"Kabali" is a film Rajnikanth agreed to in order to satisfy his creative impulses, not to pander to the fan's clamor for entertainment. That's what you realise once the titles pass and a bearded prisoner walks out of his cell as he gets released after serving a 25 year sentence. The story is all about Kabaleeswaran, a rival gangster who was anointed by Sitarama Raju (Nazar) when he was a nobody in Malaysia. The rival gang led by Tony Lee (Winston Chao) and Vijay Singh (Kishore) is the scourge of Kuala Lumpur known by a prime number 43. Much of the story is about the inter-necine rivalry between Gang 43 and Kabali as they clash with each other eliminating most seniors and juniors. The story must be the thinnest one ever endorsed by Superstar Rajni and does nothing much to cheer the family audiences who make it an annual jamboree to watch his films or diehard fans who whistle at his antics and swagger and style.
In 150 minutes, director PA Ranjith gives a clichéd presentation of gang-wars in Malaysia while giving a sketchy overview of life of Tamils in Malaysia. Both the themes inter-mixed in the story fail to enthuse the audience. In the name of stylish and slick overlay, Ranjith gives us a docu-drama with some of the most exquisite cruelties and slaying of innocents and not-so-innocents. How the Malaysian police gets hoodwinked most of the times, we don't know. And most of the shooting sequences where people fall like nine pins are shot in popular streets and temple corners of Malaysia which look ludicrous to folks who find the country to be law-abiding and orderly. The story has no twists, no nuances and no theatrical thrills except soundbytes from sophisticated weaponry. Instead we get to see a motley of unfamiliar faces posing as gangster crew who can only be trigger-happy and move their arms and legs acrobatically.
There is no room for pure emotions or surcharged dialogues or entertainment in songs, it is all about serious, mean business of the rival gangs and the worlds they live in. There were opportunities for the director when an ensemble of victims rehabilitated by Kabali under "Free Life Foundation" celebrate their annual day with their chief sponsor but the director fritters it away in boring banter. There were opportunities in flashback too when Radhika Apte lights up the screen more than once but the magic never gets ignited because there is no interplay of romance between the two except as montage shots. Another great opportunity lost was the way veteran actor Nazar was restricted to few minutes but the emotions of passing on the baton from him to Rajni were never dramatic or inspired.
It appears this is more a film made for Rajni's desire to see him as a new age Don in tweedy suits and exuberant stills without the bothers of a regular fare of formula entertainment. To a large extent, Rajni is smashing and stunning in his looks and dressing. Even without makeup, his persona and screen presence is towering. The only person who matches him in screen presence is Dhaniska, who plays the suave and unsmiling assassin girl. Radhika Apte is unremarkable and looked like she was going to drop dead any moment on screen. Despite Ranjith's efforts to make her look good with plastic smiles, Radhika Apt should realize that it is Tollywood alone which showed her in better glamour and aura despite her vitriolic attacks on Tollywood. Cinematography is a saving grace of the film and the fact that additional cinematography team is roped in embellishes the shots to give the tautness of a Hollywood classic in visual splendor. Malaysian skyscape never looked better and the aerial shots just make you long for more as the only visual relief in the film besides showing one-upmanship of rival gangsters. The climax sequence on top of a skyscraper is the only thing that haunts you visually once you wake up tired to the synthetic charms of an over-used plot.
Music by Santosh Narayan fails to register except in occasional BGM scores. There is originality in the way he uses death-knell-sounding sirens as BGM whenever Rajni scores a goal against rivals but beyond that the songs and the scores hardly impress. Because the film doesn't fit to the regular Rajni formula film, you can afford to take few breaks when a song appears in the film. In fact you can afford to miss the many violent scenes which surprisingly missed the attention of the censors. There is a sequence of Dinesh (part of Rajni's gang) getting pulverized with soda bottle after soda bottle and then gets his shoulder sawed out with a giant hack by the main villain Winston Chao. Scenes like this make you wonder why legends like Rajni chose such massive doses of violence in his films. This is not recommended for kids at all and adults also will eventually feel impatient and walk out of the film because of insipid content and iterative plot of gangwars which has come umpteen times. The dubbing quality is not that bad as critics pointed out - it could have got better if Kishore used his own regular voice but dubbing per se is not materially impacting the film's lack of substance. As for director Ranjith, he is good at visual imagery but doesn't mix storytelling with entertainment. The film is the most boring, collinear narrative ever on celluloid and that exposes the director's gaps in understanding a popular medium of entertainment. You can make a film about Tamils in Antarctica also but the emotions should surcharge the atmosphere you project on screen - the director fails in that litmus test.
That leaves you to wonder whether the hype of "Kabali" is justified. The film got released in 30 countries and must be the marketing hoax of the decade. More people have watched the trailer than those who voted for BRexit in UK. For Rajni and his fans, this film should be a tipping point in deciding where to go next. After working with skilled directors like Shankar, Ravi Kumar and Suresh Krissna, Rajni is wallowing in box-office disasters for the last three films even if the hype is not fading. He may be the most-watched Asian after Jackie Chan in films but like all star-studded phenomena, films like "Kabali" will only accelerate his fall from grace because of an unintelligent nexus between his marketing machinery and the feedback loop from well-wisher fans. Hubris and Debris are two sides of the same coin which greeted every legend in film industry, and Rajni cannot be exception to this rule despite an army of Bhakts. If you don't reinvent yourself or take precaution in story selection and content, even Spielberg and Cameron cannot lift your fortunes. Yes, you can continue to have self-congratulatory jokes that defy the laws of physics but unless everybody in the supply chain makes money on your movie, you will lose the ability as a bankable star. The cycle of Hubris and Debris has spared nobody from Dev Anand to Shammi Kapoor to Rajesh Khanna to Amitabh Bacchan to Mithun Chakraborty to Superstar Krishna to Chiranjeevi. "Kabali" is a disappointment of the decade for Rajni fans but it can be a great opportunity for the aging Superstar to regroup his charisma for a better legacy and impressive retirement. But only if he introspects on why this movie sucks. You can rate the film sheerly on technicalities as average but since the overall content leaves you dazed and tired, you got to rate it down so as to raise the bar for Superstar.
Rating: 2.25/5
