Tamil-speaking Indian idol Rajinikanth may be 75 years old—76 in December!—but he remains a Super Star in our hearts. And just in case you forgot, here comes “Jailer 2,” a punchy, overlong, but mostly thrilling three-hour flex. On who, you might ask? Almost everybody, as you can tell from the polyphony of languages throughout his latest extravaganza: Tamil, of course, plus Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada. Give him another hour, and he’d likely make room for Bengali and Marathi, too.
(Almost) all other hands are on deck for “Jailer 2.” Anirudh’s bass- and beats-heavy score lays out a typically bright red carpet for the mischievous antihero, with lyrics that hail Rajini for “[making] generations dance to his tune.” And director Nelson Dilipkumar applies the same visual dynamism that made the first “Jailer” so satisfying. There’s still too much of everything here, but there’s also just enough highlights and infectious, star-powered swagger to keep you floating from one islet of pandering maximalist pleasure to the next.
None of this is new for Rajinikanth’s pre-invested fans, who always turn opening-night screenings into an ear-splitting fiesta of whistles and cheers. It’s easy to get swept away by the crowd’s ever-cresting energy, even if this latest showcase for the septuagenarian Tamil showboat often reminds us what made “Jailer” a smoother, improbably less convoluted star vehicle.
“Jailer 2” mostly concerns the emotional baggage left over from “Jailer,” though retired prison warden “Tiger” Muthuvel Pandian takes some time to unpack it. Later, Pandian mixes it up with a family of idol-smuggling crime bosses led by the wheelchair-bound 72-year-old patriarch Chakri Patak (Mithun Chakraborty) and his hambone son Bodhi (S.J. Suryah). First, a contrived setup follows a dispute with posturing mobster Moorthi (Namo Narayana) and the Pataks’ menacing associate, Dileep (Malayalam star Suraj Venjaramoodu). After that, Pandian remembers that his beef with the Pataks stems from his murder of their partner, Varman (Vinayakan), and his own corrupt cop son, Arjun (Vasanth Ravi), in the last movie.
There are also way too many scenes with Moorthi (Namo Narayana), a boisterous wannabe gangster who mostly confuses “real” mobsters like Dileep, making the first half of “Jailer 2” a chore to sit through. You can feel the air slowly leaking out of the movie’s proverbial tires every time Rajinikanth welcomes another secondary character into his story, or simply doesn’t stimulate Dilipkumar (“Beast”) with enough opportunities to stick his camera in unexpected places. But you never have to wait long before the next big spike of spectacular, slow-mo-goosed pleasure comes along. The beauty of a movie like “Jailer 2” is that a new eye-popping sequence appears almost every time your energy flags; both female-led musical numbers, “Ala Bolelo” and “Bindaas,” are particularly impressive.
Then again, this movie’s digressions have digressions, so you may check out a couple of times before the plot really kicks in. But then Mollywood star Mohanlal shows up briefly to save the day. And then Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan pledges loyalty to Rajinikanth (“Anything for you, sir”). Even Kollywood comedian Yogi Babu delivers an uncharacteristically restrained performance and a few good one-liners, too (“In a minor scuffle, we happened to bite your father’s ear). Talk to your doctor if you are not entertained.
To be fair, the filmmakers defend their decision to make so much of “Jailer 2”’s story depend on proxies and go-betweens. Pandian’s diagnosed with a “heart problem,” meaning that he cares too much about his loved ones and therefore goes too far to protect his surviving family members, especially daughter-in-law Swetha (Mirnaa) and grandson Rithvik (Rithvik). Unfortunately, there’s so much inessential material that it’s sometimes hard to remember what this much over-produced build-up is in service of. But then the filmmakers deliver what they think Rajini’s audience wants, like when he jams an automatic rifle into one villain’s mouth and keeps firing until blood splatters all over the pregnant woman whose honor Pandian’s ostensibly avenging.
Hollywood action stars like Schwarzenegger and Stallone look like underachievers compared with the toupee-togging Super Star because he’s surrounded himself with a rotating army of talented, eager fans. So yes, not every slow-mo stinger of Rajini striding away from a computer-animated explosion flatters him. In fact, it sometimes looks like he’s been instructed to simply not react, and then they just didn’t get another take. But the one time that Rajinikanth’s stock gestures really lands? That’s when you remember what all the cheering’s about.
