Rajadi Raja Malayalam Movie
Ajay Vasudev, for his directorial debut with Mammootty in the lead, opts for a done-to-death plot in 'Rajadhiraja' that is unrelentingly dull. Supposedly pandering shamelessly to the 'masses', it makes fun of our basic sensibilities and pokes us right on the face with a theme that is downright droning.
It's a petrol pump that Shekharan Kutty (Mammootty) runs, and the man is one of the most civil and respectable individuals you would meet in the vicinity. He has a lovely family comprising of his wife Radha (Lekshmi Rai) and a daughter. When his wife's cousin Ayyappan (Joju George) drops in, trouble starts brewing in paradise, bringing along with it startling revelations.
What ensues is a riotous affair that has the ordinary man assuming superhuman proportions over night. The baddies who are destined to be thrown about left, right and center with the blow of an arm or the stomp of a foot, make a beeline and get about doing their job, without wasting any further time. A hurricane sets in with the Raja twirling it around at his finger tips.
Hell hath no fury as a Raja scorned, and he makes sure that those around him realize it pretty soon. And with a gory past full of blasts that unearths eventually, we get to see why this Raja is no commonplace man. And no, I have no intentions whatsoever to even dare comment on what the dreaded Raja once had been.
I should admit that I was kinda prepared for what was in store, with the screaming taglines of the film that hogged the hoardings that decidedly stated once and for all that the 'King is Back'. For me though, he had 'come back' last week with 'Munnariyippu', and 'Rajadhiraja' is a film that almost places him back on square one.
I would just like to believe that this was a crazy break that Mammootty took for a while, and that he just wanted to let out some steam after doing some heavy headed stuff like the Venu film. No other reason makes sense to me, for the actor to give his nod to a script that looks like it has been hastily scrapped from a hundred South Indian films that have all had their decent runs years back.
And by square one, I mean those commercial films that have fast started losing their luster, and which have of late, contentedly started calling themselves as mass masala movies. After the few initial claps and wolf whistles that last a couple of weeks, films like 'Rajadhiraja' are hastily forgotten, for gone or those days when a film could flamboyantly flaunt absurdities in the name of entertainment.
To his credit, Mammootty looks piping hot as the Raja, and exudes star charisma in almost every scene that has been written specifically for the star. Apart from the stunning looks that could give many a young actor a run for his money, there is nothing much in 'Rajadhiraja' that is expected from the actor in him, and it seems that he knows this best.
Siby K Thomas and Udaykrishna need to be commended for continuing to believe in the kind of ludicrous stories that they tell, and that too with a conviction that is astonishing. On second thought, perhaps since there is very little real invention involved, maybe it's not that hard anymore.
So for those of you, who have still got a penchant for those masala potboilers of yore that look and sound corroded to the core, 'Rajadhiraja' might be the film to watch this festival season. And for the rest of you, who like me, have to deal with a nagging headache after the deafening show, stay home and enjoy your Payasam.
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