I don’t think there is an actor who is as sublimely effervescent and effective as he is in any film industry. It is so annoying that people go on and on about his style which is dazzling of course, and forget that the man is one of the greatest actors of all time.
Bless you Karthik Subburaj for giving us our Thalaivar back. Rajni is one actor who has always made me laugh and cry along with his characters and I became completely nuts about Kaali (Petta Velan). It was such an amazing cinematic experience and an incredibly special one. In the theatre where I was watching Petta, we were all infected with Rajni fever and were cheering, screaming ourselves hoarse for every single scene. Not since Dhil, Dhool and Dhilli has a tamil filmmaker made such a sumptuous, masala feast of a film. The first half was absolutely rocking and I love how ‘Marana mass’ it was. Guess, you have to be that person to truly appreciate Petta. As a lapsed Rajni fan (when you act in one Shankar film too many it happens), it was nice to go right back to the Annamalai, Baasha phase when I was a proper Rajni fanatic. And it has been too long since I said this about a Rajni film. So effectively, Knight loops it back to the first Transformer film, making #BumbleBee a perfect retro spin-off in some ways. The final shot is Charlie driving off into the sunset in her car.
The first is Bumblebee being reunited with his master and friend Optimus Prime in a forest, when Optimus reveals that more of their Autobot allies are heading to Earth – we then see them entering the Earth’s atmosphere.įinally, we see Charlie once more, where she finally finishes working on the Corvette car that she and her beloved late father had been working on together. Just as the director Travis Knight is credited, we cut to two sequences. It isn’t till the end of the film that you realise the song is a tribute to (and an extension of) a famous Rajini number that was equally percussion-heavy and also sung by SP Balasubrahmanyam.Ĭharlie came to the realization that Bumblebee had a greater purpose beyond being her friend and, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, said her farewell to him.Īfter saying goodbye, Bumblebee goes on to scan a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro – his form when he meets Sam (Shia LaBeouf) in the first Transformers film, which this film is set before. My favourite nod, though, has to be Anirudh’s number, Marana mass. The nunchaku bits bring to mind Paayum Puli. A watch sales and service store goes by the name of “Muthu”. The sun-splattered lighting scheme appears to be an homage to Thalapathy. The cigarette toss makes a smashing return, as does the “ paambu ” joke. In Petta, Rajinikanth plays a hostel warden, and his name is Kaali, which is to this actor what “Vijay” is to Amitabh Bachchan. Others won’t get it.Īnd what a shrine it is, harking back to the very first “Rajini moment”, when a newcomer flung open those gates in Apoorva Raagangal. When the rest of us saw Lingaa and decided we didn’t give, um, a dam, he tweeted: “#Lingaa is a 3hr emotional talk between thalaivar and a fan who was heart broken when he was ill.Others won’t get it.HE is back & We luv him” One way to view Petta, then, is simply as a shrine to a star, by a fan. A lot of this, I bet, also has to do with the director, a self-confessed fanboy. He’s lit beautifully, and the heightened pace of his movement (something we missed in his recent films) brings to mind the Rajinikanth of old, when he spoke so fast that the words sometimes tumbled and merged into one another like socks in a washing machine. To hook you with a look at this age, at this stage of his career - you can forgive any number of Baba -s and Lingaa -s. Superstar is in super form, and it’s a thrill to be reminded - in this age of disposable stardom - of enduring screen charisma. O ne way to view Karthik Subbaraj’s Petta (Neighbourhood) is to treat it as Rajinikanth’s Petta.
#Petta imdb full
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: