Another weekend. Another set of happily unemployed youths. Another two-hour-plus comedy with only about fifteen minutes capable of making you laugh (say, the un-PC joke about how someone almost went blind after watching a woman bathe). This time, it’s about Ramarajan (Shiva) and Rajkiran (Santhanam), who prefer to call themselves Dhoni and Sehwag. (If you ask the director, I Rajsekaran, why, he’d probably reply… Why not!) They’re enemies at first, but they become friends because, well, there’s no one to watch when they fight. And then they become enemies again. Or something. The trouble with Ya Yaa is that it isn’t even much of a comedy – its rhythms are those of drama. Why set out to make a comedy with such plot points as the betrayal by the friend and the split between hero and heroine, followed by the inevitably sad song? Why go for a “realistic” story in the first place? If gags are all you’re after, why not go all-out absurd like The Naked Gun movies? Something to think about until next week, the next “comedy”…
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
venkatesh
September 21, 2013
Why are the comments on the Shaam movie closed ?
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MANK
September 22, 2013
If gags are all you’re after, why not go all-out absurd like The Naked Gun movies
I totally agree with you and i have always been worried to see melodrama and unnecessary romantic angles etc beng injected into so called comedy films. Kamal Haasan make these no barred comedies very well . You know movies like tenali,panchatantram, kadhala kadhala etc whatever one thinks of these movies as kamalahaasan movies, you must give him credit that he goes for the no holds barred and doesnt try to make them serious at any point.I thought quick gun murugan was made on the vein of naked gun movies and so was tamilpadam.
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Mambazha Manidhan 2.0
September 22, 2013
BR, have you ever considered changing the site to baradwajrangan.com, through WordPress site hosting services? It’s some 10 dollars or something no.
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