Rowdy Rathore: Cheap Thrills, Gratuitous Gore

by Yayaati Joshi

[box]If you expect Irving Wallace to deliver a Salman Rushdie, you’re the fool, says Yayaati Joshi about Rowdy Rathore.[/box]

When we watch films, we carry expectations—from the actors, the directors, the musicians and the rest of the crew. In a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, you’d expect the art director to play an important part. In Brian De Palma’s films, the special effects team and the second unit director are expected to deliver. In short, expectations from every director/actor should be based on their collective work. The naïve moviegoer would expect the same thing from all movie directors—right from Hitchcock to Kashyap. The smart one will take each director for who he is—what his oeuvre as a whole represents, and then set his expectations accordingly. Or, that’s the theory I want to postulate about good viewing.

Writing a review for a film like Rowdy Rathore is easy—there are glaring mistakes, egregious takes and unwanted violence. There’s also a pinch of guilty pleasure in the visual thrills—Akshay’s buffoonery, so used to it we are, that it now seems pleasant; Sonakshi’s waist—we’ve all seen the ‘before’ and ‘after’ weight loss snaps of her, and one feels good to see that exercised her way to potential stardom. But the harder part about Rowdy is not the ‘what’, but the ‘why’. Prabhu Deva, once known for his contortionist-like dancing moves, has donned the director’s hat lately—one that doesn’t fit him too well—except that the box office has a different story to tell. His first film—Wanted, a blood and gore affair just like his second one, was a huge success. It further strengthened Salman’s fan base, which like Akshay’s consists of the masses—the common man, unmoved by the English-speaking and -acting Khans and Kapoors. Rowdy Rathore is Akshay’s “Wanted”—another film that will no doubt do well enough at the box office, but will push both the actor and director one step away from creating good cinema.

Deva could have made a different film—but like Irving Wallace, he had his audiences chosen. Right from the pompous posters of the film, to the outlandish songs—Deva didn’t pretend that the film belonged to the Ingmar Bergman class of moviemaking. But why? Was it the budget? Surely, with in-your-face product placements of shopping malls and vests, money was not a problem. The intent was.  Read ‘problem’ in the broader sense of moviemaking—with the given resources, Deva could have chosen the film to become a different entity, a differentiated product—a twist in the tale perhaps, longer takes and more gracefully choreographed action sequences, more soulful songs, less glittering posters ones that are portrait-like and meaningful; or just when Indian Cinema’s centenary is being celebrated, a movie that could go to international film festivals and undo the damage that Ra.One did. But of course, freedom of expression is not just limited to naysayers and protestors—it includes filmmakers as well. What can one say if the director wanted his film to be a mindless action film—not even one that had the grandeur of Die Hard—but the violence and plot of Singham?

Perhaps I am being too critical of genres here—who’s to say that Rowdy is a bad film? Trade analysts expect it to not only recover its production cost, but cause enough sale to keep the producers counting their money. The only thing that a film like this teaches us is that like literature, cinema is vast—and has to be viewed with a wider gaze—encapsulating all its forms—even the ones that on the face of it seem hollow. For who knows, 500 years from now Rowdy and Wanted could become the subject of doctoral thesis—‘Rise of violence in Indian cinema: the trends of yesteryears, and the contributing factors’.

But wait, this was supposed to be a review, and I realise I have written an opinion-heavy piece without directly approaching the subject—was the film good or bad, was it watchable? Here’s my subtle retort: In one of the posters of the film, above Akshay Kumar’s painted picture, the following words are written: “Don’t angry me” (sic). That’s what I’d like to say to Prabhu Deva: “Don’t angry me—with another film like this one”.

Film Freak is an exclusive monthly column by Yayaati Joshi, who, well, is a film freak. It features movie reviews and essays on various aspects of Indian and world cinema.

Yayaati Joshi is a man with simple tastes and intense beliefs. Contrary to the bling associated with the capital city, he prefers the company of close friends, an engaging book or an Alfred Hitchcock movie. His placid demeanour is often mistaken for reticence; Yayaati is a self- proclaimed loner, whose recent pursuits include his foray as a budding writer. Yayaati blogs at http://rantingsofadelusionalmind.wordpress.com

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