At last, Shankar has fulfilled his deepest, darkest geek fantasies

Move over the Shankar who tirelessly explores themes of corruption using an appalam manufacturer CEO or a retired and ageing freedom fighter or a schizophrenic Brahmin lawyer or a 40-year-old do-gooder NRI ex-IT expert who has a fetish for changing hairstyles every one third of the movie with a generous dollop of colourful and unnecessary songs, gorgeous and lithe heroines whose IQ levels are questionable, tonnes of explanations about the story and completely useless SFX.

Enter a Shankar who does away with the opening song for a superstar, prefers to explore the theme of technology going amok in the wrong hands, with a generous dollop of colourful songs, a drop-dead gorgeous and lithe heroine whose IQ level I don’t care about, rather little explanations about the story and moderate-quality SFX.

Endhiran is director Shankar’s complete geek fantasy come alive, in all its Rs 16.5 billion (SGD 50 million) glory. It is the most expensive Asian movie ever, boasting the most commercially-viable actors in Indian cinema today, an Award-winning music composer and sound designer, Hollywood-based make-up, stunts and SFX.

Sun Picture’s Big Picture

Shankar has delivered on the goods with the funding that Kalanithi Maran has faithfully signed away in anxious anticipation of multiple returns. The final product is a sweat-worthy work of 2-plus years and thousands of technical crew. Many of the ideas and images in the movie have made their "teaser" appearance in Shankar's earlier movie - in Endhiran, all that is unleashed.

Will Endhiran resonate with Rajini’s fan base in Tamil Nadu? I don’t think so. There are several staple, spoken and unspoken rules of a Rajini move that Endhiran has broken – one of it I mentioned earlier. The movie has also treaded on the fatal Azhagiya Tamil Magan minefield – using a idolised actor/demigod/superman as both the protagonist and antagonist in a movie. The “Thalaiva! Beat the shit out of him!” moment never comes for the thousands of his faithful followers.

But this is where I applaud Shankar for doing some auteur work – this is the vision of one man, right down to the tiniest of details. There are several remarkable moments in the film, some which are listed in my *spoiler* section below. He and Kalanithi have taken a calculated risk to make a movie for Rajini’s international fans – not just his domestic ones. But still, there is enough wonderful creative merger of Indian/Tamilan cultural nuances with the sci-fi-heavy plot that tries to make sceptics into converts.

Rajini Rocks but can’t dance

For those of us (like me) who were whining that someone younger and more agile could have done Endhiran, Rajini puts a robotic boot on all our butts. There’s no one as charismatic as him to pull this off. The movie belonged to him, completely.

But his age is showing – our friend finds it very difficult to do his dance moves. Ash was doing most of the jumping, hopping, prancing, bending and, er, the robotic steps. Rajini was waving his strong arms and walking here and there to the beat. Which only he can pull off and can be forgiven.

Ash Rocks. But bimboism lurks

Ash is gorgeous. She looks like the 36-year old she is, but really, she’s still hot. Her role is kind of substantial, but as the movie progresses, she has less and less things to do, and less and less things to say.

SFX: SUX?

So, for a Rs 16.5 million movie boasting Hollywoodian standards, you must expect Hollywood SFX right? Sure, the robots were all there. The Terminator, I/Robot models all made their cameos with their own synthetic skins, eyeballs, arms, legs, everything. But the graphics were a far, far cry from Hollywood – remember Spider-man 2 and 3, where some scenes of Spidey were obviously cartoonish? Go 5 notches down and you get Endhiran-style cartoonaphics.

Gaping holes

In Endhiran, Shankar does away with most of his classic "explanation", letting Rajini’s body language do the talking. In fact, Shankar goes one step ahead and leaves out explanations at crucial parts of the movie which defy logic (which, anyway, is the norm in Shankar fare).

Relax lah

The question is, even for an international movie, it has several major plot loopholes which, I’m afraid non-Tamil international audience are going to laugh it off as Tamil movie eccentricities.

But why be afraid? At least people are going to know about Rajini and what Tamil movie technicians and Shankar are capable of. And so what if they laugh? If they want to watch Hollywood fare, they can just rent and watch I/Robot. Humph.

In the end, my take is to just to enjoy the movie and praise everyone involved, instead of writing a review of the movie in my blog. But I need to get it out of my system first.

*Spoiler Alert*

Remarkable Scenes

- The opening credits.

- The totally downplayed entry of Rajini.

- Electromagnetic Chitti attracts all metallic weapons from the baddies, to the extent that he strikes a pose of a Hindu Deity, complete with weapons sprouting from his back. Genius of a shot.

- Bad Chitti trying to locate good Rajini among an assembly of Bad Chittis.
- Ash in all the scenes she appears. Including the one with multiple Ashes!
- The self-dismantling of Chitti – teardrop-worthy.