Deepika Padukone steals the show from King Khan.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: In so many ways, movies like Chennai Express are critic-proof. Every year has those movies that people will line up to see, regardless of their actual quality. Usually producers know this, and take the money that should go toward increasing the quality of the actual film and instead spend it on the marketing campaign. So what ends up happening is the movie-going public goes into an incredibly hyped up movie with the expectation of seeing something incredible, and instead just get a decent time-pass. Occasionally, one of these hyped-up extravaganzas delivers something a little more worthwhile, but it’s a rare occurrence.
Chennai Express doesn’t buck the trend. It’s a pure masala entertainer, and it lives up to its goals in the moment. When you’re watching Chennai Express, chances are one of the many slapstick gags or ridiculously over-the-top car chases or the callbacks to previous Shahrukh movies will elicit a laugh. The real problem with Chennai Express is that, after all the hype and hoopla, it’s so damn forgettable.
It’s been years since Shahrukh has done a straight romantic comedy – 2008’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – but he hasn’t lost any of his spark. His star power has not diminished at all over the years, and there are a few instances in Chennai Express in which he’s very funny (also thankfully he’s playing his age for once, or at least close enough to it).
But Shahrukh gets lost in his own movie when sharing the screen with Deepika, whose performance here is comedic brilliance. In their last pairing together, 2007’s Om Shanti Om, Deepika was new to the screen and it showed; her performance was wooden and off-putting. But over the ensuing six years she has developed a surprising amount of range and screen presence to go with her good looks. She has become an actor in the truest sense of the word, and her performance here proves that she’s more than just a pretty face who can dance and cry. Everything from her accent to her expressions is on point, and she steals the movie from her more experienced co-star (she even gets top billing, too).
The songs, provided by Vishal-Shekhar (Student of the Year, I Hate Luv Storys, Om Shanti Om) are okay, but nothing to get too excited about. “Titli” is the real showstopper, while “1234 (Get on the Dance Floor)” is catchy in its own right. The other songs range from moronic to forgettable, and honestly don’t do much to advance the story in any significant way. Technically, the film is superb, with some incredibly striking cinematography (Shetty’s movies are known for their magnificent use of color, and this one is no exception), great production design, and a very solid sound mix. And most of all, despite my fears from the trailers, the movie is surprisingly respectful of south Indians and doesn’t simply make fun of them the whole time (there are some amusing little jokes but nothing overly offensive).
So why the low rating when there was so much the film did right? With all the production values and potential that this budget had, so much of the movie is just juvenile. I understand that Bollywood movies have to play to a broad fan-base in order to appeal as many viewers as possible, but there’s only so much slapstick and idiotic humor someone over the age of 12 can stand before it gets irritating; to have over two hours of it is just overkill.
The storyline is also surprisingly contrived and unoriginal for such a big release; an alarming amount of the plot has been plagiarized from movies new and old, like Jab We Met (and not just because they’re on a train) to It Happened One Night (considered by many to be the first ever romantic comedy). The movie is at least 20 minutes too long, and it’s easy to pick scenes and sequences that could have been trimmed without harming the movie at all – there’s a small bit just past the intermission with Shahrukh and a Tamil midget that’s neither funny nor necessary, and removing every instance of Shahrukh annoying “common man” catchphrase would probably have saved a couple of minutes. There’s no need for a comedy to ever be more than 100 minutes, give or take; for Chennai Express to go on for so long and offer so few real laughs is inexcusable. And the violent climactic scene is completely out-of-sync with the preceding two hours, adding to the complete tonal mess that Chennai Express is.
The romantic element is also handled clumsily, with no subtlety or even any reason for these two to fall in love. One morning, Shahrukh wakes up and sees Deepika in a pretty saree. Then, he carries her up 3,000 steps into a temple. This, apparently, is love. The two have incredible chemistry together but it’s wasted on a story that doesn’t know how to convincingly show two people falling in love and give them strong enough motivations as characters for doing so. Shahrukh and Deepika understandably received many offers to reunite on screen following the success of Om Shanti Om, but supposedly wanted to wait for the right project to come around before doing so – I shudder at the thought of what they deemed unworthy of their reunion if this is the best they could find.
Not every movie has to be super-smart or some incredibly deep piece of art that makes you question the meaning of life. Entertainers are perfectly fine – Salman Khan’s films never aim to be high art, they’re dumb fun and no one knows that better than him – but the entertainment should be equally balanced to appeal younger and older viewers. I might have enjoyed Chennai Express when I was much younger. But for anyone who’s graduated middle school, the only things the movie has to rely on are the innate charisma of its stars and the professionalism with which the entire project has been produced. And those elements can get a mediocre end product like Chennai Express only so far.
Grade: C
Chennai Express
Released Aug. 8th, 2013
Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone
Director: Rohit Shetty
Music: Vishal-Shekhar