Epics have always been great sources for our film makers indirectly too.’Manavoori Paandavalu’, ’Thalapathi’, ’Kalyug’ and the recent’Raajneethi’ are good examples. Negative characters from epics and folklore have been always glorified by many filmmakers previously like’Karnan’ and’Ilangeswaran’ in Thamizh and many of M.T.Vasudevan Nair’s scripts have done this successfully in Malayalam. And now Manirathnam has made his script inspired from Ramayana, giving more weight to Ravana! But how far he has succeeded in bringing out is the million dollar question.
The film revolves round the attraction Veera develops on Ragini, kidnapped by him and how her husband, the police officer, a modern day Ram regains her! When a director of the caliber of Manirathnam is involved, everyone is eager to settle on a masterpiece and it is quite natural too. But the director miserably fails to stand upto our expectations. First he is unable to define clearly the characters. Take Veera, no one knows what he is doing in the forest with his great gang. Is he a Robin Hood? No clue.He is not a decoit it seems. Is he a revolutionary in the lines of Maoism or any other isms? No clue here also, except that three uniformed people are burnt alive by his gang in the beginning of the movie. No ideologies are thrown at us. Is he a modern Veerappan, who plundered the forest? An outlaw? Nothing is clearly defined. Then what the hell he is doing in this ever raining forest? His territory too is not clearly defined. He and his group speak Thirunelveli slang, often say they are an oppressed group, yet celebrate their family marriage in a Mega North Indian fort. Ok, call this artistic freedom.but the times are changing now. Thamizh film world has been producing small films that are authentic in their slang or territories nowadays, say Subramaniapuram or Vennila Kabadi kuzhu, and directors like Manirathnam should come out of their utopia and stop taking the audience for granted!
Vikram never fails us as’Veera’, he looks and acts rugged and expressions are impressive too, though sometimes loud. Aishwarya’s Seetha is beautiful and expressive too and the biggest surprise is Prithviraj as her husband. He gives the greatest performance, I think. Very subtle and realistic for a role which has little scope. Yesteryears’ heroes Prabhu and Karthick are pathetic in their roles and Karthick is really irritating as the modern day Hanuman.
Another big letdown of the movie is the dialogues by Suhasini Manirathnam. I remember her similar flop’Indira’, and now in this too, the characters speak artificially, and still wonder why Thirunelveli dialect was particularly used. How we miss the great’Sujatha’ now!
Music is by A.R.Rehman, and he does his job sincerely and sometimes louder in many scenes.Particularly in a scene between Veera and Ragini, when sensuality builds like a poem, the bgm mars the entire scene with a loud voice.surely it is not’Mughal E Azam’!
The saving grace of the film is the camerawork. V.Manikandan and Santhosh Sivan who has done the additional cinematography have created magic with their work. The water falls, the forest and terrains, the closeups everything speak of devoted professionalism!
Maybe we expected more from the master Director and wish him to give a neatly scripted film at least next time!