Jun 22, 2008 01:18 PM
1639 Views
(Updated Jun 22, 2008 04:44 PM)
Authored on 21-06-2008 , Posted on 22-06-2008
I should first confess that I am a Kamalhassan fan from the days of his films like Aakalirajyam and regard him as one of the few members of the rare breed of “Cerebral Stars” alongside the likes of (or is he ahead of ?) Aamir Khan.
To be frank with you, I just returned after watching the Telugu verion of the Dasavatar (the Dasavataram) at a theatre called Inox in matinee show (2-30 PM to 6PM) and I needed Half an hour rest and a quick snack to get out of the fatigue. Hey.. don’t mistake me, it is NOT due to the film as such but due to large decibels of senseless sound volumes that the Theatre valla pumped out as they do everywhere in India combined with long 3 hour+ duration. ( I recommend you always carry ear buds when you go to a theatre, a good quality 3M- buds cost you just Rs. 30-35 and are available in all surgical stores).
First things first :
v **Do I recommend it …. Yes particularly if you even remotely like Kamals films
v Good Performance…. Yes Very good performance from almost all 10 Kamals and other cast like Asin, Jayaprada, Nagesh etc
v Bad Performance …. Definitely from Director and Editor , but for Kamal and the cast and the decent Music from Himesh Reshammiya the film would have bombed
v Varietyand creativity ……. Lots of it from Kamal and makeup artists
v Music……… Very Decent ( Songs Mukunda Mukunda and Om Namonarayanaya are great)
v Background Music ….. Beware of it , it Could win the award for most noisy Backgnd music of the year.. ya.. hands down
The Story and the Dasavataras :
By now everyone knows that Kamalhassan is seen in tendifferent roles of highly different nature; a first in World Cinema. By any standards it is no mean achievement. The first Avatar (these are not the basic avatars of Vishnu and most donot have any thing in common with each other). The first Avatar we see of Kamal is that of a 12th century Vaishnavite Priest (Rangaraja Nambi.. Kamal Character.1) who gives up his life in defence of his belief and in the process of defending the Dignity of the lord’s Vigraha murthy (the stone idol in sanctum sanctorum) . This character is very loosely connected with the others as far as the story goes except that the main central characters (hero and heroin of this century) Govind (Kamal the scientist) and Asin( female lead) resemble the deceased Priest and his wife.
The story is all about a Govind who is a Biotech scientist in a US lab working in a prestigious project of developing microbial strains and experimenting with them with US govt blessings. It is not clear why they have to develop and keep such strains whether as as a biotech-development project or as part of some US Bio warfare research; but what happens is that some unscrupulous people want to take hold of a vial with ghastly Virus . The vial escapes under bizarre circumstances (with Kamals participation) from this high security lab and travels to India. Govind (Kamal-2) the conscientious scientist chases it to India and catches hold of the same. But there is one Fletcher (Kamal-3) the US villain and ex-CIA engaged by some unscrupulous US business men to get hold of and bring the vial back to US by any means. This Fletcher the villain also lands in India and chases Govind and Asin to get hold of the Vial.
While Govind and Fletcher chase the vial , the police mistake Govind for a terrorist and start chasing him and Flecther. Then we have Govind come in touch with other Dasavatar characters in this movie one after another like……
90 Yr old Grandma of Asin ((Krishnaveni, Kamal-4)
Balaram Nadar , the RAW officer chasing Kamal (Kamal-5)
Vincent Punyakoti .. The Dalit Christian leader and humanist (Kamal-6)
Shingen , The Japanese Karate / Kungfu Master and brother of a Japanese lady killed by Fletcher who reaches India to avenge death of his sister ( Kamal-7)
Avatar Singh (Kamal-8) .. The Sikh Dancer who loves his wife beyond anything and loosely connected with main plot except for an episode of Bag change
Khalifullah Khan -- Innocent seven footer muslim (Kamal-9)
While the chase ends in a Tsunami taking away the Danger (I wont tell how) of Viral break out by the vial , the Indian and and US governments go in for a Public meeting with none other than the CM of TNadu, PM of India (Dr.Manmohanji) and Mr. George Bush.. ya.. the President of USA in celebration of this averted Danger in a stadium in Chennai . George Bush (seen althrough in different scenes apart from this one) is the Kamal character No.10.
Most of the movie is about Search, ie Govind searching this fatal vial, …Chase ie Govind and Fletcher Chasing each other and the RAW officer Nadar chasing both these men. The movie is very fast paced and tries to mimic Hollywood style with a large over dose of murders, fights, shootings, jumps and car crashes.
Despite poor editing, Direction and horrible back ground noise ( sorry MUSIC) , the movie stands out just because of its variety and the stellar performance by Kamal , and decent role play by Asin, Jayaprada and co cast. It is good to see Jayaprada back after a long while in a dignified role. Mallika sherawat also plays a short but important role of a vamp accompanying the US villain Fletcher.
Kamal’s performance is very good as Govind, Rangarajan Nambi and RAW-Nadar but is just OK as Bush and Khalifullah. Over make up of Bush, Fletcher and Khalifullah could have been noticed by any discerning Director and avoided.
Kamalhassan seems to have first decided to do a movie with 10 highly Diverse roles and whole story/ script seems to have been evolved out of it. Not a bad idea but for the fact that he should have been careful to choose an able Editor/ Director combo. Any traditional good Southie Director like Maniratnam , Shankar or Ramgopal Varma would have done a much better job. Also he should have left out the Screenplay part to a professional concentrating on what he is good at i.e acting.
I Recommend the Movie to all adult Audience but not for Kids, Ailing and weak hearted. Be prepared for large doses of excellence served with some confusion and noise in a long drawn affair.
A Must see for Kamal fans any way. I also recommend the movie to the Movie loving audience as a way of offering Kudos to creative artists like Kamal and the Producers who dare to invest money in such “costly and risky” serious creative ventures. Lest we may land up with seeing only 'Partners' and the like.
