Dasavatharam - A forthright review. Review on Dasavatharam Movie

Yesterday, I got to see this movie Dasathavaram.  I got tickets only for the night show.  Despite this, I didn’t mind picking up the tickets and pulling people as old as my dad, my sister’s mother-in-law along with my sister, her hubby and cousin since the hype was so much(though not to the extent of Rajini’s Shivaji) that getting a ticket so soon after the movie was in theatres was almost a dream come true!

While anyone would watch a Rajini movie to appreciate his charisma and his powerful on-screen presence, when it is Kamal, it is for the level of detail, a content-packed story and a strong message that anyone would look for.  Though this was known to be a commercial movie by the virtue of Kamal’s alternative formula(one subject followed by one commercial / comedy) we must agree that all of us were expecting content in this movie since Kamal is playing 10 roles, the first ever in the history of World cinema!  What’s more, he is playing the role of George Bush and I in fact heard he was daring to attempt to screen this movie to Bush himself(but in vain fortunately!)

Let me tell you with all due respect to Kamal as he’s one of my favourite heroes, to tell in his style as he says in the movie he has made an ‘the south of a horse facing north’ of himself in the movie.  If you do respect my movie review that I’ve only been doing as a chat across a table, when I am so serious to be writing a mail like this, you would waste your money and time by watching Dasavatharam.

It all begins with the 12th century episode, (and he must have privately boasted himself for the brilliant connection he brings out to this episode towards the end of the movie) and it goes on throwing Lord Vishnu along with the priest(our one and only Kamal) into the sea after wiping off his Sricharnam(Vaisnavite’s symol), piercing iron chain-ends pierced into his skin, people throwing stones at him and he tied with Lord Vishnu’s statue.  Anyone with sizeable amount of sanity would understand the obvious intention of Kamal that it is not to connect the history with the story-line but only to agitate the differences between Shaivites and Vaishnavites that was long forgotten centuries ago.  No one would have forgotten his all-time classics Thevar Magan, one of its achievements were to kindle riots down south in India between Thevar community and others.

Then the story goes on with technically bombastic cinematography, biological warfare, Hollywood-like car chases, unnecessary expenses, an irritating Asin chattering non-sense throughout the movie, an irritating character more than Sameera in Race that you feel like going up to the screen and slapping her.  Yet another character that I presume that Kamal has casted only to insult the sentiments of Iyengars again.  And the gymnastics continue in the protected virus falling in the hands of a 95-year old insane woman(one role where Kamal has acted naturally).  This ‘insane’ old-woman ‘surrenders’ this to Lord Vishnu’s statue behind his back and from then on, Vishnu’s statue starts playing an ‘important’ role in the movie – by Asin handling it like her boy-friend, Kamal throwing it and playing Volley ball with Asin and some villains.

And here comes the most interesting part in the entire movie, the American Killer Kamal hanging Lord Vishnu’s statue on a rope and tying around his back to carry it handy, people firing bullets at the statue, etc.  With all due respect, one would wonder if Kamal, being an atheist, would dare to do such a thing to fiddle around with other religion’s sentiments – I promise you there would have been cases against Kamal by now and stones being thrown at his house and a murder threat too.

He is yet another joker who strongly believes that being an atheist is being anti-Hindu and trying to befriend with other religions.  This is blatantly evident when in the same movie, he shows a mosque to have saved the Muslims alone or he himself playing a Muslim role shown religiously or the church is shown with all those divinely background scores.

In a secular country like ours, when we all have forgotten our differences about caste, creed, colour and community and are together without hassles, Kamal makes repeated attempts to disturb the rhythm of people and create tension.

Back to the movie to talk about the climax, guess what!, the story gets so stupid to say that Tsunami broke out to pour sodium chloride(from the sea water) on the virus to avoid creating catastrophic effects across the world!  One who is as ‘intelligent’ as Kamal himself can only understand if he was trying to say that God cursed Tamil Nadu and other neighbouring states and countries to save the rest of the world from the dangerous biological warfare!  So, the moral of the story was ‘Tsunami was good!’

From the commercial point of view, no romance, no great actions, no sentiments – oh yeah, there’s one; a scene so moving that you feel like shedding tears is when they say Produced by Ravichandran.  Kamal does definitely know the art of making a fool of others for his selfish gymnastics on-screen and now has learnt the art of making a fool of him as well!

Such movies will be a hit in Tamil Nadu while his good ones like Anbe Sivam will flop!  High time, Kamal must get a life or probably his times are over.

Regards,

Anand