Back in Rathore Land

**1/2

Within a few minutes of the opening,I knew this is one of those flicks you can watch with your ears. Dhadaak,khachhaak,crrruunch,thapppadd,dhachhaak. And krrrrich,bhadaang,dhadaam. And when Boss aka Akshay Kumar decides to take a break from pulverizing bones and flashing cleavers and blowing up cars,it becomes dhinchak,dhinchak,dhinchaaak!

The soundtrack is a faithful raconteur of the Boss’s (Kumar) exploits in his turn as a rowdy from Haryana,in another ‘South remake’ after Rowdy Rathore. For a minute I thought I was back in Rathore land,because there were Sonakshi and Prabhudeva shaking a leg with Akshay. For all intents and purposes,this could be called Rowdy 2,because Akshay does exactly what he does in that earlier film,but with different co-stars,and a plot that is totally subservient to labelling him Boss every two minutes.

In a long flashback,we are told that the Boss wasn’t always thus. He was once a good lad who lived in a place called Dharamkunj Gaon,whose father was a Gandhian schoolteacher named Satyakant (Chakraborty),and his younger brother was called Shiva (Pandit). “Marr gaya mere liye tu,” thunders his righteous father,after an incident in which a young boy is killed. I waited for the follow-up — “door ho ja meri nazron ke saamne se” — but alas,that one was not included.

We then move back to the present where we find Boss,the protégé of good-hearted-goon Tauji (Denzongpa),up against bad cop (Roy,good actor getting typecast) and greedy politician (Namdeo). The slate is set for the bringing together of the long-lost-but-now-discovered chhota bhai and his (the younger brother’s) curvy girl-friend (Hydari,who seems to have been hired solely for the rising-out-of-a-pool-in-bikini money shot),and estranged father and uncle (Sahni,looking lost). At each point Akshay arrives to save the day,and breaks a few bones while he is at it,all the while togged out in long kurtas and jeans and tightly-razored hair,parted in the middle.

Anthony D’Souza had directed Akshay in the execrable Blue before this,and for a while there was some scary talk of there being a sequel. Maybe Akshay on land is better than Akshay in the sea,but by very little. In a sequence or two,when he shows his comic timing,you know that this is a star who can be so much better. But not when he has to mouth dialogues where every double meaning is flung into the mix (bum-chiki-chiki-bum equals a bomb-in-a-human- bum equals “gas chhodna”). And definitely not when his repertoire is filled with snarls and grimaces and hacking body parts.

In fact,the lines overall are cringe-making,and aimed at those who find a truck named ‘Behen Ki Lorry’ funny. Really,Akshay?