Indian cinema is like a massive bouquet of wildflowers of different colours and smells. You really can't judge Policegiri,
Sanjay Dutt's hefty homage to hero-giri completed before serving the
remainder of his prison term, against the soft gently-undulating
movements of the week's other release Lootera. If Vikramaditya Motwane's film is soft-petalled rose, Policegiri is a wild cactus flower from the desert.
Why cactus? The landscape is populated with pricks, you see.
It's a roaring 21-gun salute to the traditional mainstream cinema's
ongoing obsession with the corruption-cleansing cop who goes on a
rampage. The anti-establishment figure from Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer has been slyly transformed into the khakee-coloured law-enforcer with shades of grey.
Like Ajay Devgn in Singham, Akshay Kumar in Rowdy Rathore and Salman Khan in Dabangg, Sanjay in Policegiri is
a morally ambivalent do-gooder who bends rules to restore order in an
inherently anarchic lawless town somewhere on the Andhra Pradesh border
(hence the thick accents of junior artistes who seem to have seen better
'daze') run by a powerful goon-politician
That the buffoon of a goon is played repeatedly by Prakash Raj is a boon. This talented actor from Priyadrshan's unforgettable Kanchivaram
plays the same rowdy idiosyncratic neta in almost every Hindi remake of
a South Indian cop-on-a-cocky-trail remake. And he revitalises the
character each time!
Here in Policegiri Prakash Raj is a howl as a music-loving
ganglord. In various self consciously staged confrontation scenes with
Sanjay, Paraksh Raj is seen playing different musical instruments, from
the piano to the tabla, quite badly we may add.
"I don't claim to be Mohammad Rafi in singing, but I am Mohammed Ali in
my brute power," brags Prakash Raj's villainous character Nagori
Subramnayam in scene after scene.
Well, good for him. Be warned the heroic adversary is formidable. Like Salman in Dabangg,
Sanjay's cop character is quirkily immoral. We are not supposed to
judge this bovine cop adverserly just because he collects money wrapped
in a newspaper from the gana-wala goon.
Flitting in and out of this tale of the goon-like coop and the
gana-gata-goon is a romantic association between Sanjay and Prachi
Desai. Age difference be damned, they even have a discreetly-done
suhaag-raat scene where Prachi is allowed to make fun of Sanjay's dhalti
umar(advancing age).
Ask Sanjay if he cares. He seems to sink into the fun quotient of the
barbed jugalbandi with Prakash Raj without bothering with histrionic
one-upmanship.
The fun part of "Policegiri" is that no one, not even director K. Ravi
Kumar, seems to take the proceedings seriously. Even when gruesome
killings happen, they are done in the spirit of a comic-book caper where
the hero has forgotten his cape home and he certainly doesn't wear his
underwear on top of his khakee pants.
Sanjay seems to revel in the absurdity of a crime drama where the
law-maker seems to share an affinity to moral ambiguity with the
law-breakers.
It is all fun to watch-loud, rumbustious, over the top, ear-splitting fun provided you are a Singham-Dabangg aficionado, and a Sanjay Dutt fan.
And provided you don't judge the film by the same yardsticks as Lootera.
0 comments:
Post a Comment