SIVAJI - The ????

Eight hours,time taken to fully recover from the effects of watchin unfold on the giant screen, the most hyped tamizh movie of all time. The trailers were watched, dissected and analyzed for a clue as to what the movie would hold for us millions of expectant fans. Trust me, even after watching the movie I am clueless about the happenings in the movie.

It all started wonderfully well, the stylized super star logo and some hep music to go with it. And just when we were expecting him to air drop from a plane straight onto the picturesque landscape and start dancing to his intro song, Shankar surprises everyone with a drastically different intro scene, one of the few pats on the back that go to him. And then of course, all the hooting and whistling came when the super star made his first appearance on the screen.

From here till the interval its a Rajini-Vivek show. The superstar's comic timing standing out and Vivek providing perfect foil makes for some hilarious moments. And in the meanwhile our supposedlly "urbane" villain enters the film. One wonders what on earth made Shankar pick him for this role. It's frustrating to see Shankar totally mismanage his villain. The dialogue delivery is stupendously poor and the cooling glass seems to be there to do a cover up act of Suman's expressionless eyes. And one does have to say, the cooling glass does its job to perfection unlike Suman.

Shreya looks absolutely stunning and adds more than the requisite dose of glamour in the songs,which ooze class. The sets for Vaaji Vaaji and Sahana are mindblowing!! And the efforts that Rajini makes, with the help of his "mama" Vivek to capture her heart gives rise to some of the best moments in the movie. A special mention needs to be given to the banner which welcomes Shreya's family on their visit to our hero's place. In the midst of these light moments a teaser of the actual story is thrust in, lest one forgets what the movie is supposed to be about. The court scene where Rajni admits to his guilt makes absolutely no sense that too considering his defence attorney costs 20 lakhs . Either, the super lawyer doesn seem to have breifed Sivaji on how to face questions in a court of law or Shankar tries to give an image of Sivaji as next only to Gandhiji and Harischandra in trusting the power of truth. Nothing wrong with that, but coming as it does after all the tribulations where truth and correctness has done more harm than good to our hero, we would atleast like him to have some common sense.

The scenes leadin upto to the interval manage to create quite big expectations and the first scene after the interval only seems to convince us more that there are great things to come. On the contrary, the movie goes on a downward spiral that too after promising dizzying heights. What follows are a sequence of events which are very hard to put into words and even harder to digest.

Sivaji hits a goldmine by cashing into the black money of our leading politicians, industrialists, their personal secretaries etc etc. Now, he comes up with a scheme to convert all this black money into "white" so that he can put it to good use through his Sivaji foundations for constructiong hospitals, educaitonal institutes and industrial parks. Honest intentions but pathetic treatment by Shankar makes the whole matter seem like a stroll in the park. Also in the middle, rajni displays dazzling skills on his laptop, to uncover black money details, that would make Vijaykanth's antics with Widows Media Player look like childs play. It was never more easier for our Ministers,MLAs, Thalukdars and naatamais to be bashed up. The office room sequence is barely enjoyable once, but when its done thrice over it gets to the nerves. The fight sequences deserves special brickbats. One wonders whether scenes from Sultan. the upcomin animation flick about our Super star were flicked and a garb of reality tried to be cast on it. Though the first fight sequence manages to raise a few laughs the rest would barely deserve a mention.

By the time the climax arrives, weariness has already set in and Mottai Sivaji's irritating mannerism of playing percussion on his tonsured head is the final nail on the coffin. One wishes the director had used his head better.