Rajini’s double dhamaka?

Switching himself off totally from the heat and dust of Tamil Nadu politics, fresh after the success of Karthik Subbaraj’s ‘Petta’ the superstar seems to be returning to his old, swashbuckling days once again. News from Chennai is that Rajini is playing a double role – one that of a police officer and the other that of a social activist – in the A R Murugadoss venture announced recently. It is also reported that the shooting for this venture is likely to begin in March. The bonus tidbit is that the ‘lady superstar’ Nayantara is likely to be paired with him, more than a decade after both were seen together in ‘Kathanayakudu’ in 2008.

Initially, the movie was speculated to be a political drama but with Murugadoss known for blending social problems and entertainment in his films, the genre seems to have now shifted to it being a police story. Interestingly, social activism is also the theme of Shankar’s ‘Indian 2’ which is also progressing alongside with Rajini’s screen rival, Kamal Hassan, who has decided to battle it out during the 2019 elections to establish a political identity for himself simultaneously. However, core fans of Thalaivar are bound to be happy as he has had massive successes whenever he has played double roles in earlier films of his. In fact, in 1980, as Telugu fans would remember, he had reprised the role of Vinod Khanna as a police inspector in the Krishna-starrer ‘ Ram Robert Rahim’, a re-make of ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ directed by Vijayanirmala.