Nov 20, 2006 02:51 AM
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This is a good movie by most standards. It may not be Kamal's best, but it is still a very worthwhile watch. NOTE: a small part of the movie plot is revealed below. If you have NOT SEEN the movie, and knowing this much will spoil your fun. PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW until later! I say this because this is a suspense movie and you do not want to lose the suspense.
Let us see what the pros and cons are:
PROS:
Kamal is, as usual, very good and his acting is excellent.
Jothika gives a very good performance...very expressive.
For 3/4 of the movie, it is very believable and realistic.
The development of the relationship between Kamal and Jothika is portrayed in a very natural fashion.
The story narrative is crisp and taut, and the suspense conveyed is very real. Even the songs are not a meaningless diversion, because they weave the story into the songs...so you cannot fast forward on the songs because you will lose some of the story if you do so.
This is actually a fairly demanding movie of the audience. Since the story development is so crisp, you actually need to pay constant attention so you do not miss something. Generally speaking, the movie is very economical with time, which is a rarity in Indian movies, which by and large assume that the viewer is not very intelligent and so try to be rather obvious.
The music is pretty good. By this I do not just mean the songs, but also the music in the various scenes. Very appropriate and well done. The individual songs are not fantastic, but they are pleasing and fit well within the story.
The editing is very good.
CONS:
The graphic violence. It is not a bad thing to show realistic violence, but this movie should have an A rating. The graphic nature of the violence is a bit rough on the eyes and the mind. I do wonder how Indian audiences will react to this aspect. It is more common in Hollywood movies, but this level of violence is a bit more than any Indian movie I have seen. Makes you think of Hannibal Lecter.
The last 1/4 of the movie is rather incredulous. Both Kamal and the villains do things that should be impossible. People do not recover easily after such intense fighting and injury (injury which is clearly shown, as opposed to situations in which the villains take a beating from the hero and come back time and time again ... there you can at least think of those as make believe; here the reality is clear, and so the ability of someone so badly hurt to escape with his life and even recover is carrying things too far.) The movie makes a strong impression on us initially because of how real it seems; there was no reason to spoil that. Things could have easily been settled after Kamal's first direct encounter with the bad guys....that would have been a lot more crisp. There is no need to fill extra time...if the movie is shorter it is all right, and story writers/directors/producers need to understand this.
The final frame is a cop out...the director did not have the courage to show what was more likely to have happened under the circumstances, but understandably the story teller realized that the more believable ending would disappoint the viewers.
The bottom line:
A fairly good movie, but watch it only if you can get past some graphic violence. Performances are very good all around. You will need to suspend some disbelief, but consider that most Indian movies stretch your credulity a lot more than this. You do not have to be a Kamal fan to like this movie; it isn't like the movie is good only because Kamal is in it.
