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Revolver Rani (Sai Kabir, Indien 2014) - review in english


Alka Singh (who is Revolver Rani aswell), angry young woman and leader of a dubious political party, loses her heart to Bollywood wannabe-actor Rohan. Needless to say, he is is just an impostor with hopes and dreams he doesn't believe in himself. When he finally decides to leave Alka Singh for another woman, his chances are bad - she is already pregnant with his child. Besides, leaving Rani is never an option, because she is fast with her guns and gets easily carried away in her anger. If there's something she doesn't like, Rani fires.

Since two or three days (now: weeks) already I've been thinking about Revolver Rani and wonder about what I could prossibly write that could be of interest - and thus contribute to the discourse of this peculiar film that seems to stand midway between commercial filmmaking and exploitation. A point that would interest me a lot at least. Seemingly only that is, and that's the biggest problem of the film, because it definitely is, well, just a very uneven, blank commercial product with no ambition at all. The Grindhouse-appeal is just a poster tricking your unconscious mind. No ambition to break barriers, to shock, to show something unexpected or slightly new. Something of character. In the end it's another love story told in a stupid way. Maybe there wasn't even a script, because the movie loses its protagonists on its way. On the way in between a love so compassionate, that the heroine builds a gamepark (labelled: studioset) for her loverboy, but truly it is just there that they have the possibility of including an incredibly stupid citation of the most famous scene of one of the most horrible films in the history of moviemaking ever: Titanic. There they are, Rani and Rohan, stretching out their arms on their own little Titanic, not knowing that this is a very bad omen. The permanent references to other movies truly is the only "postmodern" - tarantinoesque or Robert Rodriguez-esque influence in a movie that tries to catch you with a Death Proof / Kill Bill-styled charm. That is, if your attention is not diverted by the most horrible acting of the main protagonists, Rani and her lover against his own will, Rrrrohan.

The general acting performance of superstar Kangana Ranaut as Rani is just terrible. Overacting is something that might be tolerated in an insanely crazy comedy from Hong Kong or an Indian lovestory, that is larger than life and gets totally carried away. A movie that wants to play with the ambivalence of a gritty reality versus love as a saviour, there should be, at least sometimes, a grain of reliable acting that hints towards the fact that there is actually something to fight for (that's why the scenes with Rani's father and his cohort of corrupt political hoodlums are the only ones that seem to be of interest). This goes for action sequences aswell. In one of the few fight scenes, the choreography is so bad and the editing so slow, that one has to think that it's a bad joke they are playing with the audience. This just looks like an unwilling imitation of a fight scene, and is a long way from the real stuff. Well, then, it might even be a mode of stylistic means, but like her acting in Revolver Rani, everything is just over the top, all the time.

This movie is grotesque, a politcal farce mixed with a really blunt lovestory and a - not even flawed - but unbelievably boring narration. After the interval in the second half of the movie, the entertainment level drops to unknown depths, and boredom reigns. Even Alka Singh herself seems to be bored by her much too violent and at the same time ordinary life, as she thinks about quitting politics and leaving the country with her soon-to-be husband and their child. Leaving her old life behind. Yes, this is a wise decision, I would quit a life like that, too. Before watching the movie, I was in good spirits and was prepared for a senseless time-waster, but after 30 minutes into Revolver Rani, I wanted to do my laundry and wished this ugly and uninspired bore of a movie would just stop. Still, I had to watch another one and a half hours. Be warned!

***

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