S Viswanath

Hukum! Tiger Ka Hukum!

Come, let me show you
What chaos looks like
Can’t you see who he is
You fool
It’s Superstar’s game
Who can match him
He has every right to break the rules
Who has a hit streak like his
He is the heartbeat of millions
Aways number one
Who dares doubt it?
Three generations shall sing his glory
His name echoes through four generations
Put him to a thousand uses
His reign is unmatched
Millions will die for him — Lines from the refrain song venerating the Midas Man.

Jailer 2. The film title is just but a requisite. An excuse to fete the irrepressible Thailava of Tamil Cinema. Bring the deified thespian every so often before his legion of Kollywood and worldwide fans. His trademark mannerisms, mien, gait and gestures, swagger and swish, guttural gravelly laugh, wit and wherewithal wisecracks, all the works.

Before he fells his foes without lifting a finger. His eyes, smirking smile doing all the assaults. Evoking adrenaline, frenetic hoots, howls and whistles among his fans reminding them he may be all of seventy plus, but the pluck, the punch and the power of his presence still very much alive and kicking.

Yes. All of seventy plus and still reigning supreme as Tamil Movie Marquee’s uncontested and unrivalled Super Star — that’s Rajnikanth for you.

His mere presence working wonders for the films he accepts and acts in. It is to his credit that the reigning stars of the respective film industries elsewhere unhesitatingly queue up to play second fiddle to the towering titan. Be it even in a blink, wink and vanish cameo scenes. Such being the true hallmark and halo of a man — simplicity personified — and a singular tribute to his enduring legacy.

No wonder then the Bard of Avon William Shakespeare’s famous lines from his play Anthony & Cleopatra Act II Scene II come to mind in a whirlwind flash to describing the Midas Touch of the Mercurial Man who has been reigning supreme the Kollywood Film Industry for over 50 years now, delivering at the box office more often than not raking the moolah for his trusting legion of film directors.

The lines from the play, wherein Enobarbus, friend of Roman General & Politician Mark Anthony, describing Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, explaining to Gaius Cilnius Maecenas and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, closest friends and trusted advisors, says as to why Antony will never tire of Cleopatra.

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety,” befittingly and adulatorily describe Rajnikanth, the undisputed leader of commercial Tamil cinema and the zillions of diehards who worship him more than their own family deities.

As the Jailer 2’s limping, badly bruised and bloodied arch antagonist Bodhi Kalpak (S J Suryah), while the film comes to its climactic close, exclaims in awe: I thought I could intimidate you. Decimate and be done with you. I planned many things to finish you. But you dodge every bloody thing. How do you even survive everything? It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. I wonder what mistake I made.

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To which Malayalam cinema’s mega star Mohanlal playing Mathew comforts an bewildered and beleaguered Bodhi Kalpak: No, no, no. Don’t sweat it. Don’t confuse, confound and belittle yourself like that, because you didn’t do anything wrong. You did the right thing, , while Sandalwood cinema’s Hatrick Hero Shivrajkumar caustically chirrups: But you went up against the wrong man.

Indeed, as the one man demolition squad retired jailer ‘Tiger’ Muthuvel Pandian, hitting two birds with one stone, answering repeated sallies at him in real life that he has not taken kindly to Thalapathy Joseph Vijay’s rise both as a star of standing in his own right and recent anointment as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister following his party’s victory at the hustings, reminds Bodhi Kalpak, on the last throes of his life twirling the cheroot: You see Kalpak. For 50 years many tried in several ways to destroy me. However.. lobbying the cheroot into his mouth in his signature style and rolls it with his tongue from one end to the other.

Yes. Besides the towering and titanic man himself, his biting banter and verbal battle, before bullets fly in fusillade felling his foes like nine pins that dare, defy and seek to destroy him, Jailer 2’s other mainstay that makes up for tad tedious and tiresome time, are the crackling, cheeky and caustic dialogues that send adulating audiences into a frenzy.

It is infructuous to narrate the thin thread of the tale about how ‘Tiger’ & his ‘Hukum’ looms large taking on late Varman’ close friend and comrade, Dileep, eccentric idol smuggler, running nefarious idol smuggling enterprise, his associate Ameer to eliminate Bodhi Kalpak, leader of larger idol-smuggling network.

Bodhi Kalpak being the son of Chakri Kalpak (Mithun Chakraborthy) who oversees the organisation’s racket in Goa alongside his siblings Kantha (Vidya Balan), Ved and Sharva, while the Men Friday trio of Mathew (Mohanlal), Narasimha (Shivraj Kumar) and Kamdev (Jackie Shroff), chip their might as Muthuvel charges ahead in his mission to finish off the felons.

The film’s first half is a rip roaring, riotous, bellyaching and boisterous laughathon, full of antics and asides. The comedic track brilliantly provided by the comedians Namo Narayan as Moorthi — fruit shop owner and self-proclaimed gangster, and Yogi Babu as Vimal, go-between trader, Bjorn Surrao as Kohli — Moorthi’s sidekick, alongside Rajnikanth himself working as supermarket supervisor leading a secluded life with family near Kerala Tamil border before being boardeded on as ‘boss’ Moorthi’s driver.

It is in the film’s second half while the actual cat and mouse, verbal and physical one-upmanship destructive and decimating battle that rages between Dileep, Ameer, Bodhi Kalpak and Co, where, despite several special effects, Jailer 2 loses steam and starts to becomes bit tiring and tedious time to sit through.

What, however, is a tad beguiling and bothersome is that, whether their reverence and regard to Tamil filmdom’s mesmerising monolith and turnstile messiah, should the stellar stars from their own backyards, bend over backwords, play the cameos which have no substance or meat, except in furtherance of the entertainment industry’s new found Pan India craze, which has also evokes criticism on social media of the respective fans on their idols have been sidelined.

The entire film simply runs on the sustaining steam and singular strength of the septuagenarian superstar’s presence and pyrotechnics who still successfully reigns supreme even after 50 years of service in the Kollywood’s Entertainment Industry’s movie marquee.

That Jailer 3 is inevitably on the cards is presaged by the cameo presence of another rising star of Tamil filmdom — Vijay Sethupathy in the driver’s seat of the police van awaiting to ferry the handcuffed Muthuvel Pandian finally for his incarceration tells him: Reply to the message, Sir or else Kantha will be offended, twirling around to face the camera sporting his coolers on asking “Shall we leave, Sir” with that knowing sporting that cheeky smirk on his face, while, in her distant destroyed den, a smoking and wheelchair bound, badly bruised “super, amazing and gorgeous looking” Kantha Kalpak awaits an answer to her WhatsApp message.

In sum, Jailer 2 is a triumph of Nelson Dilipkumar in convincing a rather reluctant Rajnikanth to go for a sequel much against his stated belief and wishes, and wondrously carrying out a coup bettering his Jailer 1, in terms of scripting, trademark tropes, sardonic humour, ensemble comedians, he has weaved and wefted into an otherwise wafer thin, wobbly plotline.

Thereby, aided by Anirudh’s backgroound score, and two item numbers, turning Jailer 2 into a roller coaster paisa vasool ride as Thailava towers like Rock of Gibraltar, soldiering on never allowing even for a miniscule moment his seventy years weigh heavily on him, making for a memorable, mesmerising, magical, enchanting and exciting theatrical extravaganza.

For, after all, as he states in his trademark style — Frame-ah paarunga ji!” (Look at the frame, sir!) the popular catchphrase in Tamil cinema fandom celebrating the mass adulation and aura of the Legend & Legacy awe of his iconic swagger and signature style.

Sure, one awaits, with bated breath, as to when and what Nelson will deliver in the third instalment of his Jailer cinematic constellation and cosmos to whip up another adrenaline adventure that only Thailava can carry and deliver with aplomb and assurance.