Jun 05, 2006 07:37 AM
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(Updated Jun 05, 2006 09:15 AM)
The story of local dons and assassins are not new to the movie industry at all. In fact we could call this as the most clichéd subject. From highly emotional love stories, selvaraghavanmoves into this kind of film with his latest pudhupettai.
The movie stands out for the characterization of Kokki Kumar. He is a normal slum boy by birth. When he sees his father murder his own mother, he runs away from home and becomes a beggar. Then, ushered by fate, he falls into a gang of rowdies. He grows really fast from then on and creates a name for himself, i.e. notoriously popular. He marries a local streetwalker and becomes a father. In the meantime, he gains the enmity of a party leader and some other local gang of rowdies. Now, could he save himself and his family? Is he fit enough to face all his enmity? That forms the plot and caption of the movie – ‘survival of the fittest’. The mindset of kumar at every stage of his life is what the director wants to convey and that alone is brilliantly done in this movie.
The movie has many drawbacks. The second half of the movie is just too lengthy and staggers for direction and fails in conviction. Some trimming is required. And the biggest of all, the violence. It’s all murder, murder and murder all the way. With such a story line, one does agree that the movie cannot be without violence, but it gives a nauseating effect having got an overdose of it. The story and the concept too are not very new; inspired from a lot of movies – Godfather, Nayagan, my friends said a few scenes look like kill bill.
Though it is tough to accept Dhanush, the lean figure who looks nothing more than a schoolboy, as an assassin, one has to simply because the movie has been shot and released! He overacts in lots of scenes, but a good effort put into acting is very visible. To me, he has done a commendable job and looks more matured in acting.Sneha too does really good acting, subtle and effective. She looks good and neat, far away from the image a hooker would get. Sonia agarwalcomes into the movie with her usual dumb expression less face, to add to action, but at the cost of deviation and confusion in story.
Yuvan shankar raja’smusic is the highlight of the movie. All the songs are really good, enga area ulla varadha being the best song that was shot. It was disappointing that the otherwise best song Oru naalil vaazhkaidoes not appear in the movie. Good cinematography was difficult to appreciate, as it captured more of violence to utmost perfection.
In all of his movies, selvaraghavan portrays his hero as a weird character/freak. I guess he feels comfortable in handling such characters and justify his strange actions. This movie is good and is more than a ordinary movie, but falls short of all expectations. Tamil movie industry has had very few consistently brilliant directors like manirathnam and shankar. It got a good facelift when directors like Gautam menon and selvaraghavan entered. But having seen selvaraghavan disappoint, it is not difficult to say that he has a long way to go as a director.
Pudhupettai – Violent area, ulla varadhey.
