Movie Review: Chennai Express

Mainstream Bollywood in general and Messrs. Shetty & Khan in particular have seldom pretended to offer their audiences high art or content that is designed for intellectual posers, debates or quandaries.  SRK is about magical screen romance.  Rohit Shetty is about crazy, fantastical action.  Together, their new offering tries to combine both and create super duper dhamaka for their audience.

Shetty has never been one for concentrating on great storylines or plots and predictably this one too has a paper thin one. Rahul [SRK] is instructed to drop his dear grandpa’s ashes in Rameshwaram, a place the bindaas dude has probably never heard of!  He boards the Chennai Express with plans of his own but fate – in the shapely form of ai-ai-yo  Deepika Padukone – leaps into his life and from then on its one long, crazy journey into Southie-land, complete with a zillion complications and insanely nutty & entertaining solutions to zoom past and reach destination bliss!

A Rohit Shetty film doesn’t have a history of hawking anything other than bharpoor manoranjan and with King Khan at the helm, the temptation and opportunity is lip-smacking!  For his turn, Shetty piles on the fabulous action scenes, full-on.  The Southie-comedy bit is introduced as an amazing novelty, since SRK is brilliant at over-the-top antics that are audience-friendly.  Deepika too is assigned a role that challenges her and pushes her to raise the bar in a new, exciting space-comedy.  The mad masala that accompanies the cinematic narrative, Shetty-style, hurtles ahead leaving little time to think – the hallmark of masala cinema entertainers!

Does Chennai Express work as it is meant to?  It really depends on your expectation level and what you are looking for.  If you are looking for the hard-core heart-stealing romantic stuff, it has to be ille! SRK is himself in an energetic quasi-new avatar, cleverly mixing up trademark gestures [along with rip-offs from his super hit films from the past] with newly acquired, role-specific ones.  His presence, energy & charisma comes through with all cylinders firing.  Deepika is brilliant, Southie accent & all and is only moving from strength to strength.  A comic action caper – Shetty can be assured of a solid Rs.100 crore plus, hands down!  And SRK, assured – after being sidetracked by the Tiger – of hurtling back, super express speed, to the platform, station & destination he loves residing in: the top!!

Super entertainer and must-watch for all lovers of mindless masala!