ROCKET DRIVER MOVIE REVIEW
Cast: Vishvath, Naga Vishal, Sunainaa, Kathadi Ramamurthy
Director: Sriram Ananthashankar
When it comes to time travel cinema, few journeys have been as curiously inert as the one undertaken in Sriram Ananthashankar’s Rocket Driver, a film that promises the moon but barely leaves the ground. The premise is interesting enough: a present-day auto-rickshaw driver encounters a teenage version of the revered scientist and former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. It doesn’t go very far and misses out on being both deep and funny, choosing instead to meander through lost opportunities.
Vishvath plays Prabha, a disillusioned physics enthusiast turned reluctant auto driver, whose daily frustrations are vented through imaginary confrontations. When Prabha crosses paths with a bewildered 17-year-old Kalam (Naga Vishal) seemingly transported from 1948, the stage is set for an exploration of dreams deferred and the malleable nature of destiny. Yet, Ananthashankar’s screenplay, much like Prabha’s stalled scientific ambitions, never ignites.
The film’s languid pacing, which some might charitably describe as “breezy,” is less a stylistic choice than a symptom of its narrative anemia. Naga Vishal’s young Kalam, rather than serving as a catalyst for introspection or a vessel for social commentary, remains a perplexingly passive presence, his wide-eyed wonder at the future curiously muted.
Vishvath imbues Prabha with a discontent that occasionally threatens to boil over into something more compelling, but the script keeps him on a low flame. Sunainaa, as traffic constable Kamala, brings a warm presence to the proceedings.
There are fleeting moments when Rocket Driver hints at the film it could have been. A scene where the teenage Kalam encounters his aged friend Shastri (Kathadi Ramamurthy) crackles with the potential energy of temporal displacement, only to fizzle out like so many of the film’s promising threads. The reason for Kalam’s chronological detour—a personal errand rather than a matter of national import—is a sweetly subversive touch.
Ananthashankar’s direction, much like the film’s central metaphor, favors gentle nudges over propulsive thrust. While this approach aligns with the movie’s ultimate message about the value of small, meaningful actions, it results in a viewing experience that feels more like being stuck in traffic.
Rocket Driver emerges as a cinematic curiosity—a film that dares to imagine a meeting between a man and his idol across time, only to leave both stranded in dramatic limbo.