Rowdy Rathore

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 1st June, 2012
Time : 140 minutes
Director : Prabhudheva; Writer : Shiraz Ahmed (remake of Telegu film Vikramarkudu); Music : Sajid-Wajid
Starring : Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Yashpal Sharma, Paresh Ganatra, Nassar

A sizzling first half, aided in no mean part by Sonakshi’s sensuousness, Akshay’s comic timing and some really good laugh out loud moments changes into a fairly ordinary story of revenge, poor villagers and cruel dons & goons in the second half.

Akshay is a small time crook aided by his sidekick, Paresh. A deo ad moment when he is caught by a lady cop, smartly stealing two mobiles from the same guy in the same day and a shot of jewellery walking by itself are the standout funny moments of the first half. Things change when he meets Sonakshi, who’s visiting from Bihar. Romance happens smoothly, with humour and without a hitch. And then a little girl curiously starts calling him ‘Papa’ and life changes completely.

The action in the second half shifts from Mumbai to a village called Devgarh in Bihar. Flashbacks, fights and crass item numbers happen in a plot seen a thousand times before. Nassar plays the long time ruling villain and Yashpal Sharma plays the long suffering honest cop.

I wish the tempo of the first half was maintained in the second. Couple of unneccesary songs add to the general pain, lots of which is inflicted upon the villains and their henchmen and a little reserved for the audience. The daughter is only brought in to attempt to wring a few tears out of the cast and us. The movie is over the top in any case and not amenable to logic but even then there are some ozone layer size loopholes in the story. Also, apart from the ‘Chinta Ta Ta Chita Chita’ tune there is very little musically to offer in the film

Akshay proves once again that if he is given a half decent plot and dialogue he is very good at comedy. Sonakshi is super, though her dialogue delivery needs to improve and I’m sure it will over time. However, there is something about her, her screen presence and charm papering over any acting loopholes. The sequence where Akshay presses an imaginary record player in his head to make her repeat her actions was fun and nicely done.

The fights are gory, lots of ketchup. The dialogues / story has a touch of ‘Dabangg’ about it and is enjoyable to an extent. Its not bad as a loud, mindless time pass, don’t go in expecting anything else and you may not be disappointed.