Chennai Express – Sub-Mental Garbage

To hail Chennai Express as a movie would be an egregious insult to the entertainment form that daily gives joy to millions around the world.

Folks, Chennai Express is a tawdry spectacle that only a crass Indian filmmaker would put out, only an aging Pakistan-loving Indian superstar would feature in and only a classless Indian audience with an abundant appetite for trash would delight in.

It’s a miracle I still retain my sanity after watching this steaming pile of dung.

Bottomless Pit of Nonsense

A sophomoric romance that marries the worst practices of Hindi films with the garish excesses of Tamil movies, Chennai Express is a throwback to the rotten days when any Indian with a few coins jingling in his pockets would unleash some frightful bilge upon the public.

At times, I wondered if director Rohit Shitty’s movie was some kind of parody.

Alas, it was not.

But Shah Rukh Khan is no less culpable since he co-produced this pukeworthy trash.

Following the death of his grandfather, Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan’s favorite alter ego) is entrusted with the task of immersing grandpa’s ashes in Rameswaram in the deep south.

Forty and single, Rahul’s thoughts are far from ash immersion and more centered around immersing his beak into some nubile girl in Goa.

But at his grandmother’s insistence, Rahul promises to go all the way to Rameswaram though he’s furtively planning to dunk the ashes in Goa. The reasoning being that the water in Goa eventually reaches Rameswaram!

Moments after Rahul steps into the train, Meenamma (Deepika Padukone) and a gaggle of simian thugs follow. Before you can say Rajinikanth, our Rahul is in Kombam, the village where the girl’s father (played by yesteryear b-grade Tamil star Satyaraj) is the local Don.

Apparently, the girl is fleeing the orangutans dispatched by her father to coerce her into marrying a local ruffian Tangabali. But why Meenamma is heading for her village, straight into the lion’s den, instead of picking a different destination is a question that would occur only to sane elements who believe in stuff like logic and reason.

Watching the gibbering Tangabali, played hopelessly by Nikitin Dheer with the perpetual demeanor of a homicidal maniac AWOL from the death-row of some notorious Indian prison, is intolerable punishment for tender souls.

Once Rahul and Meenamma arrive in Kombam, the hitherto bad movie descends into perversity with an-asinine-antic-a-minute interspersed with cringeworthy dialogs and forgettable songs, ultimately culminating in a nauseating fight with soda bottles, sickles and food stoves between the giant Tangabali and the puny Rahul.

Of course, the puny guy wins the fight, which ends with the giant complimenting Rahul on his courage! I’m not kidding! There are no limits in this parade of infantile nonsense.

As if all these were not morbid enough, the howling emissaries of Satan bring up a weird homage to Tamil superstar Rajinikanth during the credits!

Don’t ask Why!

Tame Item Number

Despite her ownership of a pair of udders that would put any milch cow to shame and hips wide enough to screen a 16MM film, South Indian bimbo Priyamani’s item number “One Two three Four” was so hopeless, so unseductive that it almost put me to sleep.

You can put the entire world’s lipsticks on Priyamani but at the end of the day you can’t deny some circus is missing one of its prize lobotomized freaks!

Avoid

Chennai Express is a disgusting and disgraceful spectacle that should make the Indian film industry put its collective head down in shame.

The trinity of Shah Rukh Khan, Rohit Shetty and Deepika Padukone must really hate Muslims for unleashing this clumsy grotesquerie as the community celebrates the festival of Eid.

SearchIndia.com strongly recommends you stay away from this tableaux of trash.

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