Endhiran

I did not want to watch this movie on the first day of its release because of the hype given by it producers (their marketing strategy is to keep on canvassing it till they take up the next project). It is because I always knew great disappointments are caused by great expectations and I did not want Endhiran to be a disappointment to me. So I gave it some time for the expectations of this movie among the audience to settle down and watched the movie nearly after a month of its release.

Since Shankar was one of the few directors whose films I love to watch, my expectations were different from the usual tamil movies as this happened to be the first science fictional movie in the Kollywood and the concept being conceived 10 years ago. And when I heard that the animation/CGI was done by people who had worked in Hollywood movies, I was a bit excited to see what Shankar had in store for Endhiran. Shankar is one of the few directors who use international technology in his films. My expectation from Rajnikanth was his performance as a Robot. This is because, only off late, he has started to do well-learned character roles like a Psychiatrist (Chandramuki), Software Architect (Shivaji) and Scientist (Endhiran). So I expected to watch how he fitted his charm, brace and style into a scientist and a robot character. I did not expect punch dialogues, hero worship dialogues especially of political intent, off-track comedies, forced song sequence into the script and cinema-logic climax as these had no room in a sci-fi movie. Summing up, Shankar’s story plot, Rajnikanth’s performance first time as a scientist and robot and the animation was what I expected before I decided to watch this movie.

When I came out after watching the movie, my friend asked me did I like the movie. I was not able to answer neither I liked the movie nor disliked the movie. For the first half, I was yawning and was asking my friend, who was watching for the third time, when the interval would come. The opening sequence was good and entirely different for a Super Star’s first appearance in the movie. It went straight into the plot where the Scientist Vasigaran works endless hours for more than 10 years to achieve his dream of inventing a humanoid robot, living to my expectation. Then romance scenes follow with a much required song sequence. Since the robot is created in the first half an hour of the movie itself, I was expecting the following sequence of the robot experiencing the human world to be interesting but it failed to entertain me. Chitti helping Sana in studying for the examinations, during the examination, Chitti recharges himself less than a minute in the rail tracks after Sana calling out its name for help, the girl saved by Chitti from fire dying since she was saved naked, Chitti helping the doctors in a very critical baby delivery process after learning human emotions and Chitti speaking with the mosquito in mosquito mode - all these scenes made me feel like I’m watching a typical tamil movie as they were sentimental and not emotional. I felt the tribal song was forced into the script. The part that actually made me stop yawning is when Chitti version 2.0 character is introduced into the plot and the scenes that followed were interesting, especially the fight between the humans and the robots were good. The Arima song was brilliant in terms of musical instruments and technology. Most of Shankar’s movies dealt with law and so there was always a court/police involved sequence in the movie and Endhiran was not exceptional. Climax was bit emotional but still I feel there was always room for better performance.

The first thing to be appreciated here is Shankar’s venture for a science fictional. Indian film industry has used graphics, animation and CGI in the movies, it’s not a new thing but never has a movie used technology right from the first frame to the very last. I could see the hard work of the technicians especially the climax and really needs to be applauded for such an effort put in tirelessly for three years. The second thing to be appreciated here is performance of Rajnikanth. He has proved himself that he’s the apt person to be called the Super Star and no one can beat this performance especially the version 2.0 robot character. Its really a huge thing for a Super Star to do this role with no hero-worship introductions along with message mixed songs, no usual style/mannerism, punch lines that follows throughout the movie and scenes like it-happens-only-in-tamil-cinema kind. Not to forget the efforts put in for endless make-ups by the King of Style. Finally, Shankar. As I told earlier, I knew what to expect from Shankar but if you ask me did if my expectations were met by Shankar in this movie, I would say no. Why because, most of movies dealt with society issues and were of Robin Hood genre where one man fighting the good cause of the nation. To list, you had Arjun in Gentleman, Arjun in Mudhalvan, Kamal in Indian, Vikram in Anniyan and finally Rajnikanth himself in Sivaji. Endhiran did not carry that genre at all in it. My expectations were a typical Shankar movie but what I saw was an altogether different Shankar.  That's why I couldn't answer whether I liked it or not.  And as any Tamil/Indian-movie-only watching group, yes he did satisfy me but as a movie buff, he did not. I have seen many robot based movies and since it was Shankar directing this movie, naturally I expected quality story and better screenplay.

Endhiran is not a typical tamil movie - it’s the first of its kind in Indian cinema.

Endhiran is not a typical Rajnikanth movie - no style/mannerism/punch dialogues.

Endhiran is not a typical Shankar movie - no Robin Hood/no message for society.

It is of a different class that makes the movie to stand out but I would conclude that there is always room for better performance and hoping that one day tamil cinema would come of out the commercialization mind set and start setting new trends.