So much gore with the wind

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Woe. Just look at that crotch potato. Scratching away obscenely, he grins that an abducted woman should pleasure him for a couple of nights more. Snore. Potato’s big brother, who displays Dracula teeth, assents, “Sure, sure.” Get set, then, for sadistic violence galore.

What a splash of gore! Rowdy Rathore, directed by dance machine Prabhu Deva and produced by romanticist Sanjay Leela Bhansali, is a head-crusher, ear-basher, in sum a helzapoppin’ yawntertainer. Adapted from the Telugu hit Vikramarkudu, the outcome is also a Don-plus Kallicharan (double-role business) and Dabbang (peacocksure cop taking on rustic varmints), rolled into one lengthy exercise to present Akshay Kumar as a petty thief-cum-moustache-twirling cop. Biff pow bang, ho-haw-hum. Truly, you are well advised to leave your brains as well as body at home. Sense, logic, clean entertainment are conspicuous by their absence.

Throughout the attempt is to cater to the lowest-common-denominator. In that aim, Prabhu Deva may well achieve a cushy cash-earner. But sorry, as in the case of his earlier slambang saucefest Wanted, he is as far away from a quality product as Planet Earth is from Venus and Mars. The values espoused are patently regressive, to the extent of depicting crime on the streets as a cute vocation. Cellphones are snatched, plump housewives are burgled, and even religious deities are offered a share of the loot. Hoot!

Evidently, the budget is uber-extravagant. In fact, different cities serve as quickie backdrops for a single song-`n’-dance’s antaras. And there are more daredevil stunts than you’d find in a vintage Dharmendra or Amitabh Bachchan flick. So what! So, plenty. How about narrating a plausible story simultaneously? Er, and how about some appropriate casting? Akshay Kumar, at 44, can’t play thirtyish. The heroine is so mismatched that it’s surprising that she doesn’t call her screenmate, “Uncle!” Problem: if investors and the audiences – who’re quite generous with suspending their sense of disbelief – don’t mind, who’re you? It’s only the initial week’s ticket window collections that count.

Till that ideology persists, watch the Mumbai backalley conman (Akshay Kumar) in action — till brakes are applied by a poppet visiting from Patna (Sonakshi Sinha). Our Backalley Badshah taps his forehead to ogle at her in rewind, shows off a magic drumbeat which attracts all girls to rock and roll rightaway, and paws Ms Patna’s errogenous zone: her hips evidently sculpted on a diet of potato chips. Miracle on the way: Backalley Badshah promises to reform. So, she swoons as if she’d just smelt chloroform. Next, out pops a sweet little girl from an antique chest of drawers. Baap re baap, she calls Backalley Badshah, “Daddy!” And everyone in the vicinity goes cross-eyed. Where did this moppet materialise from? Odd, very odd.

Squawk. Prabhu Deva is no fan of Hitchcock. No suspense. Briskly, it is revealed that Moppet is actually the daughter of Backalley’s replica (Akshay Kumar: Part 2). That’s an uptight police officer, who sports an identical moustache (save for a tiny curl), same voice and same smile as the Backalley Badshah. Indeed, they could well be brothers a la Ram aur Shyam. Banish the thought. The screenplay now shifts bag and baggage to a deathly place called Devgarh. The look-alike heroes must instantly restore peace in the land, which essentially means exterminating Dracula, Brother Crotch, a maniacal hit-man, a thousand hoodlums, besides tackling a corrupt minister (are there any other kind in the movies?) – not to forget a stern commisioner who delivers a sermon about how lawman must live with fear. Oh dear. To that, Uptight Cop twirls his moustache some more. Moochh ado about nothing really.

Sigh. There are more chip-chop, frantically edited reels to endure. On surviving the ordeal you stagger out, grateful that the world is still spinning on its axis. Admittedly, the crowd scenes in the rugged, boulder-strewn ruralscape are marvellously handled. Also on the upside, an item number performed by little-known faces is robustly choreorgaphed and fluidly photographed by Santosh Thundiyil.

On the music front, Sandeep Chowtha’s background music is achingly loud. Sajid-Wajid’s songs are blared as if you were hard of hearing. The dialogue strives to be melodramatic or is restricted to yaarghs, yelps and yowls.

Performance-wise, Yashpal Sharma as a long-suffering cop is convincing. Sonakshi Sinha is majorly spunky but almost disappears like Aladdin’t genie in the second-half. She is sorely missed till she reappears for the finale’s hi-jinks. In the twin role, Akshay Kumar frequently shot in mammoth close-ups, is likeable as the Uptight Cop. In the comic portions, any more said the worse.

Bottomwhine: Rowdy Rathore leaves you exhausted, as if you’d come out of a war zone. Recuperate in peace.