sabotabby | Cheatsheet of Freedom: Endhiran

sabotabby

Previously on Cheatsheet of Freedom, I have watched a bunch of movies so that you don't have to. Last night,

misslynx,

lgbtech, and

cleasai came over with Endhiran. I thought that I should review this movie, but there weren't really words. There had to be screenshots.

So for the first time,

sabotabby watched a movie so that you will have to.

Some things about Endhiran:

1. It is the most expensive and highest-grossing Indian movie of all time.

2. It's Kollywood's answer to every Western sci-fi movie ever made. If you want to drink while watching it (though I didn't; you don't need to be drunk to watch it), you could probably make a drinking game of every reference.

3. It's about three hours long.

4. It's a musical.

5. It's kind of like the inside of an eight-year-old boy's brain, if the eight-year-old in question had more money than God.

6. Tamil action heroes are apparently all pudgy middle-aged men.

7. This review can't possibly begin to give you an idea of how face-meltingly awesome this movie is.

It stars Superstar Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai.

Rajni plays Dr. Vasi, a scientist who is too busy playing with robots to pay attention to his girlfriend, Sana. Anyway, he's building the best robot ever in order to give to the Indian Army. The robot gets up, dances, and eventually gets fitted with a human face. Vasi's mom names it Chitti.

He has two Ph.D. buttmonkeys working for him who provide comic relief and occasional foreshadowing.

Sana is played by Aishwarya Rai, so you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to imagine that Vasi doesn't answer her phone calls. I mean, really. Anyway, she dumps him for ignoring her.

The two reconcile in a touching musical number.

Vasi has a rival/mentor, Dr. Bora. Dr. Bora has to approve all robots for their intended use. Vasi basically stops eating, sleeping, or cutting his shaggy hair and beard as he works around the clock to make sure that the robot will meet Dr. Bora's exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Bora is secretly making evil robots in his lab to sell to terrorists, but he is significantly less clever than Vasi so the evil robots keep falling on their faces.

Sana is studying to be a doctor, but she hasn't had time to study for her exams because she's been busy pining over Vasi. So she brings Chitti, who is also played by Superstar Rajni, home with her to help her study. He cooks, cleans, charms her parents, and helps her study. But oh no! The neighbours are cranking their music too loudly.

So Chitti blows up their stereo. It's pretty awesome. I'd like a Chitti of my own.

Don't fuck with Chitti.

Chitti kicks the ass of anyone who fucks with Sana, including an entire train full of people. (They deserve it.)

When it comes time for Bora's evaluation, though, he still doesn't approve Chitti because Chitti has no ethical system or emotions. Anyway, with some rewiring, philosophical instruction, classic literature, and a lightning bolt (really!) Chitti gets emotions.

Obviously, this means that he immediately falls for Sana.

He declares his love in a musical number with increasingly awesome costume changes.

But Vasi also loves Sana, and proposes to her. Chitti does not take this well, and raises all of the perfectly rational arguments for why he's a better husband for Sana than Vasi. (He's right, by the way. For the next half-hour or so, he's the only likable character in the movie. Following this, there are not any likable characters in the movie.)

Finally, it's time for Vasi to show his creation to the military. But Chitti is in love, so instead of demonstrating his military value, he sticks a flower in a grenade and tells the upper brass of the Indian Army that they should make love, not war.

So Vasi chops him up into pieces with an axe and throws him in the dump.

Cultural appropriation: Not just for white people anymore!

But Bora rescues all of the Chitti-bits and reassembles him, adding an evil chip to his programming to make him evil.

Evil!Chitti is less likable than Regular!Chitti, but much more fun! He kidnaps Sana from her wedding and takes her on a joyride in which he kills hundreds of cops.

During this scene, he blows up a bunch of police cars, then uses his electromagnetism to steal all of the cops' guns, mows them down in a hail of machine-gun fire, and says, "HAPPY DIWALI EVERYONE!"

Then he turns all of the evil failbots in Bora's lab into Chitti drones with Elvis hair.

The musical numbers continue to become more awesome until there are robot lions, because why not?

The Chitti clones become magnetized and play an incredibly destructive, yet hilarious, game of Katamari Damacy.

Then they turn into a giant cobra, because it's that kind of movie.

The giant cobra eats a helicopter.

I could tell you what happens after. I mean, there's an ending with resolution and even a moral. But really, do you need to know anything more about this movie than that it features evil robot clones assembling themselves into a giant cobra, which then eats a helicopter? And also that it's a musical? I didn't think so.

The problem is that I don't think anyone else can make a movie now. You can't top this shit.

I encourage people to buy it on DVD or stream it on YouTube or torrent it or whatever. It's basically fantastic in every possible way and your life is not really complete unless you see it. Also, if anyone could point me towards the soundtrack, that would be swell.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

misslynx.livejournal.com

I second everything in this post. With great enthusiasm. AllI have to add is the following:

There have been complaints that ~~Amazon~~ a certain large online book/music/video retailer theoretically stocks this movie, but never has very many copies, making it hard to get there. We got ours from http://www.bhavanidvd.com/ instead.
Soundtrack.
Desktop pictures, even! 6 pages of it. Because who doesn't want something like this on their desktop?
The D & A you mention are on LJ as lgbtech and cleasai respectively, though the latter doesn't actually use his very often.

From:

sabotabby

The soundtrack is not available from iTunes. WTF, iTunes! This is why people pirate.

Thanks again for bringing the awesome.

From:

misslynx.livejournal.com

It showed up in the iTunes store for me when I followed that link... But I did not actually try to make a purchase, because my credit card is sadly maxed out at the moment and they did not (last I checked anyway) take PayPal (which is why I usually end up going to 7digital.com instead of iTunes, but they don't have it). Did it say it was unavailable when you tried to buy it?

Thanks again for bringing the awesome.

I now feel an intense compulsion to seek out and obtain more Indian science fiction/action movies. I know, they will probably not measure up to the standard set by this one. But still...

i'll tell you all my secrets but i'll lie about my past

Cheatsheet of Freedom: Endhiran

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