Jailer 2 - movie review

Already sila pala topics la post poda pendinga irunthalum, oru sila sambradhayams take precedence. Like asking "ganga snaanam aacha" during diwali, rajini padam paathacha is a near equivalent whenever his movie releases. The opinion is divided as an equal split about whether it is worth it or not. But if there ever was a classic case of mob mentality, rajini movie releases would be a perfect case study. Irrespective of the movie, even for his worst duds, the first day first show madness is something nonpareil. Jailer one was an industry defining hit and obviously the anticipation to its sequel was very high. But considering his last few movies didn't do that well at the BO, the production house decided to go low key this time. Low key by the levels of promotion that usually comes with Rajini movie. The first review notes were immensly favorable and it seems as if everyone is willing it towards the 1000 crore club, a "proud" marker that no tamil movie has reached so far.

Coming to the movie, the verdict was near unanimous that, Nelson, the director, has aced the first half with his trademark dark humour wit. It is my mistake to misunderstand dark humor to laugh out loud comedy or maybe having been bereft of watching rib tickling comedies for a long while, having been fed mororse and dark themed stories for a long while, the best it could do for me was a few chuckles, while everyone else was going bonkers. Bassha puriayama oru padatha paakarapo how you mimic the rest of the audience reaction, like laughing/clapping along with them for specific scenes, you should align the same for rajini and other cult hero movies as well. Illaati adi vizha vaaipiruku. Having grown on staple diet of rajini movies, it is sad to watch him being relegated to a side character, whom people keep hyping and only to have his mass moment almost towards the interval. Agreed that there is a small sequence involving water pipe and the municipal officer, but to be honest those sequences felt unnecessary in the whole scheme of things, as they serve to introduce rajini to the first level mini villain, the comic relief actually, who is used as leverage to reach out to the next level and by interval Rajini manages to overpower the second level villain to setup the second half for the final level villain and since the entire clan of the villain happens to be villainic, the second half showdown is actually rajini vs every kith and kin of villain.

Credit to the director, almost every sequence till the climax is so racy, it is not boring at all. But the climax was a letdown all things considering as it felt undercooked. Had this movie been made a decade or two back, rajini would've defied physics and fought the airplane ridden villain single handedly, probably racing the plane on his favorite horse and jumping catching the plane while horse ridden. But with his physical form beinng aged, he sticks to standing and slow walking towards the plane and the moment he removes his glasses couple of rockets destroy the plane along with the villain. SJ suryah looks dashing and does lot of dashing throughout the second half and yet comes out as one of the weakest villains in a hit movie. Vidya balan has more screentime with her cigarette than with any meaningful setup. Mithun must be wondering if he should've jumped from the cliff rather than into the container for agreeing to such a miniscule role. Jackie shroff must've been equally surprised i guess to see his name on the cast roll having more screen time than his character. Hrithik, does a cool spectacle, with the actual spectacle flip made famous by Rajini himself. There is only so many cameos you can fit in a movie and somehow shivrajkumar, probably earning some space due to the accolades from jailer 1, gets couple of minutes more than mohanlal and rest of cameo guys put to gether. In fact, Rajni himself feels like an extended cameo and despite being there in almost half the screentime, he is...just there. Of course it is unheard of for someone his age commanding such a screen presence and that is something for the record books and no one else can break it or even reach it. But still, after watching this movie, i felt "Petta", which i didn't much like at that time, might've possibly be the last of "The rajini" movies with rajini . Not that this movie was bad or anything. But felt it had less of the "rajini" whom we've got accustomed to over the years, despite many of them being a remix of the same tale same setup. Guess, at some point, we've all grown old along side rajini and nostalgia is best left to memorable movies of the yore rather than trying to recreate or newly create something and not being able to reach the bar, that is set really high. 

During the interview, as part of the promotion, Nelson asked rajini how he is so humble and is that an act for it is impossible for anyone to put on an act, if at all, for so many years consistently. Rajini himself was taken aback for a bit and had it been for any other actor and possibly even Rajini himself in his younger days, would've taken Nelson to task. He simply looked at the audience and shrugs as if "paatheengala..enna kekaraannu" and cooly responded with his usual honesty and rounds it off with his trademark punch that his humility is what makes him work with such "great people" and it was Nelson's turn to be be stunned. All said and done, i have come to love Rajini's speeches and interviews more than his recent movies. May be they can come up with a best speeches collection or a book of his quotes. That would be some tribute.