Boom Boom Robo Da

I watched Endhiran – the Robot yesterday. My tamil proficiency is not too high and I usually watch only Kamal / Rajini releases or movies with a good dose of eye candy (Madhavan, Surya, etc.). Endhiran, of course had to be seen and finally after waiting 4 weeks for ticket prices to drop to the $10 vicinity, I managed to watch it.

I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was entertaining and visually spectacular. However, amidst the technological splendor and fascinating storyline I couldn’t help but notice a few instances where the director blatantly stuck to certain age-old ‘formulae’ for no apparent reason. For e.g. ‘The sidekicks’. No matter what the situation, a rural drama or a sci-fi thriller where the hero is a CMU/Stanford returned artificial intelligence scientist, it is imperative to throw in comic relief in the form of 2 or more idiotic, highly annoying, crude (and supposedly hilarious) sidekicks. How such morons ended up as assistants to a scientist working with cutting edge artificial intelligence is beside the point.

Also, I felt Aishwarya Rai's character was made to conform to certain stereotypes. She had to pout a lot, whine a lot and of course, laugh uncontrollably when not pouting or whining. I actually think she did a splendid job of what she was expected to do. After all it is not easy to speak/ act in a language you don’t understand and you would be inclined to do exactly what you are told, as opposed to analyzing the dialogues and giving it a flavor of your own. To say she looked like a dream would be to state the obvious.

Before I continue my pointless critique I need to remind myself that Endhiran is not about the sidekicks or the heroine or even the special effects. Endhiran is about reverence and idolization that defies any explanation. It is about waking up at 3 am to catch a 4 am show in Chennai. It is about shelling out $40 per head to catch the first day first show in a tiny theatre in North Carolina. It is about human nature and the fact that everyone secretly hopes for a fairytale ending. The bus conductor turned SuperStar gives us just that.