Revolver Rani

Anyone who refers to Revolver Rani as an absolutely nonsensical, over the top, blasé, idiotic, unbelievable, ridiculous, ludicrous, abnormal, bizarre, eccentric, gross, unexpected, unusual, weird movie is absolutely right!!! You can refer to it with any of the adjectives that I have called out but you cannot say that it is a bad movie by any stretch of imagination. Anyone who does refer to Revolver Rani as a bad movie is taking life way to seriously and is no familiar with exploitation movies.

I'm going to stick my neck out here. The 1st half of Revolver Rani is India's answer to Roberto Rodriguez's Machete series. Funnily, as I was walking down for the show today, the thought did cross my mind. I gathered it from the trailer and the posters. They seemed to be clearly inspired by Sofia Vergara's character in Machete Kills - and I use the word inspired with no sarcasm. In fact they seem to have been made very well.

The inspiration extends to the costumes as well which have been flown in from Italy - said as a matter of fact by Alka Singh (Kangana Ranaut) aka Revolver Rani. "Yahaan ke logon ko fesan (fashion) ke baare mein samajh nahin hai na" (People here don't get fashion). “Here” indicates the territory of Morena in Madhya Pradesh. Where there are 2 people who rule the roost – Alka and Bhanu (Zakir Hussain). They are hardcore rivals and also trigger happy politicians.

Enter Rohan (Vir Das) - Etawah ka Aamir Khan - a “nobody” who is under the false notion that he is destined for greatness and Bollywood. His stepping stone into his attempted greatness will come through Alka who he manages to impress at a local gig where men in their underwear try to impress Alka. Soon enough he and Alka are having vigorous sex (I can't describe it any better). He names her “coco” for being like a coconut and she calls him “cham cham” because she feels like it.

Coco's love for Cham Cham knows no bounds. So much that she builds Chambal Film City as a birthday present, replete with a life-size Taj Mahal replica and a set of The Titanic for good measure. But our horny cham cham is peddling his wares with a Bollywood starlet as well who is conveniently aware of Alka's existence. Somewhere in between all this the supposedly infertile Alka now gets pregnant. How's that for adding masala to the entire story!!!

Revolver Rani has some solid characters sketched by the writers. Piyush Mishra (Balli Mama) is as always simply superb - not just in his acting or dialogue delivery but also with his lyrics and singing - I remember at least 2 songs in his awesome voice. Zakir Hussain as Bhanu Pratap and his 2 brothers are also superbly scripted characters. In fact the weakest of the lot would be Rohan. Vir Das was the biggest misfit in casting and probably the lowest point of the entire movie in terms of casting.

Don't let me misguide you here. I am at no point saying that the movie was a brilliant work of art. It is an exploitation movie, ergo filled with some awesome masala but unfortunately only for the first half. In the 2nd half, it kind of tangles itself into a convoluted mess for about an hour before kind of crawling back into it with a climax that leaves room for Revolver Rani 2.  It was also slickly done – not normal in these parts.

I for one will want to see the next part. Maybe just to listen to Payal Parihaar (Mishkka Singh) and her ridiculous news casting – totally howlarious!!! To wrap it up, it doesn't take talent to make a movie and get it wrong. But it takes a lot of talent to make a bad movie intentionally and getting it right. That is called exploitation. Watch Revolver Rani without your brains and for Kangana's rocking performance. 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMlQpGNZz1E