Devi Priya (Kajal Aggarwal) is a bad singer who thinks she’s a good singer simply because no one around her has told her she sings badly. How does someone think up such a character? Could she be autobiographical? Could it be that M Rajesh, the writer-director behind All in All Azhagu Raja, wrote a bad comedy, and he thought he wrote a good comedy simply because no one around him told him he writes comedy badly? What a wretched, bloated, unfunny mess this is, with the ugliest segues between comedy and melodrama in recent memory. Scenes go on and on with no point, and as a result, the film goes on and on pointlessly – an hour in, if you’d asked me what the story was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Finally, it’s all about Azhagu Raja (Karthi, who seems to have a fine nose for picking the worst scripts) falling for Devi Priya, and she not loving him back… Do you really care? Strictly for those who’ve been praying to see Santhanam in drag, as an actress named… Kareena Chopra.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
oneWithTheH
November 5, 2013
Planning to review Pandiyanadu? That’s the only Deepavali release I caught and was quite pleased with it. It seems bizarre that Vishal’s best-yet performance, shedding the “mass” tag comes in a film that has himself as the producer!
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Sanjay Nirmuktan
November 5, 2013
this was an awesome remark : “Karthi, who seems to have a fine nose for picking the worst scripts”
i think his career is doomed much like Abhishek Bachhan unless someone bails him out a la Dharini did to Vijay in Gilli!
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Srini
November 5, 2013
When Karthi started with Paruthiveeran, I thought he’s someone to watch out for. Alas, he has got his head messed up in trying to be a “Mass” hero.His movies are consistently hitting a new low.
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Rajesh
November 5, 2013
“he wrote a good comedy simply because no one around him told him he writes comedy badly?”
– strongly feel that the reviewed ended up with that question mark itself.
– Two additional appraisal review comments by BR on Karthi and Santhanam :p
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Dilip R
November 5, 2013
And to add to this mess they have made Rj Balaji quit.
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omfgitsrohit
November 5, 2013
“…Kareena Chopra”
ROFL! Definitely paying this a visit with fellow nitpickers.
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Adithya Bourne
November 5, 2013
i thought you would review pandiya nadu first ahead of arrambam and azhagu raja…i really liked pandiya nadu and suseendhiran continues his good form…..
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MANK
November 5, 2013
Santhanam in drag, as an actress named… Kareena Chopra
BR:What are our movies coming to?.
I am disappointed that you did not write a 3 paragraph review of this. The truly atrocious movies brings out the best in you. We missed a truly entertaining article.
Speaking of Karthi, you should dedicate a separate article to actors like him along with the likes of Vikram,Jai, Sasikumar etc who all tasted first success with offbeat ventures and then found themselves in the mess of mass movies
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Rajeev
November 5, 2013
Looks like the law of averages is on a roll.
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RAjesh
November 5, 2013
@BR: I agree with @MANK.
Speaking of Karthi, you should dedicate a separate article to actors like him along with the likes of Vikram,Jai, Sasikumar etc who all tasted first success with offbeat ventures and then found themselves in the mess of mass movies.
I think Jai has realised his mistakes. Sasikumar knows his limitations. But he should travel in Direction. Vikram – More like directors let him off. Hoping on Ai. But Karthi – Simply unacceptable. An awesome debut like Parutheeveeran (I think only Sivaji Ganesan had such a debut in Parasakti) followed by good Aayirathil Oruvan. But what followed thereafter for him was slow pill suicide. Saguni, Alex Pandian yucks
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ThePenn
November 5, 2013
Sir, please review Pandiyanadu.
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sairam
November 6, 2013
Of all the damages this film has done, the worst seems to be to RJ Balaji’s “review” show. Sir, as a reviewer, any thoughts on such shows and the reaction of the film industry to it?
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Ravi K
November 6, 2013
I think his career is kept afloat primarily by the family-run Studio Green production house (run by his and Surya’s cousin). It’s a shame, since his performance in Paruthiveeran was terrific. I suppose if he was mediocre from the beginning it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But I get the sense that he’s better than the films in which he acts.
MANK, I think most of these actors truly wanted to be mass heroes first, taking the offbeat roles because they would garner attention, or possibly because nobody else would take those roles. Vijay Sethupathi has mostly chosen strange/interesting films so far. I hope he keeps it up.
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Rajesh
November 6, 2013
@Ravi – that is pathetic state. We know that Karthi is M.S graduate, went to US, studied some acting courses etc etc. We obviously thought he would be mature enough. Especially at the time he came in, his brother was doing different films like Nandha, Pithamagan, Ghajini, Kakka Kakka, Vaaranam Aayiram. Disappointingly he chose only two good films Parutheeveeran and Aayirathil oruvan. rest are junk, junk. junk.. he was kind of signing spree for the sake of finishing two movies per year (to compensate for the time take in parutheeveeran and aayirathil oruvan)
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MANK
November 6, 2013
@rajesh:he was kind of signing spree for the sake of finishing two movies per year (to compensate for the time take in parutheeveeran and aayirathil oruvan)
Yeah But why , is he in some financial crisis or something, because he hails from a rich family . I can understand a Kamal Haasan taking on a string of masala moviies after the debacle of Hey Ram, as it was all his money and need to pay back the debts. But Karthi is just starting out. i think The surya comparisons are hazardous, you see surya has in recent times shifted totally to the masala film genre. What on earth possessed him to turn down Gowtham’s film and do Singham2 is beyond me.May be that could be the inspiration for Karthi. to shift totally to this kind of cinema.I think the money and the Fanmania that comes along with those movies are hard to resist even for a M.S graduate from US
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Rajesh
November 6, 2013
@mank: to compensate for the time take in parutheeveeran and aayirathil oruvan – I said it because.. in a recent interview in The Hindu he said that 9 movies in 7 years is too less and cited aayirathil oruvan as a reason for it.
I don’t think Sivakumar and all are rich family. They had much more than enough money. Not like that of Rajnikanth or Vijayakanth etc. Only after Surya they had lots of lots of money.
And comparison with Surya – I clearly said that ” Especially at the time he came in”.. not in recent times..
Surya – another fellow getting junk junk nowadays. that fellow always has an answer that he had many flop movies in early carrier. in directly saying he wants only superhit (masala) movies. At any case, I won’t say Dhuruvanathachatiram was only Surya’s fault. Gautham is equally responsible for that shabby situation. At any case, Surya has publicly mentioned in a recent audio release function that he join hands for a different movie (without mentioning gautham) next year.
Their seats are no longer permanent. They can be thrown away anytime. I think they have started realizing it.
Anyways Vijay Sethupathi has made Karthi and Surya realize their mistakes… They can’t take audiences for granted. And after Raanjhanaa’s hit / performance and terrific performance in Maryan by Dhanush, they would have realized it very very much.
I think some seniors like Mani Rathnam just re-iterate to both of them that ‘do good movies’ (that is what Mani Rathnam said when Karthi started acting in Parutheeveeran)
@BR – kindly consider writing a column for Surya and Karthi.
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Hari
November 6, 2013
Worst movie
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venkatesh
November 6, 2013
Re the Studio Green connection – what is odd is that most of Karthi’s films are self-produced and distributed meaning the loss is twice as high and he still keeps going.
Where does the production house get its money from ?
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RAjesh
November 7, 2013
@venkatesh – they get all the money from acquiring small budget movies like Attakathi, Pizza, Soodhu Kavvum etc .. while Karthi has fine nose of picking up worst scripts.. Studio Green has fine nose of picking good small-budget less-star-casted movies which badly need release
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brangan
November 7, 2013
sairam: I heard about the fuss, but I don’t know if I have any thoughts — because I haven’t heard too many episodes of the show. But in principle yes, if you’re doing work that’s in the public eye, then you have to be prepared for feedback that could be bad or even ugly, and you can’t get too worked up about this. But then, we don’t *really* have freedom of speech in India, do we? I mean, who, here, can say they do a Letterman or Leno or an SNL sketch and attack even the President? 🙂
Rajesh / MANK: But why , is he in some financial crisis or something… May be that could be the inspiration for Karthi. to shift totally to this kind of cinema
I don’t see why an actor is obliged to do “classy” films, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t do films just for making money. The problem is that the films he chooses are so badly written that even at a script level he should have said no. If he’d made a series of well-made masala movies, would we be having this conversation?
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MANK
November 7, 2013
BR:I think you misunderstood the statements. i am not against actors doing movies for money. Of course this is a profession for them and they need to pay the bills as well. Which is why I gave the analogy of gowtham and singam2. Gowtham does not make art films. What he makes is really well written masala movies with conviction. Singam2 was such a monstrosity and so was mattran.. Which is true for Karthi as well .. The point i was making was their complete dependency on these kind of so called mass movies that are shoddily conceived and executed. one after another and not ready to risk even one opportunity to do the kind of classy fare that really made them.. I don’t really demand this of someone like Vijay or salman khan at all. It is the total insulting of their individual legacy that angers me.
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RAjesh
November 7, 2013
I second MANK.
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