The Khiladi’s rowdy return

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First, two things. One, Rowdy Rathore is not Dabangg. And two, it is not as annoying as I had imagined it would be. Rowdy Rathore is silly, funny, boring and gory in equal measure, but it is not as exasperating as some of Akshay Kumar’s recent attempts, and that’s mainly because it sticks to the script and screenplay of a hit 2006 Telugu film, Vikramarkudu, which was actually written by three people, including its director S.S. Rajamouli.
That Prabhudeva, whose last Bollywood jaunt, Wanted in 2009, involved Salman Khan and the script of another hit Telugu film, Pokiri, was attracted to Vikramarkudu is understandable. And that Akshay, hoping that Prabhudeva will do for him what he did for Salman, also makes sense. But why would Sanjay Leela Bansali, who has only shown aversion to any sort of violence, want to bankroll this film baffles and interests me.
Bhansali’s limited input in this juvenile pot-boiler sticks out — a room full of diyas hanging from the ceiling is gorgeous and totally out of place. Why he didn’t bother to look at the script of a film set in and meant for the south and fix it to suit the north is what’s troubling me.

Rowdy Rathore opens in Mumbai where a little girl is waiting in a hospital, listening to her dead mother’s lalla-lalla-lori on a Walkman when a goonda type looks through the glass door and telephones his boss Baapji (Naseer) in Devgarh to report that “Rathore is alive”. To verify, Baapji gets Rathore’s coffin dug out and it is confirmed — yes, Rathore may be alive and ticking on that hospital bed. Baapji flings a framed photo of Rathore which, not paying too much attention to the up-turned moonch and police uniform, is identical to the two-bit chor, Shiva (Akshay Kumar), we meet next.
Shiva operates with his side-kick, 2G (Paresh Ganatra), and they share a house that’s more like a godown for stolen public property. It is funny, this house, full of hospital beds, orange traffic cones, mandir donation boxes, huge dustbins and even a metal detector.
One day, while stealing random cellphones, Shiva spots Paro (Sonakshi Sinha), a big girl who is in town to attend a wedding. Here we must pause and mull Shiva’s ability to rewind time. He can do that, just like we can to a cassette player, and then replay. He does that often when he sees Paro. He likes looking at her, again and again, especially at her long waist. She doesn’t mind and swings her hips in excited delight.
They fall in love and she tells him to stop doing chori-chakari. He says okay, but plans one last one and this is the one that brings that cute little girl, the one who was waiting at the hospital, into his life. She calls him papa and hugs him.
Almost immediately, a large gang of Devgarh goons start chasing them, calling Shiva "Rathore". But before they can get to him, Vikram Rathore (the man from the portrait) materialises, and slices, cuts, slits many a goons till his own head is hit and he gets dizzy. Vikram, you see, has a dimagi chot and he can, in the middle of a fight that he is winning, get dizzy and get killed. The only thing that can save him is water, and it does. Twice. Third time he is not so lucky.
Rathore, we learn, was Devgarh’s assistant superintendent of police who knew no fear, not even when he came face-to-face with Devgarh’s demon, Baapji. In fact, he often twirled his moustache, like Chandra Shekhar Azad, even after he killed Baapji’s son.
Shiva must now... well, you can deduce what happens next.

Rowdy Rathore is enjoyable, and if you like action sequences where knives fly and land straight in victim’s mouth, where villain bursts out of a 10-headed Ravan, where the hero slashes men with a sudarshan chakra on a stick, then you will like this film more than I did.
What I enjoyed the most is that RR marks the return of Akshay Kumar: the cutie pie from Singh is Kinng, and the dhishum-dhishum Khiladi. Well, almost. Akshay gets to say some idiotic and some heavy lines, and his comic timing is very good, resulting in some truly hysterical sequences. But what’s really nice is that Akshay, who lately seemed so pleased with himself that he didn’t even bother to act, assuming that just gracing us with his laughing, hamming presence was enough, is a little less sure of himself here and so he has tried hard.
Though Shiva/Vikram has Chulbul Pandey’s Bihari chick, and he goes to a lawless, dusty world to settle old scores, Rowdy Rathore’s setting, its politics and its villains lack Dabangg’s realness and reason. Baapji & Co. are unkempt cavemen who are so loathsome and evil-looking that we know their fate the moment we spot them. Shiva/Vikram is no Chulbul because the screenplay has no space for even one introspective moment, probably because of Akshay’s limited repertoire.
Also, the word dabangg belongs to the world where Chulbul Pandey lives. Rowdy, however, is a word that south India loves while north India is not really keen on it.
Rowdy Rathore uses several comic devices, and has a nice song, Chinta ta ta chitta chitta, which, incidentally, means, “I will take a danda, hit your behind and make chutney of it”. I swear.
Sonakshi looks nice but she really needs to learn some acting.