Petta - movie review

When the first song that launched the movie went by “Maranam maasu maranam” as starting line, it was pretty much a given as to how the movie was going to take shape. But there were lingering doubts around some of the recent attempts to bring back the glory days of Rajini and their success, with Linga being case in study. It was such a stupendous flop that it made Rajini venture into movies like Kabali and kaala, which again didn’t set the screen on fire. Against this background, came in Petta, riding on the “2.0” wave, which again was a hard sell like Saravana stores. They simply blocked every single screen across all theaters and movie watching public were left with little option. Even in that scenario, surprisingly, the crowd pull of Akshay kumar on the hindi belt was touted as the major reason for success and Rajini’s connect with audience were murmured to be on the wane.
In short, to me it felt as if, Petta is a highlights reel of yesteryear blockbuster hits of Rajini. If you think of Rajini, despite all the crowing by his cronies about his acting chops, there are only a handful of scenes that comes to mind for any general public, devoid of fanaticism. Be it the “Basha” scene with school correspondent, puffing out smoke scene and the escalator scene from Annamalai, to quote a few. Take the essence out of all such scenes, add some screenplay around a revenge story, there goes Petta for you. I was talking about it with some hard core Rajini fans and even they felt the violence in the movie to be on higher side and another interesting view point was, how villains in Rajini’s previous hits were all pardoned off by him as against the gory ending for Petta’s villain. The thing fans notice about their matinee idol will never make sense to a casual watcher, ever, I guess!!!
The movie had plenty of trigger points, to send the fans into frenzy and god save those who dared to brave first days shows. Would’ve been surprised, if they would’ve heard any of the dialogues or retained their ability to speak post the movie, after all those shout outs to their demi-god on screen. Petta would make an excellent case study for mob mentality and its effect on general psyche of people. Even otherwise normal movie watcher wants to join the shouting fans and have their share of “fun”. There is obviously no logic in the movie which has been prepared to dish out full meals for the fans. But its paisa vasool for sure with all its mass moments. If simran’s role is blink and miss, Trisha doesn’t even have blinking time for herself in the movie. Not that heroines have ever been the usp of Rajini’s movies. Even then it’s a new record for less screen space. Comedy is virtually non-existent, except for couple of antics of Rajini himself, reminiscent of his preivous roles. It’s a celebration of sorts with so many major artists, sharing screen space, even though it is for a very short duration, for their few minutes of fame with Rajini. Never in their lives, they would ever get such adulation, even if they are part of Oscar winners.

Gils verdict – pakka mass, festival season movie. The movie rides high on the "visvasam" Of his fans. Rajini and his charisma, were the original media created Frankenstein’s monster, which has mutated for any movie hero with a hit or two, at present. With his supposed entry into politics, the expectations around his movies have gone manifold and so is the distinguishing factor between a party person and a common fan. For a matinee idol, who is well into the night show of his movie career, this could be his potentially last mass movie. Not sure how feasible it would be to replicate a Petta-2, unless his upcoming movies have show-stealers of their own.