Ra.one - i should've missed this one

The other day, due to a sheer lack of options for a multilingual movie watcher, I witnessed Bollywood’s second biggest grosser Ra.one. Anubhav Sinha isn’t exactly a rookie director nor is he one of those Anees Bazmee types. Infact his movie ‘Tum Bin’ is one of my all time favorite movies. I liked the way he put four actors who could barely act and brought out a complicated story in the simplest way. The way the subject was handled can only be called as ‘emotional elegance’. Then he would go on to direct ‘Aapko pehle bhi kahin dekha hai’ which had nothing mentionable. But then he also directed ‘Dus’ with a lot of slow motion action scenes and it was a decent movie. So with this kind of a patchy resume you don’t really know what’s coming your way and Shah Rukh Khan with his promotions had just stopped short of begging at every household to watch the movie. The movie was asking me to take this courageous decision of watching it. I padded myself. I took 3 friends along.

Ra.one is a video game created by a Tamilian geek Shekhar Subhramanyam (Shah Rukh Khan). His quest is to make his son’s wish come true, to make the most powerful villain in virtual gaming history. Because the background is Tamilian every clichéd joke on Tamilians is inappropriately used. They arouse no laughter but succeed in mildly irritating the audience right at the outset. The villain in the game transfers himself into reality thanks to a complicated explanation of an artificial intelligence program. The program helps Ra.one to think on its own. He is out to avenge Shekhar’s son who quits the game after the second level beating Ra.one in both levels. He plays the game as G.one who has the face of Shekhar. Ra.one asks him to compete with him at the third level but the kid is pulled away by the parents. So somehow Ra.one transfers into the real world and starts hunting for the kid killing a few people on the way, one of the casualties being Shekhar. The only way to beat Ra.one is when G.one transfers into the real world. Hence with the help of some technology and some prayers G.one comes to reality to protect the kid a la Terminator. What happens after that is the usual chase and the big fight in the end.

The movie has a good storyline. The special effects are commendable. But the sheer need to Indianize the movie in the most pathetic way brings the downfall of the movie. You do not want to watch an Indian Terminator do “Chammak challo” because you want your fighter robot to just fight. Hence Ra.one deep dives in and out of emotions, comedy and a lot of stupidity. The movie had amazing potential. It could have marked the next big step of Bollywood instead of confusing its identity by sticking to the so called roots. The main plot is strong but the collateral part leading to the buildup is just done haphazardly without any thought put into it.

Shah Rukh Khan doesn’t pull off the video game geek very well. Kareena looks very pretty and calls on the tears when required effortlessly. One scene where Ra.one gets transformed as her is done particularly well. Armaan Varma does a good job as the son of Shah Rukh. Arjun Rampal looks deadly and makes a good Ra.one.
This movie falls woefully short of the hype and sadly doesn’t quite symbolize the next big thing in Bollywood. Glimpses of the Terminator, Ironman, Matrix and Real Steel can all be gathered from the movie. G.one like Krissh fails to be the Superhero we were waiting for. Looks like for the time being we will have to stick with Chulbul Pandey.