Chennai Express – Ready, Steady… Derailed

Everything this festive season, right from the Gosht Saalan, to the succulent kebabs, to the Sheerkorma with infinite amounts of fresh dry fruits, to the pompous festive celebrations and crisp clothing seemed so fresh. However, in these times of celebration and fanfare ‘the most awaited’ ‘entertainer’ of the year seems to have fizzled out with its consistent staleness for three hours.

With advance booking galore and reportedly earning 25 Crore rupees on the very first day, ‘Chennai Express’ needs no reviews for people to go watch the film. Shah Rukh Khan Fans may have never even booked their tickets for an actual train journey in advance, as they have for the film. Even those who don’t have the best of the opinion about him (Or supposedly HATE him as they say and prefer to express their anguish against him as curtly as possible) might have wanted to see the film owing to Rohit Shetty’s history of making some of the most entertaining films in recent times. His action packed comic-capers have garnered him enough recognition to the extent of getting him aboard the ‘100 Crore wagon’.

Without being a snob or bore, I owe a lot to Rohit Shetty for making some of the moments in my life as entertaining as they could get with films like ‘Golmaal’ (The first in the series), ‘All the best’, ‘Singham’, ‘Bol Bachchan’. However, all said and done ‘Chennai Express’ fails to make me laugh or even entertain me beyond a few seconds in each sequence.

Chennai Express is not a film; it’s a three hour advertisement with infinite product placements ranging from ‘Nokia’ to ‘Pepsi’ and the most important ‘Commodity’ of all: Shah Rukh Khan. The film sells him to you in abundance quantity with repeated references to ‘DDLJ’, ‘My Name Is Khan’, ‘Dil Se…’ and many of his past films. This makes me inevitably balance a striking resemblance between Chennai Express and An ‘Epiphyte’ (A plant or an organism who grows and solely survives on the support of other plants and organisms).

With nothing fresh to offer, Chennai Express is the love story of a (Not so obedient) boy, a runaway girl, a cruel and unemotional father and a bad ass villain. Yeah! Yeah! It’s any other film from the 80s and 90s, with contemporary settings.  Most of the elements you expect in a Rohit Shetty film seem to be total let downs. With no puns or dialogues that stay with you, a lot of the comedy used seems repetitive throughout the film. If you’re expecting a garage full of cars flying and smashing in and around town, disrupting the regular lives of citizens you are in for a total bummer. It’s seems Rohit Shetty reached the season’s clearance sale at the garage/Junk yard a little late hence had to come back home with a few (100 odd) cars less.

I am no actor, but I do believe that an actor should be ageless and should be able to mould into his/her character with utmost perfection with no boundaries. However, an actor should play the character physically and keeping the mental maturity stable. In spite of repeated reference and emphatically stating that he is aged 40 in the film, Shah Rukh Khan portrays the maturity of a 20 year old. With excessive hamming and over the top performance he is himself from DDLJ, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Baadshah or any other film 15-20 years ago. Shah Rukh Khan simply refuses to grow up time and again (To the extent that his name is also ‘Rahul’). All these put offs supersede his fairly good efforts to maintain a decent comic timing in the film.

Rohit Shetty’s incapability to offer something new and fresh to the audience thoroughly irks me and what genuinely angers me in the fact that under the pretext of ‘Entertainment’ ample liberties are taken. The film definitely fails to conform to what it preaches (The most commonly used dialogue throughout the film states that “Do not underestimate the power of a common man!”) The entire film does nothing but underestimates and challenges the thinking capacity and intelligence of the common man in the audience. Throughout the film, I felt a sense of linguistic incompetence on not being able to comprehend 40% of the dialogues, which were in Tamil. After some time I reached a saturation point and switched off.

Chennai Express fails to be funny, but is nevertheless amusing, with (larger than life) idiocy like the 5 feet something Shah Rukh Khan beating up the 7 feet something antagonist who’s built seems nothing less than one of those ugly beasts on WWE. What also amuses me is Deepika padukone’s discovery of an invisible device to help you download and store new clothes and ornaments for every new day, when you are on the run and her discovery to bring back a nearly dead man from his sleep (Shout out his name thrice). It’s better to be oblivious to the music of the film (Say, perhaps the song ‘Titli’ can be an exception) as it fails worse than the film itself. And with a tribute to ‘Superstar’ Rajnikanth at the end (Which was totally out of the place and completely uncalled for, especially to a viewer like me who doesn’t think of Rajnikanth in high regard and for whom Rajnikanth doesn’t go beyond childish text messages) it’s just the pits.

The only highlights and saviours for the film are the song sequences by Rohit Shetty, mounted with sheer grandeur and beautiful locations supplementing the extravaganza of colours. Full marks to Rohit Shetty for portraying an almost unseen side of India and escaping the sunflower fields with ‘Soniya’, ‘Mahiya’ and breaking away from the Punjabization of Bollywood love stories. And last but definitely not the least, Deepika Padukone. India’s favourite party girl has broken the barriers and gone out of her own realms to perform better than anyone in the film and at the same has managed to look utmost beautiful and elegant than ever before. With her almost authentic Tamilian accent she manages to win hearts of not only her fans but other onlookers as well.

So, how many aboard the ‘Chennai Express’?