Review: Rowdy Rathore
“Don’t Angry Me!”
After a couple of years of making some horrendously bad movies, Akshay Kumar is back, with a movie which has a nonsensical plot, but manages to entertain nonetheless.
Rowdy Rathore manages to live up to its name. It is loud and boisterous, full of peppy songs, crass dialogues and some well-shot action sequences. The plot involves Akshay Kumar in a double role: one as a petty thief in Mumbai, and the other, as his lookalike, a police officer who is ready to give up his life, fighting against crime. When the police officer dies, it is up to the thief to take over his responsibilities and try and fulfil them, maintaining his hidden identity at all points of time. This is a typical, clichéd storyline which offers nothing new, but the overall performances ensure that you sit through the entire movie.
Akshay Kumar is back to what he does best, coupling his funny side, with a high dose of action, taking on fifty goons at a time. Sonakshi Sinha plays the damsel in distress who is saved by our hero while she’s getting robbed and falls in love with him. Not an extraordinary performance, but there is little one can do with a role which has been played in every alternate film for the past three decades in Bollywood. The supporting cast does a fairly decent job as well.
The editing is in pace with the other aspects of the movie, and close-up shots have been used well at times to highlight certain sequences. However, the goof-ups in continuity are even more than the hits Akshay Kumar has delivered over the years. The music is on par with the feel of the movie. The ‘Chinta ta chita chita’ track which plays in the background throughout the movie is high on energy if not anything else, much like the rest of the movie. Sajid-Wajid’s music has a crude 90s feel to it which works well with the visual elements on screen.
Prabhu Deva knows how to tell a bad story well, and he proves it yet again with Rowdy Rathore. Right from roping in Kareena Kapoor in an item number, to making a guest appearance and shaking his feet to a couple of beats, he gets the perfect mix of elements to have the average Indian junta, up and whistling all along.
Incorporating everything which we typically associate with Bollywood, this film marks Akshay Kumar’s comeback to the action genre after more than half a decade of tom foolery and stupidity. The only element of surprise in the movie is the fact that it is produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, someone who doesn’t normally associate himself with purely commercial flicks.
The movie is the third remake of the Telugu movie Vikramarkudu, and with the much-awaited fourth remake in Bengali titled Bikram Singha starring Prosenjit Chatterjee lined up for release, it does a fairly decent job. Though not an extraordinary piece of cinema, it manages to provide the cheap thrills and entertainment that Bollywood buffs love to devour. Watch it to add some masala to an otherwise mundane weekend.
Rating: 3/5
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About the Author: Rajdip Ray
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