Particularly nice are Petta’s lines that echo the lines that Kaali spoke at different times at the hostel.īack in the present, Kaali proceeds to Uttar Pradesh to settle scores with Singaram who has now become a politician Singhaar Singh. There is not a lot of depth(Sasikumar, as his friend Malik, and Trisha, as his wife Saro, have glorified cameos here) or events(sand smuggling is touched upon) but things move fast and the segment also introduces us to Singaram(Nawazuddin Siddique), the man behind all the tragedy in Petta’s life. The cinematography and background score keep us hooked as a superbly staged, long fight sequence outside and inside the college sets up the main story.Ī flashback reveals Kaali to be handlebar-mustached Petta Velan and the reason for him showing up at the hostel after all these years. This last task leads to a barebones romance with Mangalam(Simran), the single mother of the girl Kaali helps. While there are hints of a dark past, things are predominantly light as he fixes the students’ problems, clashes with Michael(Bobby Simha) and his father(Naren, who makes us chuckle with his exasperation), dances for 2 fun songs in Marana Mass… and Ullala… and helps two young lovers. The fact that has done so without abandoning his sensibilities as a director is just icing on the cake.Īfter a long introduction scene in the middle of a fight, we first see Rajni as Kaali as he shows up as a temporary hostel warden at a college. While he had tackled various genres with confidence in his previous films and was seen as one of the directors at the forefront of the new wave in Tamil cinema, his self-confessed goal with the film Petta was to deliver a superstar-centric film – the kind of Rajni film that he grew up with, the kind that made him a fan and transformed Rajni from a star to a superstar. The closes he came to it was in Lingaa but it was an insipid affair from a director who hadn’t changed with the times and so attempted to follow the template without any meat.Īs an unabashed fanboy of Rajnikanth, it was certainly a dream come true for director Karthik Subburaj when he got the opportunity to direct the actor.
Enthiran/ 2.0 saw him perform superhuman feats but only as a robot while Kabali/ Kaala saw the actor play his age in serious films that tackled serious social issues. Its been a few years since Rajnikanth acted in a film that followed the template of the “Rajni film” of the 90s and early 2000s.
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