Aniruddha Guha Reviews: 'Ra.One' is beautiful in appearance, but empty within

Film: Ra.One
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal
Rating: ***

“Raavan kabhi marta nahi. Issi liye tum har saal usse jalate ho.” The bad guy gets the best line in the film. Sadly, his screen time is minimal. Ra.One comes alive every time the good (G.One, Khan) and the evil (Ra.One, Rampal) face-off. But they hardly do.

Ra.One carries the burden of being Hindi cinema’s costliest film, and stars one of our biggest superstars. The film has almost everything going for it: The SFX is up-to-the-mark, the concept interesting, the scale mammoth.

But blame it on Anubhav Sinha, the director with slick-but-hollow films -- Dus and Cash -- on his CV (one worked at the box office, the other bombed). RaOne is no different; it is beautiful in appearance, but empty within. Which is a pity. Anubhav could have really made a mark with this one.

The SFX, no doubt, is the best you'll have seen in a Hindi film (and that's a big plus), but the shoddy writing spoils the party. What’s the point of having all that money and technology at your disposal, when the only sequences that truly stand out are two well-choreographed action scenes and an item song that together amount to only about 11 minutes of screen time.

The rest is made up of characters periodically grabbing each other’s private parts, inane humour (Lady warriors called Iski Lee, Uski Lee, Sabki Lee), and stereotypes that range from a bumbling south Indian man to a fat black lady, and a homosexual customs officer (who salivates at G.One’s nipples, no less). Four writers are credited with the film's screenplay; each of them is squarely to blame for messing up the effort put in by the technical crew.

The disappointing thing about Ra.One is not that it resorts to inane jokes and done-to-death cliches in a desperate bid to 'entertain', but that it had the potential to truly kick some - as G.One puts it - "fat ass." Instead, we get a film that works in half measures.

So while the cameo by 'Superstar Rajinikanth' comes at an interesting juncture, it ends as abruptly, without either of the two stars really getting a chance to dazzle together. Or the action in the climax, which is set up interestingly, but doesn't really give you the adrenaline rush you expect.

Another half attempt comes from the lead actor: Khan is in his element and endearing as superhero G.One, but annoyingly OTT as video game creator Shekhar. Even though die-hard fans will freak out, SRK'S G.One lacks the chutzpah of Main Hoon Na's Major Ram, where he similarly vanquished a terrorist called 'Raghavan' at the end.

As Shekhar's wife, Kareena does little than preen at the camera in sexy outfits. Rampal scorches the scene with his screen presence. The kid Armaan, as Shekhar's son Prateik, who learns the importance of siding with the good against evil, is charming despite the awful hairstyle.

Which brings us back to the film's best dialogue: "Raavan kabhi marta nahi". So then how can the good one ever be victorious? Oh well, we have the sequel to figure that out.