Ra One

Ra One:

                   The Pandora’s box in the virtual world has been opened. If it  is the myths of the East it is sci-fi of the West.  Till the other day our guys used graphics.  Thematically, here comes the time for reversal of roles. Actually many decades ago we had this cult film maker Vithalachari.  If only SRK knew of him this film could well have been dedicated to him. Then it was swords, chariots and kings.  Now it is guns cars and businessmen

          The premise is always the calling of the maker: Ray, Sen, Benegal Yash, RK, Nihlani, Desai, Dhavan, Karan Johar, RGV!! The premise however proceeds on a basis and the connect thereof is subject to critical  evaluation.  It is here that the film fails and fails badly.  Actor Shahrukh and director Anubhav Sinha fall  complete hapless preys to some squinted understanding of Artificial Intelligence and end up with the absence of the natural variety.

          The film deals with Appa Shekar Subramanyam( Shahrukh) who decides to pep up life for his son Prateek (Arman Verma) who perceives dad as a looser.  Working for a gaming company headed by Barron (Dalip Tahil) and assisted by Jenny Nayar (Sahana Goswami), he works on a paradigm dictated by Prateek: a game where the villain is more powerful then the hero.

          The virtual game spills over and the game cannot be stopped on the commands of the key pad .  Suddenly you seem to be in the midst of  a mind set unprepared for algorithms and physics, chemicals bonding and disintegrating.  The cubes disintegrate into pieces and then converge into a guy (Tom Wu) The new Frankenstein decides to kill the son of his creator .  When he finds the creator on the way, he does him away and reaches out for the unsuspecting lad.

          Half way through the filmmaker decides that Tom Wu is not enough to play the bald bad villain and therefore gets a new Avtar for Ra One in the form of Arjun Rampal.

          Mama Sonia( Kareena) moves from romance to disbelief to fear to sheer confusion through a script where she is just as important as any of the unused PCs at the laboratory of the gaming company.

          According to Shahrykh Khan this film will do the country good. I have no great taste for science fiction.  But remember  science fiction has a basis  on science.  This is not really so. This is a bizarre interpretation of  our bollywood mind set .  With jokes reminiscent of Dada Kondke, it is obvious that our film maker is labouring a script around the graphics he has in mind and is addicted to breaking glass to splinters at every possible occasion.

          Built in the back drop of some inexplicable Tamil back ground and people mouthing horrendous Tamil, you have your jaws down within a few minutes.  I thought these kind of Arvai jokes went out of fashion with Padosan. Any way Shahrukh cannot carry it the way Mehmood did.   With Shahrukh behaving like Jagdeep, Kareena waltzing around purposelessly and prim Arjun making a last minute entry, the only saving grace comes from the child artist Armaan Verma.  The film that tells about the desire of a child deals with the reactions of a juvenile. If this is an experiment it has gown wrong all the way.

          At the end of the film you have this scene where the person disintegrates into small pieces of iron this truly symbolises the film.

L. Ravichander