By Hindustan Times
Direction: Prabhu Deva
Actors: Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha
Rating:*
Don’t Angry Me! Akshay Kumar bellows this often in Rowdy Rathore. At one point, the command even plays out as background music. I FEEL viewers wish to co-opt the road. To all of the directors, producers, actors who're inflicting eighties-style, low-IQ, deafeningly loud, unapologetically crass, mind-numbing movies on us, I just need to say: Don’t angry me! Don’t exhaust me! Don’t bludgeon me!
Rowdy Rathore beats you to a pulp, cinematically. It’s a constant assault that kicks in once the credit titles roll.
Directed by Prabhu Deva, that is the fourth remake of the tale a couple of super-strong police officer named Vikram Singh Rathore, who twirls his moustache and smashes baddies into the bottom. He's transferred to a village in Bihar, that is so lawless that a baddie kidnaps a police officer’s wife and systematically rapes her over many days.
The baddie’s father and uncle, both glowering, unwashed and vicious, run where. So the cop has to beg the daddy to go back his wife, at the same time as she stands, sobbing, with the rapist son in clear view of everyone.
Needless to say, Vikram Singh Rathore starts to scrub up the joint. But if Rathore is killed in battle, a small time conman named Shiva, who just happens to appear exactly like him, takes his place. Logic, of course, is the last priority here. The theory is to rejoice and luxuriate in a purposefully over-the-top, kitschy, retro-movie. So Akshay swaggers in slow motion and Sonakshi Sinha provides oomph with close-ups of her waist. Shiva refers to her as “meraa maal.”
Is this entertaining? Not for me. There have been a couple of fun moments. For instance, Shiva is one of these smooth thief that he casually steals cellphones while persons are still talking on them. But these are few and much between. Mostly, Rowdy Rathore alternates between ugly violence and crude comedy or rude romance.
The film is another within the line of flicks — lots of which can be remakes from the south — that value masala principally else. But Dabangg or even Wanted, the latter of which was also directed by Prabhu Deva, were way more cohesive and compelling. Rowdy Rathore is pure noise. Only the brave should venture in.
