I finally saw Saala Khadoos!  A week after it came out!  And it was definitely worth the wait.  A lot to chew on, and, more importantly, a great role for Madhavan and a totally loveable new heroine!

So, I’m reading a British novel from 1909 right now (Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo, highly recommended!).  The only thing that bothers me about it, is the way the men deal with their women.  Or rather, don’t deal with them.  There are SO MANY conversations between a suitor and a father, or a husband and a wife’s friend, or a brother and his sister’s guardian.  Nobody ever talks to women directly!  Because that would be disrespectful.  No, it is more respectful to cut them off from any knowledge of or interaction with the world except through the medium of their designated male representative.

Which brings me to this film.  The title would be most accurately conveyed in English as “Rude Bastard”.  The whole idea is, our hero is rude and crude and doesn’t dress nice or talk nice and insults and hits his female boxing students.  The world, as shown in this film, thinks he is a “bastard”, and he is demoted because he is accused of sexual harressing one of his students.  Which everyone believes, because they’ve seen the way he behaves with them.

But, the bigger point is, it’s the “respectful” types you have to watch out for.  The ones who constantly compliment and speak softly to women.  They do that because they see them as less-than, as unable to deal with the harsh realities of the world.  And it is just a small step from there to thinking that all women must have a man with them, otherwise they can’t function.  And from there to thinking that you are doing them a favor by guiding them.  And, ultimately, that they owe you a return for this favor.  We see that in this film over and over, from the heroine’s worthless drunkard father who takes all the money earned by his daughters as his right as their father, to the authorities in the sports administration who disapprove of the aggressive way our hero treats his trainees since there is no point in training girls, to the general acceptance throughout the administration that the only use for the women’s program is to provide for their sexual needs.  That these women “owe” them, just for the honor of being selected, and the only way a woman can pay a man is with her body.  (None of this is spoilers, by the way, it is all covered in the first 5 minutes of the film)

They hit this message hard through out the film, and I love that!  But it’s not completely perfect, because there are other messages that they touch on but don’t quite hit on center.  If you aren’t going to make it the perfect message, then I would prefer you ignore the topic entirely, or just add another hour to the film so you can explore it all the way.  The heroine has a sister, and that relationship is important, but towards the end there are a couple of vital scenes between them that get skipped over a bit.  There is an implication that the hero and some of the other “decent” men in the sport have seen the rapes going on and been disgusted by it, but then why haven’t they done more to stop it?  And there are a couple of brief scenes indicating the way women support and protect each other in these situations, but not quite as many as I needed.

But over all, a good movie with a great message!  Madhavan is really perfect casting.  He has the size and the presence to be believable as a boxer.  More over, he is playing a coach who is still young, but who somehow missed out on his big chance and is not at the top of his profession.  Very matchy-matchy with Madhavan’s actual career!  And, as always, he does a great job with the acting of it, nailing the harsh tone and brutal words but still making you believe he cares for his charges underneath it all.  I can see why he decided to co-produce after he saw the script.

The heroine is amazing!  Apparently, she is a professional fighter in real life, and the director (a female director!), especially wanted an actual fighter for the film, so she sought her out.  She just explodes on the screen, all confidence and charisma and no patience with “feminine” values or ideologies.

It’s a little short, and some of the plot changes are a little abrupt, like there were some scenes they cut at the last minute, or ran out of money before filming.  There are only a couple songs, but they are handled very well.  And it is filmed extremely well, the director apprenticed under Mani Ratnam, and it has that Ratnam beautiful-but-realistic look to it.

But the whole movie is worth it for this one song that takes the standard “heroine and her sister/friend sweetly dance about the market place like innocent young children” song and turns it on it’s head.

(in case you don’t know what I mean, here is the typical way that would play out.  See how delicate and simple they appear?  And completely unsexual?  No leering at men on posters here, it’s all about playing clapping games and taking blessings from the Ganges!)