If the purpose of a film is truly entertaining its audiences, then SRK’s Chennai Express evolves as a winner. It doesn’t boast a spectacular storyline but it still manages to impress one and all by not deviating from its path of entertaining even in the most serious scenes. While one could say since Chennai Express comes from the factory of Rohit Shetty, it guarantees entertainment, but let’s not forget the fact that Shah Rukh makes it a wholesome entertainer with his flawless performances.

Needless to say, CE is a mish mash of not one but several south Indian films. Be it the action or even the cheeky romance, you can sniff the south spirit written almost in every frame. If one of the action sequence is from Telugu film Okkadu, then a romantic scene is from some other old Tamil film. Despite of all these glaring flaws, it makes you leave the cinema hall with a smile on your face. Isn’t the purpose of a film met in such case?

Story:
It’s a simple love story of a north Indian boy and a south Indian girl laced with lot of humour, action, romance and some stereotyping as well. And what eventually happens between them forms the crux of the story.

And all that jazz about south Indians being stereotyped should put to rest because there were more Tamilians in the hall than north Indians, enjoying the film and laughing at every joke that was being cracked. If we watch this film sans cultural attachments then we are likely to enjoy it even more than anticipated. I believe if a film can attract people irrespective of language and ethnicity then it has succeeded in its effort to unite audiences beyond cultural barriers.

SRK and Deepika:
Shah Rukh was simply brilliant in his role. You even laugh at his foolishness because he makes it look genuinely real but never artificial. He breathes life into the film with his flawless performance, while Deepika was pretty and did her best but she wasn’t apt for the role.

She apparently plays the daughter of a don, who is extremely fluent in Tamil, but her accent is so weird and she struggles to mouth even few words in Tamil fluently. This is one of the biggest flaws in the film. And so is the role essayed by the bad guy, who also speaks Tamil with heavy Hindi accent. If they could cast Sathyaraj, who is a Tamilian, then why not cast a Tamilians as his daughter or at least some actress who could speak Tamil fluently.

Sathyaraj:
I also felt Sathyaraj had a very limited role and in a way he was wasted. Even the villain never appeared powerful in his role. He may have been tall but that doesn’t make him authoritative in his role. He too was wasted in a role that could have ideally played by someone with a face value.

Did I enjoy it?
Barring all these illogical clichés, SRK holds the film together and three cheers to him for that. If you really want to enjoy, then buy yourself a bucket of popcorn and ignore all the south Indian stereotyping and watch the film with the hope of being entertained and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Movie Rating: 3.5/5