One Man Army

It Is Rajinikanth’s Hour of Reckoning. Will 2.0 Make or Mar His Political Future?

First, meet Rajinikanth the movie star. The superhero with lush hair and Elvis Presley sideburns, sporting a Batman-like costume in his latest release 2.0. He is a one-man army out to save the world with a robot clone of him equipped with multiple guns that can fire bullets in a 360-degree arc. He is invincible.

Then meet Rajinikanth the person. Unlike most film stars, he unabashedly exposes his balding pate with frazzled shrubs of hair on the sides. He doesn’t hide the wrinkles and freckles on his face with make-up. He wears a spartan white kurta and pyjama and prefers to travel the streets of Chennai in an innocuous Innova. Unlike his I-dare-you on-screen characters, he is self-effacing and remains circumspect about his political plans even a year after proclaiming his intent to join the fray.

The day of reckoning, though, is nigh for Rajinikanth, and he should, as one of the memes puts it, Mind It! Costing Rs 540 crore, Shanmugam Shankar’s 2.0, the sci–fisequel to his 2010 film Enthiran (Robot), is the costliest film ever made in the history of Indian cinema. As 2.0 hit 10,000-odd screens in 14 languages around the world on November 29, there was a lot more riding on the film than just recovering the loads of money invested in it. For Rajinikanth, it will either magnify his superstar status and boost his electoral appeal or puncture his stardom and, with it, his ambitions of becoming a stellar actor on the Tamil Nadu political stage.