SPOILERS AHEAD
Selvaragahavan, after tasting the mega success of ’Kaadhal kondain’ is back with 7/G Rainbow colony.’Kaadhal kondain’ launched Dhanush as a saleable hero, and introduced Sonia Agarwal to tamil cinema, the movie was a smash hit and it signalled the arrival of a whole new generation of talents into tamil cinema.So the expectations were naturally high on 7GRC, with the audio already topping the charts, the movie is one of the much awaited films in the recent times.
7GRC starts much calmly introducing the hero Kadhir as a working man and takes us into the flashbacks, the flashback unfolds in the Rainbow colony.Kadhir, a young college chap from a middle class family, is a typical wastrel who spends his time with his friends boozing and wandering aimlessly, so you have one song sequence narrating this all and some incidents to justify his character.Now, its time for the heroine to come in, she is Anitha, a north indian girl who moves into 7GRC with her family(thankfully, there?s no heroine intro song here where we will be usually left helplessly to watch the heroine dancing with a couple of girls).A calm, disciplined and studious girl Anitha hates the roguish Kadhir, but Kadhir slowly falls in love with her and proposes to her repeatedly.
Anitha who is already engaged to yet another rich guy(who is paying her family’s debts) slowly falls for the hero.She turns the hero, a wastrel, into a man who realises his hidden talent and responsibilities, she also finds him a job as a mechanic in Hero Honda company(life will be fabulous, if finding a job in such a big company is so easy, but those fortunes are reserved for celluloid heroes only). Anitha?s parents oppose their love.Both elope and have sex in a hotel room and finally Anitha dies in an accident leaving the hero as a schizophrenic(should I call it ?Partial-Schizophrenia? or a compulsive hallucination or whatever heck it is), who believes that she is still living with him.
The first half is pretty much taut and crisp without any sags, the hero and his gangs? skirmishes have been laid out interestingly and one can easily identify those characters, but it?s in the second half that you are constantly reminded that you are watching a movie anyway. Anitha?s decision to give herself to the hero on the bed is rather a different turn breaking the conventions of a rather conservative tamil cinema, the director?s handling of those night scenes with much softness and subtlety proves that Selvaraghavan has matured much. (but if the script vaguely reminds you of Titanic, Selvaraghavan is helpless anyway:-)) But wait, ?.. you have an item number here to satisfy the front benchers and you are left to watch a girl showing all that has escaped censors? scissors.And the heroine too dances with the hero (inside the room anyway) making it irritatingly cinematic? the director could have very well avoided the dancing of the lead couple which kills the mood, and the end where the heroine dies, shocks us.
Ravi krishna , the debutant(son of producer A.M.Rathnam) makes an impression, but his dialogue delivery and body language invariably reminds us of Dhanush, at times we even wonder whether Dhanush did the dubbing for him.Sonia agarwal is one talent to look out for, she is absolutely convincing in this role, and her prowess in acting gets proved in the scene where she shouts at the hero, to make him find his strength.Vijayan as hero’s father does his job convincingly well, but veteran Manorama gets wasted in a lousy miniscule role.The short and fat guy who comes as the friend of the hero(he came in ?Jayam? too) gives a good performance.
The movie is technically well made.Yuvan’s songs are already a hit, and the man gives an amazing background score.Cinematography is apt and captures the mood very well.Stunts are well made too.But its utterly tiresome to see the flashback format here again, in how many movies we are going to bear these captions ’Sila maadhangalluku munbu...etc, etc’.
Selvaraghavan as a director, has talent for sure.But only thing, he must come out from this shell of stories where we see a downtrodden hero being uplifted by the heroine, and a negative end to the whole story.In this movie he has tried to create a lump in the viewers’ throats, but sadly that is not happening, rather one feels a bit odd about the forced-in climax which doesn’t naturally fit there. He can very well look out for other themes, else he will just get reduced into yet another director trapped into stereotypes.
Even then I recommend this movie as it is way better than other movies that have got released in recent times.
P.S:-TamilNadu government?s steps to curb ?Thiruttu? VCDs are helping a lot it seems, Devi theatre was full on last Sunday, anyway it?s not a wonder that a movie in its third day is houseful, but even ?Chellamay? and ?Arasaatchi? had reasonable audience, much above the normal quota.To my surprise, the local theatre in which I watched this movie was full too.The tinsel town men who were making a hue and cry on piracy till now must realize their responsibility to make movies which are atleast palatable hereafter.