Recently I went to watch the movie that has apparently taken India by storm. The movie is called Enthiran, which is Tamil for Machine. Hence its alternate title Robot, except it is pronounced in the sophisticated French way and rhymes with "Hobo". I will therefore annoy you by referring to "Robo" for the rest of this article.
The movie starts with a hi-tech lab where the hero is putting Asimov to shame. Unfortunately, the opening scene featured a retard - who would proceed to provide an annoying "comedy track" with a fellow retard - in a shapeless pair of trousers and un-tucked, short-sleeved shirt that looked like someone had vomited Bolognaise sauce and melted Velveeta through a pasta maker on to the fabric. Even in the age of Robo your Indian family and friends, apparently, will still torture you with garish color schemes without the fall-back excuse of color-blindness. This is why I regift all items of clothing I have the misfortune of receiving as gifts from the Peeps.
The male lead warmed my cockles. At 61, he proved that men can always get to prance and carouse with women half their age. Sorry, ladies, it's unfair but so it is. Tough luck. This being a movie about a Robo, it featured the inevitable break dance bit with the "Robo" movements etc. My enthusiasm for the future sexagenarian me dipping my wick in some hot piece of ass was somewhat diminished by my fear that the hero - the star, nay, The Megastar - might at any moment keel over from hip dysplasia (for added entertainment, click on the "Canine" Wiki link). Let's just say that the actor's dance steps are more "jerky" than "smooth". Perhaps he was just slyly mocking the abysmally forgettable songs to which he was, er, "dancing".
The heroine was a sight to behold. Gratuitous shots of her in tight pants and bending over after a sprint (but in perfect makeup) were much appreciated, though the straggler fanatic-morons in the empty cinema reserved their occasional clap or catcall for the hero's utterance of signature hand gestures. I desperately wanted to catch them as they stepped out to the restroom - the movie was 3 hours long - to explain that the actors could not actually hear them. Anyway, the heroine also could not dance, and thank god the Ms Universe finale did not involve a test in this area (she won it a decade ago).
The coup de grace of the film was that not that the Robo was created and eventually lightning-bolted into a touch of human-ness, with icky feelings etc. It was the amazing ways in which, after plugging into a power outlet for 5 minutes, the Robo could practically fly to the moon and back. It will be some time before the laws of thermodynamics can catch up with the new-found expertise in CGI graphics in the land of Indian cinema, where logic is for fools.
Various stereotypes and retrograde, anachronistic subplots were at work. The Robo saves a bathing girl from a raging fire, and she promptly commits suicide from the shame of her nakedness - what fucking stone age are the producers living in? Indian women are bonking like rabbits and the only shame is that I am not the counterparty - or is it counterbunny? Why can't an Indian movie or soap just once show a groom demanding dowry being handed over to the police; a tortured woman walking out with a divorce in one hand and a strapping young hunk in the other; a widow or a divorcee remarrying; a man having a peg without getting theatrically drunk; or any such socially progressive idea?
An atrocious supporting cast and storyline round off this dismal movie best vaccinated against to prevent infection. This has been a public service post.
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Like!!!!
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