After all that serious talk about movies, thought I’ll take a breather.
I saw ‘Madurae’ last night and that makes it two of a kind in a week. What else did I see?
I also saw Gaja… Captain’s ‘Gajendra’. Ahem Ahem!
Who says bad movies are an occupational hazard? They’re good. For the simple reason that these are the kind of movies which make me appreciate the good movies.
I liked ‘Baasha.’ Thalaivar movie. So obviously loved it. But I never thought it would be a great movie, a classic. But last night, ‘Madurae’ made me change my mind.
‘Baasha’ is a classic. Yeah, despite its letdown of a climax, it is a great film. Just look at the number of imitations it has spurned. The ‘Baasha’ format has proven to provide the fodder for the film industry over the last decade. In the last six months alone, we’ve seen three. Ajit remade it as ‘Jana,’ Vijay, of course, as ‘Madurae,’ and Captain got together with ‘Baasha’ director Suresh Krissna just to make him repeat the film with ‘Gajendra’.
Now, ‘Baasha,’ certainly among Rajni’s best, wasn’t an original itself. It was inspired by Mukul Anand’s ‘Hum,’ the multi-starrer with Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikant and Govinda.
As ‘Baasha,’ Superstar was an all-powerful don, the protector of the masses, the hero of Mumbai, who gave it all up to fulfil his family responsibilities. He took to violence only when it was truly warranted, only when it was for the greater good of the society. And as Manickam, he changed himself so dramatically, that you could see the difference.
Manickam was a peace loving autodriver, one-among-the-masses, who in spite of the nastiest of provocation, does not hit back. And mind you, it was Thalaivar doing that role… every time Thalaivar as Manickam, does not hit back, the more expectant it made you for the moment when he actually would and curious about what held him back. So finally when he did hit back, you felt gratified. When you finally knew about his history, you felt satisfied.
That gratification and satisfication made the film the super duper hit it was. The imitations, however, lack that punch for one basic reason — both ‘Madurae’ and ‘Gajendra,’ even in their undercover avatars are superheroes, who can beat the shit outta the bad guys. So there wasn’t too much difference in the two shades of the same character. Which is why I think that these remakes will never create that euphoria which ‘Baasha’ created.
But yeah, seeing Vijay do that role does remind you of Superstar. The ‘Ilaya Thalapathy’ sure seems set to get into Thalaivar’s shoes. (To digress a little, The villain KTR, for his ingenious, should have been director of IIT or something. Or at least the IIM. Consider that he sells 5.4 lakh mobile phones for Rs.20 OVER NIGHT, all with a chip-bomb, which will get activated when his automated system calls the subscribers at eleven the next morning. And Madurae should of course, be made director of RAW for cracking it and preventing that many bombs from going off. What does he do? Watch the movie, dodo! I don’t want to be the only one laughing my ass off!)
As for ‘Gajendra’, er… no comments. He he!
MADRAS INK. 
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