CHENNAI EXPRESS: DDLJ visits south India! But the trip is tacky, long & with no surprises! [2/5]

What could be the most painful experience with Indian railways? Crowded platforms, endless wait for trains delayed by hours […in some extreme cases by days also] or the unhygienic interiors? No, the bigger test of your patience comes in when your journey starts but before reaching its destination, stops like the pulse-rate of a dead man for literally no logical reasons. It’s unbearable. Frequent travelers can vouch for that. Same goes with Rohit Shetty’s CHENNAI EXPRESS. It’s long-predictable-never been there but certainly seen that before action entertainer!

 

After slaughtering classics like Basu Chatterji’s KHATTA MEETHA in GOLMAAL 3 and Hrishikesh da’s GOLMAAL in BOL BACHCHAN…this time, Rohit shamelessly chooses to get hugely inspired by 18-year old still young & fresh trendsetter DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAAYENGE. The only relief is that he keeps the texture and the surface of a love-story intact with shifting the base from North India to South India. Simple it is but ‘no brains allowed inside’ is the tag that comes with his style of film-making. Let’s accept it!

A story that is more of a hit Bollywood formula, of a runaway bride meeting with the charming guy on their journey of a lifetime is no booster at all. To save her life, girl projects him as her love interest. Father challenges him to prove his compatibility. In all these, eventually girl falls for the guy and a little later even the guy starts realizing his feelings for the girl. Happy ending…but not before the final showdown and a ‘ja ja simran ja’ kind of moment to finish it off.

The humour being heavily reliant on wordplays like ‘tu don ki nahin donkey ki beti hai’ ‘main Bhansali nahin hoon, I mean balshaali nahin hoon’, it’s difficult to have laugh out loud moments but some jokes are sure here to stay like shahrukh’s attending nature’s call or in a scene straight from DDLJ where Shah Rukh lends his hand to help Deepika board the train but couldn't stop himself to help another set of 4 people in similar manner who happened to be Deepika’s kidnappers. Another letdown is the language characters speak. It precisely shares more than 60% of dialogues in Tamil.

Areas where CHENNAI EXPRESS scores better than previous Rohit Shetty massy entertainers are the picture postcard south-Indian scenic locations captured awesomely by Dudley and lovable performance of Shah Rukh Khan […a treat for his hard-core fans] especially in comic scenes. He’s back with his charismatic romantic image. But the show stealer is without a doubt Deepika Padukone who never misses her cues as a Tamilian girl with perfect accented Hindi language and characteristic.

At the end, I am not sure how many records are being targeted to smash at the box-office but this trip is a tacky one. At the most, it is just a good day in a regular local train…not a great memorable long route train-trip with friends and family. [2/5]