Rudraksh Review

What is the difference between reviewing a bad movie and flogging a dead horse? Nothing, but at least a flogged dead horse won’t continue to run.

Rudraksh had been such a massive exercise in marketing that’s it’s sad that it has flopped so badly. And because of the Hyderabadi connection, we feel doubly sad. Unimpressed, pissed off and vindictive, but underneath it all, sad.

Buriya – Suniel Shetty in a bad wig – is a contractor from Bihar who turns evil. The transformation might have gone unnoticed, but his blue contacts give him away. On the site he works, a relic from Ravana’s kingdom is dug up for an archaeological study. This idol carries in it a rudraksh (or, as Shetty calls it during the climax, a multi-dimensional hologram).

The rudraksh bead bestows on its possessor all sorts of demonic powers, but causes him to lose his dress sense. Such is the price of world domination. Which is what Shetty is after – he wants to turn people into rakshasas and take over the world and then, like, do stuff with it.

The only person in his path is Varun – Sanjay Dutt in a bad wig – who uses his rudraksh (everybody seems to have one in this movie) to cure people of their illnesses. He is discovered by Bipasha Basu, a research scholar with a considerable talent for pole dancing.

Buriya wants Varun to join forces with him, but Varun has other plans - i. e., kill Buriya. Varun wants revenge for the death of his father – Kabir Bedi in a bad wig and a false beard – and he’s tired of hearing Buriya’s demonic radio broadcasts which are spurring riots across the globe and, frankly, are not very catchy.

So they meet on the last floor of the radio towers. After Varun changes into his snake contact lenses, they fight in mid-air for a very, very long time. Probably bored out of her skull, Isha Koppikar tries to create a diversion by jumping on Varun’s back. Isha plays Laali, Buriya’s girlfriend but a nasty piece of work in her own right. But even she can not save the day, or the filmgoers, who are later treated to a ridiculously abrupt but wholly welcome ending.

Where this movie is going or what it’s trying to tell you is a big mystery. The special effects are unremarkable, the narration is choppy and not once do you get into the story. At the end of the movie, there’s only one thing that falls into place: why the actors are all wearing wigs. They don’t want to be recognized.