Nobody who saw Soul Kitchen, Fatih Akin’s dryly existential comedy, could have mistaken it for a fount of rambunctious laughs, but Sundar C, against all odds, takes its ingredients – one run-down restaurant; two brothers (one of them just sprung from jail) who seek to restore it to former glory; an unfortunate game of cards – and cooks up a reasonably diverting entertainment. Kalakalappu @ Masala Café is one of those films made with all the finesse of the old television dramas (before the mega-serials swallowed them up whole with a bone-shattering belch), and you’d be right to wonder why walk to the theatre to see something that would work just as well as scattered episodes on YouTube. But if your antennae are tuned into the vibe, these movies work better with an audience around – there’s something infectious about a theatre filled with happy people. The mediocre jokes become good ones, and the good gags come off like bursts of dada genius – like the stretch where a policeman, hit on the head, begins to imagine the people around him as cops from older Tamil movies. A little nonsense goes a long way.
Vimal and Anjali (all glammed up) have a few amusing scenes early on, but it’s with Shiva’s entrance that Kalakalappu really takes off. The actor has a way of seizing lines that might look fatally flat on paper (“Edhukkaaga indha bad games?”) and making them outrageously funny, and you have to respect the abject shamelessness of a mind that can rhyme “kathirikka knife” with “Katrina Kaif.” Ilavarasu, as a man reduced to (as he puts it himself) donning as many disguises as Kamal Haasan in Dasavatharam, is even funnier in his handful of scenes, the pick of his avatars being the uproarious “Amitabh mama.” Crazy Mohan, in his heyday, would have approved. Santhanam, on the other hand, is a bust as the rival for Anjali’s affections, but by then you’ll probably be in too buoyant a mood to care. Sundar C fills his lively canvas with a corrupt cop and a villain after missing diamonds, and these discursions occasionally put a brake on the proceedings. Thankfully, the kitchen sink, aka the doting grandfather who flies through a car’s windshield, is always round the corner.
Copyright ©2012 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Aravindan
May 12, 2012
Fatih Akin in a review of Sundar C’s film. Would have never expected that
lowlylaureate
May 12, 2012
Best line is, “Mahanadi la Suganya appa voda peyar enna yaaru?” later he adds
“Mahanadi pakadavanga indha question answer panna mudiyadhu”
Shiva’s parts were great, but otherwise only good in parts.
rvj
May 12, 2012
lowlylaurate,
“mahanadi ya parthavangalum intha question answer panna mudiyadhu”
KayKay
May 12, 2012
“mahanadi ya parthavangalum intha question answer panna mudiyadhu”
Nonsense! As if any avid Tamil fllm watcher would forget the late, great Poornam Vishwanathan!
Wankers
lowlylaureate
May 12, 2012
Name of Poornam Viswanathan’s character
KayKay
May 13, 2012
Krishna’s cellmate.
Thank you IMDB hahaha
Govardhan Giridass
May 13, 2012
Surely everybody knows that Poornam’s character is called Panjabakesan?
vijay
May 14, 2012
” there’s something infectious about a theatre filled with happy people. The mediocre jokes become good ones,”
The perils of a reviewer
I think I asked you about this sometime back. Detaching yourself from all that and evaluating it in isolation is not easy. I think you really need to see the film again in your mind once you get home. For Saroja, every time Premji amaram appeared the multiplex audience started laughing almost prompting you to do the same. When you watch it again on TV alone, you realize how annoying it got after some time.
mspseudoneem
May 26, 2012
>>there’s something infectious about a theatre filled with happy people
So true! Can’t believe I didn’t notice it till now.
I looooved the movie. One of the fewest movies that I’ve watched of late and not regretted coughing up money.