Daily Times

The backdrop was spectacular. The images were dizzying and the sounds madcap, grabbing one’s attention like the much-heard score of Pink Panther. The colours startled in their irreverent red-pink-orange-green-blue-tawny splendour. The words were mundane yet so droll they were a throwback to a Carrey scene. The actions were clichéd and thus welcomed like an old friend who enters one’s home with the certainty of warmth. The characters were like the countless before them yet each stood out singularly like the showstopper at a Manish Malhotra show. The story was patchy yet the scenes tangoed into one another. The emotions that spoke of the blah the people suffered had the familiarity of that three-sizes small shirt one owned in college and wore for a slumber party. The songs nudged one into that involuntary movement of limbs, resembling dance, which would be out of place in any public place. The jokes were corny yet so hilarious in their stark rendition, they put all in fits. The situations were slapstick and simply the kind of fun one needed that day when work sucked and the traffic enraged. The protagonists were ordinary people, their roles enacted with so much delightful ease they leaped off the screen and hugged one like a cousin on Eid. That was Chennai Express, the ride I wouldn’t forget for many South Indian happy hours and days to come.

The latest Shahrukh Khan starrer whooshed in on 1000 screens in India and all over the Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi-Sri Lankan-Arabic et al Hindi-Urdu comprehending globe and travelled all the way to a box-office record that broke all previous ones. Chennai Express had arrived. And what an entry it was. Loved and enjoyed by millions and trashed and booed by some (Grinch!), Chennai Express inspired indifference in none. The trio of Rohit Shetty-Shahrukh Khan-Deepika Padukone high-fived to entertain, and that is exactly what they did. In two-plus hours of crazy, crazy fun.

Directed by Rohit Shetty, the very popular maker of hits like the Golmaal trilogy, Bol Bachchan and Singham, the film vowed to tickle, did that, and then some. This cinematographer-cum-assistant director-cum-actor-turned-director appears to have mastered the art of what makes the box-office ring louder than the whistle of a train entering a station. Irreverent jokes, play-on-words, clichéd but re-packaged situational comedy, Shetty knows exactly what elicits laughter in any sold-out theatre packed with people of all shapes, sizes and sensibilities. There are stock characters, stereotypical lines and routine twists but there is one facet that stands out: there is not a dull moment in Chennai Express. And what elicits more satisfaction than that for a director whose motivation to make a movie is to keep his audience entertained as promised?

Gauri Khan, Shahrukh Khan’s stunning wife — the producer of the movie for their company, Red Chillies Entertainment — must be smiling today: what a whackily good idea it was to trust Shetty to do as he wished! Her earlier productions like Main Hoon Na, Kaal, Paheli, Om Shanti Om, My Name is Khan, Don 2, Ra.One, Student of the Year, all hits/super hits, are testimonials to Ms Khan and her team’s acumen for being knowledgeable about what sells. All are extravaganzas, with the sellout-ingredients of box-office hits, with generous sprinklings of emotions, body-stirring dances, hip numbers, romantic ballads, good-versus-evil, family values, ‘filmy’ action scenes, unaffected comedy and bonds of relationships that sustain heartbreaking heartache (My Name is Khan), betrayal (Don 2), distance (Paheli)…and even death (Om Shanti Om). Kudos, Mrs Khan, and here’s to many more milestones and zeroes to your bank balance!

The journey of a man from Mumbai to Rameshwaram, Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) and his interaction with Meenamma Lochini Azhagusundaram (yep, that’s her name!), aka Meena, played by Deepika Padukone, Chennai Express, to the delight of many and dismay of a few, has become the highest grossing Indian film…like ever. Even the highly acclaimed 3 Idiots’ box-office record could not sustain the arrival of this phenomenal phenomenon. It is the biggest hit of 2013 (slim chances of any beating this record this year), and the third highest-grossing Bollywood movie in overseas markets globally. Way to go, Rohit, Shahrukh and Gauri Khan, Deepika, the entire cast and crew of Chennai Express, Red Chillies’ production team, for the stupendous success of a movie that has all the hallmarks that mark Bollywood as the one of a kind film industry: a weaver of dreams larger than the biggest imagined.

Chennai Express despite its massive success has had massive criticism: “dabba” (dud), “story-less”, “Shahrukh-has-aged”, “too much Tamil”, “Deepika’s South accent too grating”, “stereotypical” and “inane” are some of the brickbats thrown at the film. Ducking them with a big, goofy, adorable smile, it reaches its destination: the audience’s life for 141 minutes and produces smiles that are bigger than the villains’ sidekicks’ bellies and gaffes of the protagonists in Chennai Express. The reason why the movie clicked with me is for a very simple reason: Chennai Express does not pretend to be anything other than what it is. It is a stereotypical (yes!), masala, ‘time-pass’, laugh-a-minute, comedy-romance-songs-action pot pourri, larger-than-most-mundane-lives, rollercoaster of a movie that has just one plain premise and the three things that sell in Bollywood: entertainment, Shahrukh Khan and entertainment.

Shot mostly at Munnar, Devikulam Lake, Meesapulimala, Wagavara and Kannimala in Kerala, Chennai Express captures the splendour of ‘God’s own country in all its abundant greens, blues, gold and browns on a canvas that is expansive and expensive. The painstakingly constructed lavish sets, in all their loud pinks, oranges, yellows, purples, magentas, in an insolent splash of vividness, somehow unabashedly interweave with the natural grandeur of South India, as one just ‘wows’ the gorgeousness of Kerala.

The songs are all catchy and the dances jolt (as they did my son who could hardly sit still, finally bursting into a dance; mercifully, we were in the last row!) one into an impromptu dance so Bollywoodish in its moves it has no parallel anywhere. The fights are typical South Indian loud noises, cars exploding, villains somersaulting in the air, hero beating-three-dozen-to-a-pulp. And I simply loved the beautiful saris South Indian women wore in dazzling colour combinations, resplendent of the strength and confidence of their existence even in what seemed to be a patriarchal set-up. Chennai Express is a delightful juxtaposition of South Indian-sensibilities-meeting-North Indian with the theatrical, farcical, heavy-duty entertainment quotient that makes the movies of the South a perfect recipe for fun.

The un-subtitled Tamil, incomprehensible to Rahul, is the cleverest funny bit in Chennai Express. As Rahul gets into various hilarious situations because of Tamil being nothing more unfamiliar a phenomenon as the customs in his ‘don’ host’s home, the audience is kept in suspense/stitches with him.

Deepika is stunning with her enviably toned, lissome body and spectacular dance and acting skills. Her onscreen chemistry with Shahrukh in comic, serious and romantic scenes is almost palpable, making them a treat to watch. Deepika sparkles on the screen, with that X-factor the lucky few have, marking them for superstardom in the first shot of the first scene of their first movie. Here’s to many more years of you, Ms Padukone.

Chennai Express is Shahrukh Khan from frame one to the last. The actor who may not have Amir Khan’s acting credentials, or Salman Khan’s unexplainable dynamism, or Hrithik Roshan’s Greek god looks, is in a league of his own: a bigger star than all three put together as per the impact of his celluloid interaction with his audience. Shahrukh, self-avowedly, is an entertainer, who ‘hams’ in all his roles in a predictably Shahrukh Khan way. That, to me, is his biggest strength. Unpretentious about the ‘sameness’ of almost all his roles, his ‘Rahul’ (naam tou sunna hoga), expressions, dialogue delivery, dance, ‘get-up’, song picturisation are all typically Shahrukh Khan. That, to me, is what works for him. In Chennai Express, his Rahul entertains like it is no-one’s-show-business in those almost two-and-a-half hours. His comic timing is impeccable; the train scenes are so funny, done with such artlessness that the packed theatre echoes with sounds of non-stop mirth. Be it my nine-year-old nephew, the grouchy-looking teenager on my left, the old woman three rows ahead, the hip youngsters, the haughty socialite, the solemn-eyed businessman talking into his iPhone5, the shalwar-kurta-clad politician, a bunch of scrawny teenagers, or my 13-year-old son, Rahul makes everyone forget who they are, connecting them in unaffected laughter. Shahrukh is a super-superstar who’s turned all conventional notions of that stature on their head. Secure in his persona, Shahrukh makes movie-watching what it is supposed to be: two-hour plus of being in a world of colour, light, sound, and emerging smiling, dazed…and if it’s Chennai Express, laughing. That is Shahrukh Khan for you. The one. Rock on, Mr Khan, you live in our hearts, with your gorgeous dimples, and all your Rahuls. Here’s to 21 more years of you, Shahrukh Khan.

The writer is an Assistant Editor at Daily Times. She tweets at @MehrTarar and can be reached at mehrt2000@gmail.com