Two disclaimers before I begin – one, spoilers ahead. So if
you haven’t watched the movie, come back once you do. Two, I am not one of
those Rajini haters, who try to poke holes at anything he does. On the
contrary, I enjoy his core movies like ‘Padayappa’ and ‘Sivaji the Boss’. That
being said, I am not in the league of his super fans who feel everything he
touches is sacred. Which probably puts me in a place where I can objectively
look at his movies.
I went to watch Kabali on the first day with high
expectations – the promos of the movie were fantastic (in fact, the entire
marketing campaign was worthy of a Rajini movie), ‘Neruppu da’ was all the rage
(still is, actually) and the general vibe was very positive after the past few
disappointing outings. And, to put it bluntly, the movie disappointed. It isn’t
only that the movie didn’t meet lofty expectations; it was not a good movie.
Sure, there are some elements that worked. But on the whole, the movie didn’t.
So let’s do a deep dive. For starters, this movie should
prove beyond a shadow of doubt to all the haters that Rajini has still got it.
His charisma and screen presence are unparalleled, and the first ten minutes of
the movie do a great job in showcasing it. However, after that, the movie
steadily goes downhill. The movie tries to juggle multiple plot points
–how Kabali must ward off threads from the rival gangs, how the charity set up
by his associates helps Tamil youths, and the mystery of who killed his wife.
The last plot point felt the weakest, and unfortunately here that the screenplay
focuses on the most. Honestly, if the film was made as a murder mystery which
our hero was working to solve, it may have turned out ok. But in the lottery of
the multiple threads, it looks like the weakest one was picked. Had they
focused on the gang war (which was what the trailer seemed to promise) or even
on his efforts to rehabilitate the young ‘uns, we could have been looking at a
real winner.
I want to look a little closely at each of the plot points.
Let’s start with the most important one – the one with Kabali’s wife. There
have been many movies which have taken this same premise and done amazing
things with it (it isn’t fair to bring it up, but remember ‘Memento’?). So what
goes wrong here? Well, for one, it doesn’t do anything new with this idea. Kabali
meets a gangster, who after some “convincing”, points him to another gangster.
The other guy points to a third guy. And so on and so forth. There is no real
value add in these scenes, and it really doesn’t advance the plot. Once he
meets the guy who reveals the key twist, and Kabali’s daughter is introduced,
they could have dropped this one. But no. Post interval, the daughter reveals
that Kabali’s wife is alive – and this sequence again has an information
grapevine that runs through four or five people (which again is completely
unnecessary). So do we get our family reunion in the next scene or two, giving
sufficient time for the other plot threads to pick up? Of course not. In what
seems to be done purely for product placement reasons, we have a wild goose
chase that takes us to Chennai (we only get to see the inside of Le Meridien
Hotel and some old guy’s mansion) and then Pondicherry where again after some
ten minutes of screentime being wasted, we get to see the reunion between
Kabali and his wife. This scene is specifically done to show the acting chops
of Radhika Apte and Rajini – and it succeeds. But if this had been done without
the whole in-between stuff of getting from Malaysia to Pondicherry, wouldn’t it
have had the same impact? If the film makers felt that this would build up some
emotional gravitas or suspense or whatever, it didn’t. It felt like a Super
Mario video game where at each level some you get the irritating message “The
princess is in another castle” – without any of the exhilaration when you
eventually succeed. Even the action scene at Auroville after all this feels
forced – much like the handshake between Kabali’s daughter and the helpful
sidey character. I mean seriously, who shakes hands in the middle of an escape
from a gun battle??
There are some positives here too. I felt the scenes where
he remembers his wife were done very cleverly (she remains young while he is
old), which is promising as it feels indicative of a transition phase for Rajini
– the director boldly avoids a duet or a dance number with the heroine, which
keeps the maturity of our hero’s character intact. Even the flashback scenes
are handled well, and the interactions between hero and heroine are minimal and
dignified – which actually adds more to the chemistry. But, even though I’m a
fan of Radhika Apte, in all honesty, wouldn’t it have just been better to have
her die and give Rajini an emotional scene mourning his wife’s death? And for
Radhika Apte, give a few powerful flashback scenes and a good death scene? Or
atleast get to the point sooner? It’s not like she’s even present for most of
the time. At the end of it all, did this even serve a purpose?
Now let’s look at Kabali’s foundation for endangered youth.
Of course, as with every other Rajini movie, Kabali is a do-gooder and
contributes to society. His foundation is meant to protect Tamil youth from the
ills of drug addiction and gang violence. The drug addict girl is just used to
force the point of the impact of drugs, but I found it too much with the hammy
acting and the very excessive effort to tug at the viewers’ heartstrings. The
main reasons for having this charity were to show his heart of gold, to give a
circumstance to narrate the flashback and to get the bad guys to trash the
place to instigate him. And the use of the guy who plays with his cap to add a ‘cliffhanger’
ending is so weak and rushed, it’s laughable. And of course, this entire thread
is not really justified by the screenplay.
The gang war thread had the most promise; and some real
talented actors as well. Winston Chao is charismatic and is really a worthy
antagonist. There are also good performances from Kishore and John Vijay. I was
kinda put off by Dinesh’s performance – I think they tried to add a humour
element which didn’t really work. Neither was I impressed by Kalaiyarasan, who
has a meaty role. But the problems don’t end there. For one thing, there’s way
too less time spent on this sub-plot – so none of the characters are developed.
It’s a crime that Winston Chao gets so less screen time. Moving on, the plot
seems a bit Godfather-esque. Kabali doesn’t want drugs sold and other immoral
activities done, and this causes other gangs to fight back as it is eating into
their revenues. Not to mention they sent Kabali to prison and killed his wife. The
gang war thread hurriedly picks up post the family reunion to form the climax
where Kabali eliminates all his enemies.
One of the major problems was the lack of character
development. A really good death scene felt wasted on Dinesh’s character, because
there was no sense of dread that a major character who the audience feels
for is in mortal danger and is about to die a gruesome death. Even Tony
Lee and Veera, who are the primary antagonists, are hardly fleshed out. It’s
more the talent of the actors that gives us compelling villains. I’m not even
going near the plot holes because that’s expected (but seriously, even a local
nightclub restricts entry better than their gangster convention/birthday
celebration).
Another thing I have to mention is the whole punch dialogue
about Kabali fighting Tony Lee to show that Tamilians are also equal or even
superior to anyone, though amazing and cheer inducing, feels like an
after-thought and doesn’t ring true. Probably because Tony Lee’s actions don’t justify
this criticism. He has a Tamilian as his right-hand man and confidante, he killed
Nassar’s character purely for business reasons; he even pays his respects to
his dead Tamil henchman by gracefully merging both Tamil traditions and his own
showing his respect for both cultures (how many mob bosses pay their respects
to a two bit henchman, really??). One may argue that he destroys Tamil youth by
selling them drugs, but I don’t think he makes a conscious business decision to
sell drugs only to Tamil youth – everyone is affected. He just makes a small
mention in a dialogue – that’s it. We all talk all kinds of shit in a tense
situation.
But jokes aside, the entire climax seems to come in a hurry
and didn’t make audiences feel invested. I think many people were just asking
to get on with it and finish already. What should have been the crux of the
movie seems like it was just tacked on as an accessory.
It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the things
that impressed me about the movie. Like many Rajinikanth movies, Kabali has
strong female characters. Dhansika’s character would have traditionally been a
man’s, but it’s a great sign that a female actress is given an action heavy
role. Kabali’s wife is also shown as a strong woman who gives sound advice and
makes him the man he is. A lot of the supporting cast shines – of course it’s
hard to give a lot of screen time to others in a Rajini movie. Most
importantly, I think this could be a turning point for Rajini where roles will
be tailor made to suit an ageing look and showcase acting chops, something like
what happened with Amitabh Bachchan. This movie proves he can pull it off, and
is in fact even better this way.
At the end of the day, Rajini managed to pull the movie like
only he can. But Kabali was a let-down. You know it’s a problem when the
whistles and shouts during a Rajini movie die down ten minutes in. And it’s bad
for any movie when people start shuffling impatiently and looking at their
watches when the end is some time away. Like the movie’s poster, it felt like
Rajini was being dragged down by the snail-paced screenplay and lazy script. Which
is a shame, as this was a product full of potential. But eventually, the movie
was not worthy of the actor.
