Spoilers ahead…
In a film named after his illustrious grandfather, Vikram Prabhu gets a mass-hero entry. He sends someone flying through the air, and that someone crashes through the windshield of a car. Who is this man? A petrified Frenchwoman looks on. Maybe the man kidnapped her. Maybe he assaulted her. Maybe he Eve-teased her. And how did this call-taxi driver named Sivaji (Vikram Prabhu) stumble on this scene? According to the director, Ganesh Vinayaac, the details aren’t important. All we need to know is that Sivaji saves her. Later, as he drives her home, she punch-dialogues, “This sort of thing happens everywhere in the world, but only a Thamizhan has the guts to stand up to it.” Soon, Sivaji gets a punch of his own. A beggar comes up. He gives her a couple of hundreds, and tells his friends, “Yosikkaama kudutha dharmam. Yosichu kudutha pitchai.” It sounds good in a vague, motivational poster kind of way. The film is equally vague.
It has a couple of comedians in Robo Shankar and Yogi Babu. It has a villain in John Vijay (who seems unsure whether he’s supposed to play a comic villain or a real villain). It has a heroine in Shamili. It has the same backup dancers we see in every film. It’s scary, really, when you realise you watch so many films that you recognise the backup dancers. These ingredients are sprinkled like spice on the main course, a plot about a little girl who needs brain surgery. And then, Sivaji becomes an amnesiac. Say what? You get the feeling the director is making things up as he’s going along. Let’s have an item number. Let’s have a duet in Turkmenistan. Or wherever. Let’s lose the heroine for an hour. Okay, enough of the villain now. Let’s lose him and bring the heroine back.
It’s all head-spinningly awful, and the bad beer I had last night didn’t help. (I couldn’t decide where the queasiness was coming from.) Why is the average Tamil film so underwhelming in terms of form? Things can go wrong with the storyline or characterisation, but shouldn’t there be at least some basic technical competence? I’m talking about finesse, finish. Why do only a handful of our filmmakers care about these things? Take the world of writing. You can lose your way in a novel or an essay, but if you end up getting published and I pick up your book, I expect you’re going to have your spelling, grammar, punctuation right. Otherwise, why bother?
KEY:
- Veera Sivaji= Sivaji the Brave!
- “Yosikkaama kudutha dharmam. Yosichu kudutha pitchai.” = Seriously not worth the translation.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2016 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Jyothsna
December 16, 2016
“It’s scary, really, when you realise you watch so many films that you recognise the backup dancers”, lol, how true
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MANK
December 16, 2016
It’s scary, really, when you realise you watch so many films that you recognise the backup dancers.
Huh, the perils of being a critic.
Seriously Brangan, what is it that’s wrong with the Tamil mainstream filmmakers. They have got the best technicians who are the toast of the country and yet why are they so technically shoddy. They do such good work in Hindi or even Malayalam -which are made at one third or one fifth the money and time taken to make a mainstream Tamil film . How is it that the same technicians who do such superb work in other languages become so unprofessional when they get back to Tamil. Or does it all boil down to directors who lack any vision or sense for technical perfection. Are Mani rathnam and GVM the only guys in the mainstream who care about these things. It’s baffling really.
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Raju
December 16, 2016
When’s the chennai 28 2nd innings review coming out?
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sabharinath
December 16, 2016
“Yosikkaama kudutha dharmam. Yosichu kudutha pitchai.” = Seriously not worth the translation.
Lol…… Just wondering how many are gonna think its the actual meaning of that phrase.
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Kay
December 16, 2016
Glad to know I’m not the only one who notices the backup dancers. I have even analysed and formed theories on which dancers dance with which heroes.
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venkatesh
December 16, 2016
@Kay: I actually recognise them by the way they sway, aka the mandatory pelvic thrust. I have about 75% hit-rate.
On such high quality metrics is my Tamil cinema viewing based 🙂
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Siva
December 17, 2016
“It’s scary, really, when you realise you watch so many films that you recognise the backup dancers.”
“You get the feeling the director is making things up as he’s going along.”
“and the bad beer I had last night didn’t help. (I couldn’t decide where the queasiness was coming from.)”
“= Seriously not worth the translation.”
ROFL!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀
Seriously Barad, you do seem to have all the requisites of a comic column writer. You sure did remind me of one Mr. Balakumar.K, who writes up a weekly comic column (on current news & trends) called CRANK’S CORNER in the local freely circulated TALK newspaper (Vadapazhani Talk, Adyar Talk, et al) –> http://kbalakumar.com/
And like we know, yet another actor trying in vain to catapult himself to super-stardom! Oh, and does he have his own ‘power title(!?)’ as yet? How about “Desperate Star 1” 😀
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bart
December 17, 2016
“It’s all head-spinningly awful, and the bad beer I had last night didn’t help. (I couldn’t decide where the queasiness was coming from.)”
Ah.. . Now the Tamil filmdom vs Online (/print?!) reviewers fight takes a spin. It is because the reviewers are drunk while watching that the genuinely “well-made” films do not get their due.. 🙃🙃🙃
Another arrow from “Blue Sattai”s pockets 😁
No words minced as usual especially on the heroine and hero…
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Amazingfan
December 17, 2016
Oh you don’t bother to review better movie like chennai 28 part 2 and then u rant on Tamil films lacking finesse…
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
December 18, 2016
only a Thamizhan has the guts to stand up to it
Thanks for highlighting the line. 🙂 It reminds me of this long forgotten video:
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Madan
December 20, 2016
“but if you end up getting published and I pick up your book, I expect you’re going to have your spelling, grammar, punctuation right” – Might not that be a rather lofty expectation given the state of things? Aside from novels, I have got used to bad mistakes in TOI but I spotted them in Hindu as well when I was in Chennai a few weeks back and I was appalled.
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