The initial opening of most movies these days are decided by the hype generated and the USP – Unique selling proposition of the releasing movie. But for a movie to have a descent opening without either of these is very rare. Arinthum Ariyamalum is one such cine entertainer.
The movie does not begin with a thud. It starts with a drag old clichéd concept of love at first sight followed by a youthful number. This is when the audience get the feeling – “oh are we into the wrong movie?” The effect begins to fade away as the youngster moves to the city to do his education. Sathya played by Jairam is the adorable young orphan, grown up under his grandfather and uncle. As he moves to the city to stay with his friend Krishna played by Krishna of 5 star fame, he meets up with the gundas of Chennai. The gundas played by Aryan Roban and Prakash Raj. The father and the brought up son rule the city with non-chalance, imperial power and haughtiness. Nothing goes against them is the tag line. The tag line repeated in en number of movies.
In an incident termed an accident, Aryan Roban hurts the heroin played by . a new entrant to the cine industry. This hurting has a tsunami effect on the hero and he proceeds to complain about the dominance of the bad guys to the police. The assistant commissioner decides to take action on the wrong doers. How do the law breakers save themselves from the police? How do they treat the complainer? Form the rest of the story line.
If you thought the story was redundant, you may feel so till the interval. The second half is subject to a different treatment. This part of the movie comes to show case the acting prowess of Prakash Raj and Aryan Roban. In fact the later laying a rowdy kind of role, has walked away with all the applause and has stolen the thunder from even the likes of Prakash Raj. His first movie was the never released “Ulam Ketkume…” Putting that hassle behind him, his performance was outstanding. He demands credit throughout the movie.
The director of this movie is Vishnu, an assistant of Mani Rathnam. He has done a descent job at direction and a better job at screenplay. The climax was lacking logic. He should have paid more attention to finishing the movie on a good note. After all the climax has the final punch. The movie has more than one touch of Mani Rathnam. The description of a fight sequence as a offhand flash back, the lighting and effects were all aka Mani Rathnam.
As they always say, you carry your father’s genes and not his success. Yuvan has lived with huge expectations all through so far. He has carried off the weight well so far. Most were great admirers of this young lad until they came to know about his lack of originality in tunes. Yuvan features in the most prominent lift offs section these days. Even his biggest hit album Kadal Konden contained faithful copies. Inspirations from songs is acceptable but direct lifts shows the composer in bad light. Hence it is not a totally new job done by Yuvan. Some of the numbers in the movie resemble his previous work. The songs are racy and rhythmic but most of them do not gel with the movie at all. The songs may get an overall rating of 3/5 but only 1/5 for originality.
The other aspects of film making such as camerawork, editing or special effects don’t get any special mention. These aspects should have been looked upon.
Overall, a movie worth watching once. But far from being a hit.