Chennai Express- Looked more a Chennai Passenger Train...A long and tad drab too...

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File:Chennai Express soundtrack.jpg
One of the major challenges that directors face is when they carry the baggage of a superstar and have to deliver what they are best at. Rohit's tryst with comedy and action is well known and so also is his timing. His Zameen to Golmaal 3 has been one long journey, but they all seem to carry his distinct trademark stamp. Chennai Express, fails here miserably. We all went with a sense of anticipation and an element of trepidation too. With big stars like the Shahrukh and Depeeka, can he deliver. I think the baggage was heavy and Rohit lost the plot somewhere midway. It could have been a nice plot started nicely and in between Chennai Express became a local train and stopped mid way into too many number of stations. MAKING THE JOURNEY DRAB AT A POINT...

The journey starts well with Deepika's entrance being mint fresh and bringing a sense of bravado to the character. She seemed to be in her elements through the movie and never did she once seem to trip on it. Shahrukh, unfortunately, never looked comfortable, for whatever reasons, and enough justice was not done to the role.

The plot, a classic Bollywood hackneyed stuff, delivered many a times over in different packaging, this time with a lot of Kadi Patta, Mustard Seeds and Coconut paste (heavy on the Tamil dose), packaged differently. Deepika's tamil act is spot on and I think to me it was the saving grace in the movie. Shahrukh is in his usual elements and there is nothing in between the two, that one can talk of. The classic Rohit Shetty humour was missing, even his car stunts (which is so very Rohit Shetty) seemed to lack the panache and the raw power. With Rohit and Shahrukh, both so comfortable in the comedy genre, there was a lot expected from the two, unfortunately the same fizzled out.

As a movie there is nothing much to write home about, save for the bits and pieces here and there. Music was average (there was a considerable hype with the SP Balasubramaniam number too) except for the last casting number as a tribute to Rajnikanth (the big boss) was a nice peppy one. The locales and typical South Indian feel to the movie was visible and lush. Rohit's penchant for bringing in quality production value to all his films was visible too, yet at the end it all seemed very tame and mellow. His grasp on dialogues and sense of comic timing (watch Golmaal 1, for a vintage Rohit Shetty), did not have too much scope or the mere absence of it was ominous. Seemed to me, we overestimated the power of both Rohit Shetty and Shahrukh  Khan (we were perhaps better off, not underestimating the power of the common man).

As a long weekend comes up, this movie might see crowd thronging for a "paisa vasool"entertainer, but to me it was half the money's worth. The other half, well let's just say, save it for the fun one had with the family going together to watch the movie.

        

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