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Saturday, April 20, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD SINGHAM
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: ** 1/2
This cop is a killer. He implements the laws applicable to the khaki-vardi with
a passion that makes corruption seem like a mosquito that a human repellant can
exterminate. His ways are unconventional. And he seethes and fumes when faced
with diabolic corruption.
Last we saw, it was Rajeev Khandelwal playing the anti-establishment cop`s role
in the brilliant Shaitaan. This time it`s a huge star getting into
khakee. Meet Ajay Devgn as Bajirao Singham an honest-to-goodness cop who
believes he has been given the law-enforcer`s job and he better take it
seriously.
Hurling through a cavalcade of regionally-flush references Singham
is the kind of rustic boorish kinetic action thriller where a cleaner social
order is seen to be brought about by the power of the fist. Give or take a gun.
Or a Devgn. Devgn playing the one-man army invests the cliched role with a kind
of cultural specificity which allows him the leeway to get verbally regional
without losing a pan-India flavour. That`s the magic of mass entertainment
cinema that this film celebrates with panoramic verve.
We don`t need to comprehend Marathi to get the powerful subtexts of Devgan`s
virulent attack on corruption. Fortunately Devgn isn`t the kind of actor who
needs to scream to make himself heard. He effectually offsets Prakash Raj`s
theatrical villainy bordering on bigtime hamming.
It is significant that the entire cast comprises Marathi actors, giving to the
frenetic rustic proceedings a sense of arrogant chauvinism. Only the villain
played by Prakash Raj is a South Indian actor of tremendous histrionic range.
Give him anything to do. And he does with impassioned concentration.
A lot of the lines that the politician-villain is compelled to utter bordered on
self-parody. Chunks of the action and drama are cannibalized from the Amitabh
Bachchan`s `angry` series, without the bridled indignation of the central
character.
Yes, Singham is frustrated and embittered by the corruption that`s
crept into the socio-political system. But he lacks the vitality to transmute
the cop`s impotent rage into a potent cinematic language. We don`t feel for his
concern for a clean social order. We just wonder whom he will thrash next, and
how.
Partly, it is to do with the kind of shallowness that Singham`s love
interest portrays. Jaya Bhaduri in Zanjeer and Smita Patil in Ardh
Satya made a brief but telling impact on the way the enraged hero looked
at the seedy world. Newcomer Kajal Aggarwal is a bundle of shallow take-away
expressions, the cinematic equivalent of a home-delivered pizza, without the
spicy toppings.
What sustains the narrative`s velocity is Devgn`s uncalculated moves as an
action hero. He brings a kind of reckless inevitability into every blow that he
delivers on the goons. There are some entertaining supporting performances,
Sachin Khedeker as the heroin`e cellphone-fixated father is a hoot.
In all fairness the action sequences (Jai Singh Nijjar) are entertaining and
humorous. The fights don`t take themselves seriously. However, the homilies on a
need for integrity in the civil services seem like unwanted concessions to
self-importance in a film that seems to revel in a kind of free-floating message
on how to stay clean in a cesspool of corruption. Yup, Rohit Shetty packs in a
punch.
You can`t but smile at the infinite pleasure which the director partakes from
the age-old language of commercial Hindi cinema in all its flamboyant glory.
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Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgn) is a police sub- inspector who
hails from a small town of Sawantwadi in Maharashtra. He fights against
corruption with the valor of lion.
When Kavya (Kaajal Aggarwal) comes to Sawantwadi, from Goa to visit her
grandparents on a vacation she is charmed by Bajirao’s bold and courageous
demeanor.
Everything goes well for Singham until there is a clash with a goon that
eventually escalates into a full blown fight. Singham eventually gets promoted
& is transferred to Goa which also happens to be the operational hub of the
goon.
While this move brings Singham closer to Kavya, it also brings him in the
clutches of the very same goon who is on a mission to destroy him. How Singham
rises to the challenge to expose this crook and put an end to his malicious
activities forms the rest of the story.
