubbish reviews regularly (that’s why so many bad-cop/gangster movies continue to bomb), it is my duty to tell you of the wonderful changes watching this movie have brought. Misogyny be damned. Vo-ho! here is a list. Hope you will add to it:

1. I will now with supreme calm gouge out eyes of a live Velociraptor.

2. With my own volition step into magma to check its temperature.

3. Volunteer to diffuse bombs in the absence of a trained bomb squad

4. Walk across a minefield for the common volks.

5. Make running at the bulls at Pampalona voguish.

and to top all this voilence (that’s the hero’s enunciation, so cute naa?):

6. I will kill the spouse of an icchadhari nagin while wearing a violet dress and vomiting.

But first let me change my status message: I have survived R...Rajkumar. Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.