Review of Baba:
*************** Caution: (Spoilers) If you have not watched the movie you may want to skip this review. ***************
Story: =====> Rajini has penned the story. It shows :P The story is too involved theology to appease the regular expectations of rajini fans. The movie starts with rishis in different temples realizing with a start that something important is going to happen. Then they all accumulate at "Kalikaamball" temple to discuss the issue with the couple to give birth to rajini. It seems Rajini was a hermit in last birth and is to be born again to finish all his karmas.
Rajini grows up as an atheist and then does all the usual expected good deeds like helping poors tortured by politicians and rowdies. He encounters "Ippo ramaswamy", a minister, during these clashes. In the mean time Manisha's family moves to the neighbourhood and they fall in love with each other.
Manisha's father is a great astrologer and he checks Rajini's horoscope and predicts great future for him. In the mean time wayward elephants make it a habit to adorn Rajini with garlands :P Rajini usually gets some weird nerve contractions which result in him doing the "mrighi" mudra (in my childhood I have used this to shadow deers in candle light:)
One fine day, Rajini realizes that he would not get Manisha. He is then guided by a rishi into a cave (in Madras!) and taken to Himalayas! This happens in a 10 min trek!
There Rajini meets the Mahavadhar Babaji who lives there for 2000 years. It seems he was a friend for Jesus and Guru for Kabirdass etc. This Babaji then grants a mandhra to Rajini with which he can realize 7 boons.
Rajini comes back to Madras by the same cave and then tries to check the mandhra by asking kites to fall on his laps (I would believe anything if I can go to Himalayas by a 10 min trek entering a cave in Madras but I would first get my head examined:). He wastes two boons like this. Then he checks the mandhra to get 10 lakhs and to talk with Neelambari. Finally he ends up with only one boon.
By now everybody in town comes to know about the last boon. I cant believe that a CM, a minister and others would believe in such garbage and go at any lengths to get the boon from Rajini, but unfortunately they do.
Finally they try to take the boon from Rajini by using blackmagic! Then the movie becomes worse than a third rate Vittalacharya movies. Actually Vittalacharya movies are better because (a) we know what to expect (2) they usually have a story glorifying a God and not a man! The black magic guy starts the usual rituals of "sooniyam" with a strand of hair and "kaladi mann" etc, but only manages to kill Rajini's mom.
Finally Rajini is post with the question of the path he has to take and the climax shows which one he chooses.
Direction: =========> Within a few minutes I realized that the director was clueless. I dont blame him because the story is very confusing. For some reason, we always see the rishis standing in line, and giving blessings by raising hands like zombies in "night of the living dead" movies. The whole movie is in bits and pieces without any fluid relevance between most of the scenes. We get to see two flashbacks for single incident. The love between Manisha and Rajini lacks build up. We find Rajini taking Manisha to meet the villain. The list is endless. There was not even one good impression by the director.
Music: ======> A.R.Rahman has never been a great back ground music composer. But in this movie we realize at many points that the music either is not at all relevant or too soft for a Rajini movie. The songs are all very ordinary. I cant imagine how this crew dared take a Rajini movie without a good introductory song. But we cant blame the MD very much as he also seemed to have got confused with the story. Rahman composed music for this movie from London and it shows, badly!
Screenplay: ==========> Done by Rajini again. Sometimes a bad story can be lifted to great heights by screenplay. Rajini denies that chance for this movie. We see a crazy zig-zag of events without stressing anything on the story. Nothing is convincing in this movie to justfy what follows next. 1. Love between Rajini and Manisha. Starts out of nowhere and extinguishes as such. 2. Relevance of Rajini's horoscope to the mainline story to be made such a big issue. 3. Rajini's change to become a devotee. Actually when Nambiar died, I was happy! 4. Rajini's intelligence factor. You are seeing a babaji who lives for 2000 years in a light form. You have just crossed the Indian subcontinent with a rishi. You have made two kites fall into your lap. Even then you would not belive in miracles and require an uncle to die to infuse the change! 5. I dont even want to talk about the counter magic garbage.
6. Out of nowhere Rajini gives a lecture to the CM about people, politics and what the CM should be doing. He does this with a knife on the CM's throat in CM's bullet proof car which he entered by escaping the bullets from several black cats' machine guns. Then he gets out of the situation without a scratch!
Comedy: ======> This is the only relief in the movie. Goundamani saves the otherwise drag movie. Rajini-Goundamani combination works really well in some situations. A positive thing to see is that Goundamani critisizes all the events just as I have done above.
Cast: =====> Rajini and Goundamani are the only two characters you would see throughout the movie. All the rest including Manish do not feature more than 15 mins.
Punch!: ======> Rajini says "Pomballainga vellile pona kettu poiduvaanga. Amballainga veetla irundha kettu poiduvaanga". Nonsense statement and rightly critisized by women right organisations.
Comments: ========> It is very sad to see a star like Rajini to end up taking such a trash. From the above you may not have realized, but I am a hardcore Rajini fan. I guess I can only long for movies like Mannan, Padayappa, Annamalai, thillu mullu, thambikku endha ooru, mullum malarum etc!
Final note: ==========> Dont waste your money. Avoid this movie. If you ignore the advice, you will end up either as confused as Rajini or as disappointed as me.
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