Though it’s appropriate that I should start this review telling the plusses of this movie.....
i am starting by telling tht this is the most over-praised movie of this year.
everyone went gaga over surya’s performance, gautam’s direction and the movie on the whole...
now let’s goto the movie..
it’s an episode of a cop’s(an encounter cop to be more precise) life.. gautam has concentrated more on style rather than substance...
style was good in some scenes. for eg., the scene in which he shoots the ganster from the terrace/top of a buliding surprising his friends (of course a movie-buff can easily guess what will happen when he puts his ’’official’’ gun and takes his ’’other’’ gun...) and then telling, ’’ivana courtukku koottittu poi, case nadathi, dhandanai koduthu .... govtkku evvalavu selavu. ippa paaru. oru bullet. 50 rooba’’.
that scene is well-handled. even then his mates reactions are like school-students who havent understood what surya is doing when we can guess tht all tht easily.
jyothika in her much-conscious attempt to play a calm person (as opposed to the vibrant, eye-popping style she usually plays in all her movies) still doesnt quite come out of her prototype, showing her overacting skills .... smiling all tht big when she’s alone, laughing to herself, singing the ennai-konjam song herself when surya doesnt do tht.... etc etc.... she just doesnt behave normally... directors are also to be blamed for this.... no one advises her to ’’underplay’’ I guess they think it’s a high plus for her. she’s only irritating to me when she is doin all this. but, maybe tht fetches money from jo’s fans....
gautam in some scenes has succeded in doin when she talks to surya at length.... but not in the songs - oru-ooril apparently is irritating coz of her overactions, smiling for no apparent reason (of course we know she’s blushing, can a dignified lady go abt doin all this) and theatrics. the love scenes, which were praised to have some natural dialogues, wasnt tht impressive either. her candid acceptance tht she’s in love with anbu is acceptable. but not her ramblings tht she wants to sit on his lap all her life, bear many children from him and all tht. melodramatic is the word. but still better than most romantic movies in which the hero hails the heroine even in front of her (which seldom happens in real life) to win her over.
surya comes in with a calm portrayal of this anbuchelvan, concentrating more on his looks and moushtache... and the role too demands nothing much (comapre it to a pithamagan and u ll see) coz it’s the script thts lacking of stuff...
he hangs around with his bunch of cop-friends shooting gangsters wearing prim clothes (pepe jeans and a louis-philippe shirt, perhaps)...
not much to the characterization. he says tht his job is his life.... realism is only in the way the scenes are executed, but not the scenes and characterizations itself. surya says he doesnt believe tht the people he killed aren’t men at all.... tht IPS are the three letters are what he breathes.. he sounds more like a vijayakanth.. the human in him is not invoked much in the characterization.... he straightening the life of a smalltime thief, a boy, and hitting the eve-teasing guy too are age-old cliches.... like a sivaji in thangapadhakkam, or any later followers.
he talks like them, feels like them .... nothing realistic in those aspects. and also no viewpoint of the gangsters is provided but for the all those swearings of pandya (jeevan).
and jeevan, as pandya talks like a normal guy and doesnt make too much fuss abt being a dada which is a welcome change from the stereotype kind of villains... but his actions are absurd again... his characterization is very weak... he kills a girl in the nightclub for no apparent reason... director must have added the scene for style, coz it does baffle a viewer when the villain walks coolly after shooting a girl in a bar... why? u shouldnt ask tht question... he kidnaps jyothika so as to avenge his brother’s death.... he doesnt kill her... but he kills surya’s friend’s wife, when all he swore was he’ll torment anbuchelvan (why only him dont ask again) ... suddenly thinks of adding a burden to himself by planning to sell jo to some brothel.... but he calls up anbuchelvan suddenly as if he’s ready for a deal (one wud here think tht he’s gonna kill anbu), but suddenly tries to escape when anbu arrives there... and he shoots jo before getting out.... and surya is stranded alone with jo in her hands... this one scene seems to be the soul fo the movie... and his plight when no one stays back to save his wife is shown well... but again in the next scene we see anbu goin straight to the hide-out of pandya.. and bashin him up.....
and the director calls this as an episode of a cop’s life... unresoned hailing of cops, they being icons of justice, we all know tht from time immemorial. so here’s one such movie where director makes sure tht he treads a different path of making the movie , unlike the way the scenes are in usual kind of masala.... (kinda hollywood approach for which I wont appreciate coz good cinema’s style can be anything and taking hollywood as a prototype is not advisable) but what he dint have is a good script.... anbu’s plight is shown only in the last scene..
till then he is always ’’ready for the hunt’’ fearless and like our mythological warriors or a vanchinathan...
gautam’s effort is a conscious attempt to make the movie ’’LOOK DIFFERENT’’ and that’s it. it’s the ’’SAME OLD FARE’’ as far as the content is concerned
but calling this a great cinema is stupid... gautam in his inspired-from-west style attempts a movie with no tight script.... it was initially said he wud remake it in hindi... no chances of a ripple being created coz these kinda (cop-gangster) movies are quite common there after the gangster-classic satya .... (there were a few precedents too like parinda which perhaps not in the class of satya) and even commendable efforts go unnoticed, leave aside som movie like this... unless coz of the starcast (was supposed to be played by vivek oberoi) this wud have surely been a flop if taken in hindi...
but in tamizh cinema, this is defintiely a welcome change from the vanchinathans, and ottrans.
some compare it with kuruthippunal, as if this movie minus songs wud have been a kuruthippunal.... this is blasphemy.... the kamal starrer is a far far superior movie than this ...
I saw in one MS review which said chatriyan produced and scripted by mani was better than this and I accept it to a level.. yes in chatriyan the characters’ actions were well reasoned and the script was better. (delete the final a std vijayakanth climax and see the movie.. if not for vijayakanth’s heroic and long action scenes it wud be have been a better film)
my verdict : 2 or maybe 2 1/2 stars
p.s. : bgm is ever-present in the movie, as was in minnale, and at times irritate us, when the subtle scenes or grim ones cud be handled with some less or tender music. but songs are really good. I dont mean to say bgm was bad, it was good but inappropriate at most of the scenes. ditto for cinematography. good but totally avoidable in many scenes. I mean they are thrusted in.
i still recommend this movie.