''The length of the film should be directly related to the endurance of human bladder.'' - Alfred Hitchcock
''All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.'' - Charles Chaplin
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Introduction
Circa 1995,“Baasha” is a record of sorts. It is the most classical Rajini Movie. This movie reinstated Rajini’s stature as the super star of Tamil Nadu. This movie was a massive hit and ran for months and for a year in few places. This movie catapulted Rajnikanth to such a level that it was his peak of his acting career.
Now you are in 2004. You have many players in the fray to claim the title of “Super Star” status of one of the most successful and advanced film industry in India. There is one actor whose interest is F-3 racing and bike racing who is a darling of many youths. He is Ajith. Ajith has given many hits in his career. He wants to be the next SS. He says openly. His previous movie “Anjaneya” dooms big time. Now he has to raise his image and give a good movie. He makes 1 or 2 movies a year. He decides to make an image-hoisting movie. He wants to show who the boss is to the world.
He gets one of the biggest producers in TN, “Roja Combines”. Harps in hotshot Malayalam director “Shaji Kailas”, known for his dramatic action films. They decide to make a movie, action packed, entertaining, in the lines of Baasha, image booster for Ajith. They take in many good artistes. Spend money like water. Make a film. Release it soon.
What is the result?
A half-baked movie with no sequential logic and no continuity in screenplay that in effect becomes “Baba” for Ajith. Hey! Baba is like Baasha ( I meant in character(B) sense).
I decided not to watch any movies unless it is path breaking of some sorts. Well, rules are to be broken. Especially if it is from your wife. I rented the cassette and was summoned to sit and watch the movie. After a painful 120 minutes or so (If you take the forwards of songs and fights), my wife and me went straight in search of headache pill. It was nice that we saw it late in the night. The sleep helped us a lot to recover from somewhat irreparable damage to the grey cells.
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PLOT
You are shown a village called “Thamaraipadi” near Coimbatore (Haven’t heard about it!) where Jana is the darling of the villagers. He fixes their problems immediately, such as getting water (May be he should go for Cauvery tribunal) for villagers etc. He gets entangled with Radha Ravi and co. Sneha is Radha Ravi’s daughter and is on a vacation from her studies at Mumbai. Ajith Came, saw and conquered Sneha. After few fight scenes and couple of songs later, sneha goes to Mumbai.
There she hears another side of a man known for his integrity, braveness and righteousness. He is “Baasha” of Mumbai. He is from a family of Judge, Headmistress and an ACP. He becomes a don to bring all dons down. (Dream of such a situation). Vishwanath Bhandari (Siddique) is an arms dealer and he crosses Jana’s mom who is threatened. Jana kills his brother and he takes revenge on Jana’s family. At the end, Jana takes revenge on Vishwanath Bhandari. How simple?
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ANALYSIS
Jana is a movie with one of the crappiest screenplays. While Ajith offers a lot of treat to his fans, it is a cropper to regular cine-goers. All the director makes you think(!!!). You are always kept wondering what happened to this person or that person. You are left to yourself to curse or praise yourselves for seeing such a movie that makes you think so much. Sometimes you wonder whether you have seen two movies “Chinna Gounder” and “Baasha” in an abridged manner. Sort of like One movie and two headache pills. Some classy(!!) scenes from the film.
You don’t know what happens to Sneha’s love and all. The movie ends with Siddique’s murder. (Financial problems or is due to the fact that producer wanted to save the audience? Whoever did this, live long)
You don’t know what happened to Radha Ravi & his brother
Srividya, who is a headmistress and is a wife of a judge; mother of an ACP is scared like chicken when the villain says he is going to kill her husband.
You see the cochin buildings and Spencer Plaza when the scene is supposed to be in Mumbai
The greatest drawback of this movie is the loose screenplay. They could have woven it well. This movie had some stuff in it. Looks like they focused only on the character buildup of Ajith. Shaji Kailas who is a known for his hits in Malayalam and visuals in movies does an extremely bad job in this one. There are way too many unnecessary scenes in this movie. He defies logic totally.
Comedy by Karunas & Co is bearable at times and unbearable most of the time.
All the additional actors have done jobs in an OK manner.
Stunt scenes by Kanal Kannan & Peter Heyne is nice. I didn’t enjoy it much as I forwarded most of it. I could tell from the
Ajith has done a nice job of satisfying his fans. It is a total hero movie. He has his moments in the film. He is spotless in dhoti and has many punch lines. He does stunts gracefully and acted in a normal manner. His acting loses steam in this croppy movie. His costumes are very fitting(!) and graceful
Raghuvaran is his usual self and Radha Ravi and Vinu chakravarthi overact like they always do.
Sneha is a glamour doll that has done reasonably well. She disappears most of the second half.
The music by Dhina is passable (I passed watching the songs)
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Technicalities
Cast : Ajith, Sneha , Raghuvaran, Radharavi, Karunas, Manorama, Vinu Chakravarthy, Vyapuri, Delhi Ganesh, Latha, Satyapriya, Manoj K. Jayan and Baburaj
Story & Screenplay : Unnikrishnan.
Direction : Shaji Kailas
Music : Dhina
Camera : Rajiv Ravi
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VERDICT
You get to watch a cropper of a movie with nothing entertaining, if you are a regular film-goer. If you are an Ajith fan you may enjoy this average flick. As far as I am concerned, Ajith’s career is in grave danger now. The competition he is facing now, the types of movies he makes and the claims he makes are all ridiculous. He will have to be a good person in what he does. He may have to go to his other hobby of racing, otherwise.
Don’t even think about watching this movie, unless you are an Ajith fan. It is always better to have a headache pill ready, when you decide to watch this
JANA - TWO THUMBS DOWN
I Hope you liked this review. Do comment.
KALIL
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A film is a petrified fountain of thought.'' - Jean Cocteau
''A good film is when the price of the admission, the dinner and the babysitter was well worth it.'' - Alfred Hitchcock
