Endhiran

I've only seen a few Indian action films, but they all jam in everything - slapstick humour, tension, guns, rockets, car chases, light comedy, gruesome sudden death and of course musical numbers - long, mad musical numbers...

This is like watching a psychadelic, drug fuelled, musical theatre remake of The Terminator crossed with I Robot.

Definitely worth experiencing, but be liberal with the fast forward - as there will still be lots, lots, more of the 3 hours left to go...

The subtitles were HILARIOUS xD Seems like some of it got a tad lost in translation, but aside from that we really enjoyed it. First Bollywood film we have seen and would defiantly see more.

It is quite rarely that we get to see a Bollywood film worth talking about. However, when it comes to Indian cinema, the standards which we expect from noteworthy contributions to world cinema have to be brought down a bar or two, just to be fair to this fast developing nation. ‘Endhiran‘, although hardly a great movie, is one of those oddities to spring from the economic and technological renaissance of this vibrant nation and therefore deserves our attention.

The film stands out from the formulaic, Bollywood musical soap in a number of ways. Firstly, the movie does not take itself seriously as its cringe worthy counterparts do. Instead, it comes across as a highly enjoyable and hilarious parody of Hollywood’s, megabuck science fiction, such as ‘The Terminator’ franchise, rather than being yet another Indian imitation of the genre. In the meantime, the producers have admirably spent an estimated $43 million, much of which must have gone to computer generated animation in China, The US and in India. The relatively exorbitant budget has actually paid off, in that CG action sequences look much more convincing than in the average Bollywood attempt to emulate the Hollywood blockbuster, and by scooping a cool 85 million dollars within the first 3 months of its release.

Secondly, it gives another chance for A R Rahman to continue with his much admired experimentation in mixing eclectic genres of music with traditional, Indian sounds, this time exploring not only contemporary pop and action movie scores, but Mayan, Gaelic and Chinese melodies as well.

Thirdly, this is not a Bollywood production, but comes from the even bigger, South Indian and Tamil film industry which is colloquially known as ‘Kollywood’. Rajnikanth, who plays both the robot and its inventor, is currently the biggest star in India, which shouldn’t be a surprise because he performs reasonably well, despite being a tad too old and short for an action role.

Unfortunately, the film carries the usual, generic flaws of Indian cinema: the formulaic nature of its subplots including the not so funny clown acts, casting the megastar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as just eye candy, who is struggling and visibly uncomfortable with her Tamil dialogue; and the quite annoying way Indians mix English in their speech as well as in their lyrics.

Despite such recurrent flaws, which I sincerely hope would be eradicated from Indian cinema in the future, this film surprisingly is a joy to watch.

Excellent movie my see, Worth Watching.

Rajini is great actor with Style and Charisma.Music is very good with Good GraphicsAll done good job.

It is called Robot or Endhiran. Looking forward for blu-ray

Excellent movie. worth watching for the special effects alone.

Rajini is simple stunning in action.

Arima Arima song is well made.

The stunt sequence in the climax is simply brilliant.