Veteran director S. A. Chandrasekhar’s swan song, Touring Talkies , is made up of two separate stories, split by the interval. The first film has him playing Anthony, a 75-year-old millionaire, fighting for his life, in search of his long-lost lover. He is a chain smoker, who travels to Shimla looking for Hema Malini (Papri Ghosh), who left him at the altar 50 years ago. Curiously, his 50-year-old memory of this lover has a Tata Indigo in the background! It’s an enigma really, because the present-day scenes seem old-fashioned, and the flashbacks surprisingly contemporary. For instance, the actress even makes a joke reference to AIDS — years before the disease was even discovered.
There is also a sleazy song that has the heroine shedding layers of clothing… remember Dhoom: 3’s ‘Malang’?
The dialogues too aren’t the most innovative. In one scene, when Anthony hangs outside Hema Malini’s window at night, he spots her dad and calls him, ‘Sethji.’ When the dad looks around in confusion, Hema tells him that it was a crow calling… a north Indian crow. Whatever that means. Later, when the hero goes to bed with the heroine before their marriage, he calls it ‘rehearsal night’.
However, the few scenes where Chandrasekhar plays to the gallery are fun. He calls himself ‘Gilli’ (a reference to his son, Vijay’s hit film) at one point. In another scene, he says he’s going to a build a ‘Kadhal Kottai’ (reference to an Ajith film) for his lover. These cheeky scenes make the first story much better than the second, but that’s not saying much at all.
After the interval, the film moves back to Tamil Nadu, where it deals with the story of two sisters — the elder one working for a corrupt family, and the younger one a school student. While we expect sensitivity from a film that deals with a serious topic like child molestation, this part is anything but.
Even the revenge isn’t classy. The elder sister of the victim is satisfied with urinating into the drinks of the unwitting evil family members.In another instance, honey is poured all over a character’s private parts, as gleeful scorpions march in.
At the end, as the lights switch on, you realise you’re among the few people left in the theatre. It’s a mark of how bad the film is that even Ilaiyaraaja’s best efforts can’t salvage it.
Published - January 31, 2015 06:48 pm IST
