A QnA With The Director Of Explosive Hit RDX

'I Want To Be The Guy Who Offers You A Great Theatre Watch'

With his RDX proving to be a box office sensation, filmmaker Nahas Hidayath chats with Neelima Menon about what comes next.

JUST when his “second” debut RDX was all set to hit the screens, 29-year-old Nahas Hidayath was staring at a crisis that wasn’t of his making. The film was embroiled in an ugly controversy that involved one of his lead actors and the producers. For the Network Engineering graduate, who had shifted base from a small town to Kochi, braving family opposition, this was a last-gasp attempt to manifest his dreams. Especially as his debut film failed to take off owing to the pandemic, Nahas desperately needed this effort to see the light of the day.

In an industry that is infamously superstitious, it is considered unlucky to have your debut film abandoned. Nahas knew if RDX didn’t release, only he had everything to lose. Secondly, his film was the dark horse, pitted against a giant like King Of Kotha, which was considered the top contender to break all existing box office records. In an anti-climax of sorts that would possibly be an inspiration for Nahas’ second film, not only did RDX smoothly release in theatres, but also bested KOK at the box office.

For the youth who had hitherto looked to Telugu and Tamil cinema to satiate their hunger for masala action films, RDX was a solid adrenaline-pumping action package, headlined by three heroes who relied on good old martial arts to wreak havoc on their adversaries. What’s essentially a fatigued plotline gets a smart tweak in the hands of Nahas who stages some sensational action set pieces and then of course milks the universal emotion called family to get the ball rolling.We had a quick chat with the director to discuss this post-RDX phase.

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What SJ Suryah Gets Right About Playing The Antihero

His latest release, Mark Antony, proves that getting stereotyped has worked in the actor's favour, writes Karthik Keramalu.

IN cinema, the canvases handed to antagonists are more colourful at times than those of the protagonists’. Though good wins over evil in the end, it’s the evil that mostly keeps us entertained – at least in movies and shows where the baddies are not just muscle men. Even in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008), the Joker (Heath Ledger) turns out to be the bigger draw since he has more fun on the screen. Batman (Christian Bale) can save the world, but can he destroy it? A hero cannot exist without a villain.

SJ Suryah gets this basic ingredient right every time he features as the antihero, combining the irrepressible qualities of vileness and humour. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that he keeps copying himself. In Nenjam Marappathillai and Maanaadu, both 2021 releases, Suryah stars as despicable men; the Telugu-Tamil bilingual Spyder (2017) is no exception. Although his characters deserve nothing but contempt, he plays them with a touch of flamboyance that’s hard to ignore.

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The Love-Is-Friendship Syndrome

This is #ViewingRoom, a column by OTTplay's critic Rahul Desai, on the intersections of pop culture and life. Here: Notes on Dil Chahta Hai.

MY partner is my best friend. I know this sounds aspirational and ideal and all sorts of sweet. It’s true that we’re disturbingly comfortable with each other. And it’s nice to be lulled into a safe space – to finish one another’s sentences, make politically incorrect jokes, burp freely, laugh like hyenas, or magically find each other’s arms in crowded bars. She follows me around a room where we know nobody; I sit next to her in a room where we know everybody.

But it’s also complicated. The sibling vibe often blunts the romantic edge; the soul stifles the body. Our fights emerge from the frustration of being too cosy – of projecting the platonic pressures of friendship onto the sexual tensions of togetherness. It’s too easy to cross over from teasing-your-lover territory to kissing-your-friend territory. This isn’t an unfamiliar problem for long-term couples. Compatibility and chemistry become mutually exclusive. But I’m aware that, in my case, there’s a complex or two at play.

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