Pokkiri Raja (’82) Tamil Movie Review

Have you ever seen a 30-minute climax fight? 30 MINUTES? But what else would you get when you have, not one, but two Rajnikanths’ in the same movie. I can once again only pity the villain who tries to take down Rajnikanth with fewer than 15 rowdies. A single Rajnikanth in other movies has handled 100 bad guys and you pitch only 15 people, that too against two Rajnikanths’?. Man, feel lucky that the fighting even went on for 30 minutes 🙂

Want to know who that villain is? Muthuraman. Yes, that soft hero of yester-years! This movie begins by Rajnikanth falling in love with Sridevi faster than any other movie and there is absolutely no reason – they suddenly fall in love after sparring over a few scenes.

Sridevi’s father hires Rajnikanth – the Engineer – to set right his company affairs, which incidentally doesn’t seem to have Engineering problems, but has issues related to corruption by his brother (Sridevi’s uncle). Rajnikanth storms into the factory and after some fighting, makes things very difficult for the villain and his son (YGM). The villain then kills Sridevi’s father and Sridevi, upon seeing Rajnikanth in the house at the time of murder, tells in the court that Rajnikanth may have committed the murder.

That sends him to prison. But Rajnikanth finds another Rajnikanth in the prison and comes to know that this person (who looks exactly like him) came to the house only to steal, and he was not the murderer. In the meanwhile, Sridevi’s uncle tries to forcefully marry off Sridevi to his son, to capture all the property. Rajnikanth – the pickpocket – get released, but in actuality, Rajnikanth – the Engineer – comes out in his place and rescues Sridevi from her home and marries her.

He then goes back and the other Rajnikanth comes out – these things happen casually, as if escaping from the prison and getting into it at will, is like going and coming out of a Temple! What happens after this is too complex for me to explain – probably you can watch the remaining movie along with the 30-minute climax at the end.

The main problem with casting Rajnikanth is, everyone knows he can handle any kind of antagonist and any number of bad guys. So, the danger is always for the villains and that kills the suspense somewhat. In this movie particularly, he concentrates on his style, laughing, teaching fighting to lover, and all such things while fighting! The comedy is handled, rather well, by the main villains son – YGM. One soft-hero and one comedian as villain pitted against Rajnikanth? Heavily out-balanced!

The songs could have been avoided – none of them added anything to the story. Radhika’s character, though all-pervasive, added little to the movie except during the climax when she combines with Rajnikanth and ‘handles’ a few bad guys herself! Even Sridevi ‘handles’ YGM, in the end. You might think that there is so much violence in the movie, but in actuality, there is so much comedy in the name of violence!

Good time-pass & worth my investment of Rs. 15 (Moser Baer). But the movie gets somewhat boring due to the weak antagonists & songs.

Destination Infinity