In one of Motta Shiva Ketta Shiva ’s many painful scenes, ACP Siva (‘Makkal Superstar’ Raghava Lawrence) storms the house of corrupt politician GK (Ashutosh Rana) and starts a shooting blitzkrieg. He exhausts all the bullets in his revolver, a machine gun and a sniper rifle. The camera pans to show us the damage and not one person is hurt. Instead, the bullet holes on a faraway wall form the State Emblem of India.
If subtlety were a place, then someone’s given Raghava Lawrence a travel ban. In a dialogue that follows, he looks at one of GK’s henchmen and asks, ‘ Ivlo nadandapramum logic kekraye nee (even after all this, are you asking me for logic)?” It’s as though the question is directed at us. Not just the audience, but critics too.
The problem really isn’t with the mass hero film it, unabashedly, sets out to be. It’s with how the film struggles to check a few boxes on the tiny to-do-list that make a good mass film. A great hero entry, a good punch dialogue, an effective villain….sadly, Motta Shiva Ketta Siva has none of these.
A mass hero though? That’s the one thing this film has going for it. For many, Lawrence is nothing but a carbon copy of Rajinkanth and his mannerisms. But there’s a distinct style in the way he performs, even in the simplest of scenes. Just see how well he carries off a police belt with jeans, and you can see why producers pumped money into this star vehicle.
But can the hero’s charisma alone save a two-and-half-hour film? Not really. ACP Shiva, never really comes across as a real, vulnerable person. He’s invincible and this alienates our concerns for the characters. So imagine a stretch that brings about Shiva’s transformation....a mute girl who is like a sister to him, is murdered, and this triggers his shift from a corrupt cop to an honest one. But we learn so little about the girl that it doesn’t matter if her murder is avenged.
Throw in a couple of super-offensive rape jokes into this mix and this masala is just too strong for your taste.
Genre: Action
Director: Sai Ramani
Cast: Raghava Lawrence, Sathyaraj, Nikki Galrani
Storyline: A corrupt cop mends his ways after a friend’s murder
Bottomline: Mindless masala
