The path to superstardom is not only slippery but thorny too. It’s a classic game of snakes and ladders and once you scale the peak, you develop vertigo. It’s a strange amalgam of fear and insecurity. After overcoming bitter backbiting and chicanery, the only fear is faltering in your choice of films. The film industry can toughen you or break your backbone like a twig. After the ambitious ‘Puli’ failed to roar, Vijay creates a splash with ‘Theri’.
If very reliable rumours (like a person who was in the room) are to be believed, Thanu, the producer made an offer Vijay just could not refuse. “Thambi (brother), you don’t know your worth. I fail to understand why your remuneration is so less,” said Thanu and offered him fifty percent more than he normally charged! Vijay did protest, mildly, but acceded in the end. Who wouldn’t because basically there are no parameters to determine a star’s worth. Vijay’s last release ‘Puli’ might have turned into a box-office turkey but Thanu saw a hen that laid golden eggs. His gamble has paid off but since ‘Theri’ has blazed the box-office, future producers will have to pay the benchmark price!
After ‘Puli’ was pulverised by the public and press, Vijay and his think tank must have sat in a huddle for a post-mortem. Of course everything else but the superstar would have been blamed. The consensus would have been to confine future choices to include only tried and tested elements. It’s not easy for a director who’s churned out a pleasant rom-com like ‘Raja Rani’ to write escapist fare that would satiate a superstar’s fanatics. There are only so many ingredients you can have but then Atlee is an alumni of the Murugadoss School. Revenge and redemption are taught by the expert director. Atlee chooses ‘Baasha’ as a reference point though it’s been done to death in Tamil cinema.
Even the recent ‘Ajit’ starrer ‘Vedalam’ was a variant. The hero has sworn non-violence and lives incognito in Kerala with his daughter and a faithful underling who worships him. Every viewer worth the ticket money knows the hero has a violent past. He’s the personification of devotion, be it as father, son and husband or at work as a police officer. A victim of vicious rape just has to utter the word ‘anna’ and he wipes off a teardrop and swears retribution. He’s the hero so though he’s a police officer he doesn’t believe in the courts and imprisonment. He asks his underling what punishment he would mete out. “I’d castrate and hang him from a bridge,” hisses the subordinate. “It’s already been done,” says hero with a sinister smile sauntering away in slow motion. Fans yell their lungs out in approval.
I was reminded of a Marathi film, ‘Dombivili Fast’ I watched recently. The protagonist (I’ll be careful enough not to call him hero), a frustrated white collar worker brandishes a gun and forces a doctor to attend to a poor, elderly couple. The doctor in duress agrees but the lady refuses, admonishing the protagonist for threatening a practitioner of a noble profession. The emaciated, sagely husband returns and gently says, “You’re right to be angry but the approach is wrong. Through force and violence you may settle the issue but it only seems so. My wife agreed to go to a different hospital immediately and that’s called wisdom. That’s what differentiates us from beasts. I would like to thank you but your behaviour in the end held me back. Think about this. Please do.” I wonder if this should be conveyed to superstars or their mindless fans. Anyway ‘Theri’ hurtles from one prescribed turn to another predictable twist. When everything is hunky-dory you know tragedy is about to strike. It does and devastates the hero. He’s forced to don his uniform and bathe the screen in blood. His fans shriek in a frenzy of joy. Revenge is always sweet and satisfying however violent.
Everything in ‘Theri’ is as improbable as the opening sequence where the hero, on a battered Rajdooth motorcycle chases and overtakes a speeding SUV. It’s big, it’s bad but it’s a hit and who can argue with that? Vijay has again lived up to his name.
sshivu@yahoo.com
