In terms of sheer professionalism, the film is the best thing that’s come on the southern OTT space. But is that enough?
Spoilers ahead…
It’s lovely when the hero of a film has a solid ambition. It’s lovelier when the heroine has one, too. Maaran (Suriya) — based on Air Deccan founder GR Gopinath and his book, Simply Fly — wants to create a low-cost airline. Bommi (Aparna Balamurali) wants to run a bakery. The loveliest touch is when they make a pact (her suggestion) that their earnings go into a common pool. It’s not his income or hers, but theirs. I don’t think I’ve seen household financial decisions being depicted on screen ever, less so when the couple is yet to get hitched. The Maaran-Bommi scenes are the best thing about Soorarai Pottru, directed by Sudha Kongara. (She’s a friend. I had a look at an early draft of the script.) Suriya has many big acting moments here, and his most brilliant one is in the scene where — despite that pre-marital pact — Maaran hesitates to ask Bommi for money. Her business is soaring. His is just not taking off. You can see him struggle to bring out the words, which seem stuck in his throat.
Read the rest of this article at the link above.
Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
madhusudhan194
November 12, 2020
Hi BR. How different do you think your reaction would have been if you hadn’t read the initial script? Even I felt that at least some scenes needed to breathe. For a while I wondered if I was watching a Hari film. It seems to me that not much of re-editing has happened for OTT. It appears to be a theatrical cut except for beeping out the swear words (which was a relief, I must admit). God knows what this new government policy is going to do to OTT content.
LikeLiked by 3 people
gnanaozhi
November 12, 2020
This ridiculous inserting of caste and class angles in TN cinema will be the death of TN cinema.
Firstly this is not even remotely a true story of Capt Gopinath. This movie projects him as this super poor,. “socialist” (the character of Surya says this explicitly) down in the luck village hick.
Let’s look at the reality, Capt Gopinath came from a middle class, Bourgeois family. He graduated from the IMA, served as a captain before taking retirement.
He ran hotels, bike dealerships, was a large-scale farmer before he took his aviation plunge. Here too he quickly became one of India’s largest private Air charter firms and then he expanded into LCC.
So no, literally none of the dramatic nonsense shown on screen happened.
Now if it was entirely fictional, I wouldn’t have a beef with it but it claims to be based on Capt Gopinath’s life.
And that ridiculous scene with a Mallya caricature where Surya says that he (the Mallya lite) is a socialist and he is a socialist?
Well, Gopinath was filthy rich by any standards when he started Deccan Air and he eventually sold Deccan this very same “socialite”
We need to make biopics the way a Scorsese makes them, gritty and grounded in reality. Sure he might take a few cinematic leaps but that’s about it.
Compare this with the Aviator and the difference will be stark.
The reason? Because of the endless soapboxing Tamil stars demand. Make this same movie with an unknown or a proper non masala actor like Vijay Sethupathj and the output will be far superior
LikeLiked by 4 people
sujithra manoharan
November 12, 2020
To summarize it’s a good film but not a one of great calibre as expected from the director /hero/combo….just a curious question…where do we draw the line between viewing the film objectively as a standalone product fr wat it is and mounting it on our expectations based on director /combinations etc..
LikeLike
brangan
November 12, 2020
LikeLike
madhusudhan194
November 12, 2020
@gnanaozhi – I don’t think the film claims to be a faithful retelling of Capt. Gopinath’s life. Why does it have to be? It only takes his achievements in the field of aviation and narrates it using fictional characters in a fictional setting. The disclaimers were quite clear, weren’t they?
LikeLike
brangan
November 12, 2020
madhusudhan: I read the script so long ago, I barely remember much of it except that it really excited me.
gnanaozhi: I don’t have an issue about dramatisation. “Based on” only means its’s “based on” something, and what elements they choose to keep, what they choose to leave out, etc. are totally up to the writers.
The class angle is inevitable because this was planned as a theatrical film, and our big stars like to play the unprivileged underdog.
What bothered me, though, was the caricaturing of the upper classes. (I am going to sanitise my hands after touching you, etc.) Even at the airport, when Suriya is in line for a ticket, someone behind comments on his smell. All this “drama” is what’s bothersome, in a film that already has enough underdog elements going for it.
A question to all:
How do you guys think this would have done had it released in theatres?
LikeLiked by 2 people
madhusudhan194
November 12, 2020
@BR – I do think it would have worked extremely well in theatres. A lot of scenes were clearly written for theatre. Like the socialite-socialist punchline, the climax when he succeeds but in the most surprising way etc. We just don’t see that coming. Experiencing that collective surprise in theatre would have been something else. That’s what theatres are for.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Yajiv
November 12, 2020
This was a movie really meant for the theatres. I think it would have done really well there Even with the way it was cut (felt more like a highlights reel than a full movie). I really wish they had made changes once Amazon made the deal and added back some scenes. OTT allows for a more leisurely pace if need be. You don’t need to worry about “first half super, second half semma bore-u pa” reactions as much.
LikeLiked by 1 person
shaviswa
November 12, 2020
Agree with @gnanaozhi – annoying storyline just to show the hero to the masses as he if he is one among them.
This film would have flopped in the theaters.
LikeLike
Yajiv
November 12, 2020
@gnanaozhi & @shaviswa :
Is it fair to say that your criticisms can be applied to nearly every single Tamil mass movie of recent times, not just Soorarai Pottru? I’m thinking back to the last 6 Vijay movies that came out and they all have some form of this “working class vs elite” sentiment
LikeLike
brangan
November 12, 2020
This is just an aside, but maybe there is a psychological / sociological angle to this…
So these heroes get some 25 to 100 crores per film, right? And this is widely reported, right? It’s not like in the MGR days where none of this news ever came out, and people felt he is “one of them” etc. because of the roles he played on screen.
But today, isn’t there a dissonance between such wealthy men always playing underprivileged people? I find it really hard to digest these “socialist” dialogues from the mouths of these actors, and was wondering if there are any others who feel the same way.
Then again, had these films been written better, this dissonance wouldn’t be there at all, and we’d just see it as “acting”…
LikeLiked by 5 people
Aman Basha
November 12, 2020
Rajni got 50 crore for Endhiran and people still think of him as the humble superstar. It’s not money and status, it’s more about whether people feel one has let money and status get to his head and create arrogance.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Srinivas R
November 12, 2020
@Aman Basha – I agree, but i think except for Rajini, the “humbleness” or the potrayal as underdog of other stars feels so fake. Rajini is very self aware and doesn’t humble brag, so you can feel his simplicity, for other stars, “he is so simple/hunble”etc. comes across as an advertisement.
LikeLike
madhusudhan194
November 12, 2020
@BR – Not really. Even in MGR days those films made a lot of money, right? People would have known that he’ll be paid well. They knew MGR was rich in real life. I think all they cared about is whether he makes them feel he is one amongst them during the course of the film. I don’t think that has changed. I don’t always feel this dissonance while watching these films. The one time I can recall feeling this dissonance was while watching Kaala. Rajini made some statements contrary to the politics of the film and it was quite close to the release date. So it stuck. But it doesn’t happen always.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Srinivas R
November 12, 2020
@BR – the point you make about writing is what causes the dissonance here. Rajini was an underdog in Annamalai. It could so easily have become a “poor people are cheated by rich upper class men” wail with a few dialogues thrown in.Thankfully, the story remains focused on Annamalai, Ashok and the people around them. There is no extraneous ideology being force fitted.
In today’s Tamil movies, the hero will let out a expository wail about farmers, when it has nothing to do with his character, or lecture about some “good values” with complete disregard to the plot. So, they stick out like a sore thumb. Star heroes are convinced that it is a selling factor. So as long as audience lap it up, there is no end in sight.
Earlier, when a movie wanted to talk about ideology or politics , like say, Varumayin Niram Sivapu or even Hey Ram, the audience is aware of it from scene 1.The ideology is core of the movie, so any political exposition doesn’t feel jarring.
LikeLiked by 5 people
shaviswa
November 12, 2020
Unnal Mudiyum Thambi is another good example. The core of the film is how despite being born in a privileged family, Udayamurthi’s heart is with the lesser privileged. And this aspect is shown right from the title song when the young Udayamurthi is chided by a beggar for not helping an old lady. While I may have issues with the plot and generally how that film was made by KB, the social messaging did not stick out like a sore thumb in that film.
With today’s mass heroes, it is very clear that their social messaging is force fitted into the narrative. There is no sincerity in building that organically into the plot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
gnanaozhi
November 12, 2020
@ Madan,
The issue is if it were pure fiction, yes then I have no qualms in how the story is presented. But saying it is based on means that there should be some fidelity to the real person. Disclaimers notwithstanding.
That’s why I linked it to Scorsese directed biopics, they definitely deviate from the truth and take cinematic liberties but are still grounded in reality ergo “based on”
This is like if Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter claimed to be “based on the life of Abraham Lincoln”.
Might be pedantic but personally to me it takes me out of the movie entirely.
@BR – the class references are artificially inserted as am sure you would have seen Drohi and Sala Khadoos… Those are tight scripts that never meander into soap boxing. Am 100% sure Surya’s agent demanded the rewrite and it tonally is so off, not just with the rest of this movie but pretty much every Sudha Kongara has done before including the piece she did for the Amazon anthology that celebrates the upper middle class actually.
On how the likes of Vijay (a serial offender) get away it, 2 words – cognitive dissonance.
The Tamil cinema audience has always suffered from this imo and it has gotten exponentially worse with the new “thala vs Thalapathy” brigade.
So they wholeheartedly buy the persona they see on screen, and will still boast about “Thalapathy gets 100 crores for Master da”.
Given the politically vitiated atmosphere, these bits bring the house down in the first week of a theatrical launch so I guess that’s why heroes insist on it.
Of the mainstream heroes I think only Dhanush and Ajith don’t indulge in it.
@yajiv, like I said above, make a standard film (not a biopic / based on) and I would not have had the same thoughts but when a professional and talented director like Sudha Kongara is forced to make in my opinion putrid trash like this, it is disappointing.
She has had a limited career before SP and they have both + the short been super tight with not an iota of flab. And then this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
November 12, 2020
Watched it today. Was initially interesting but by the end, sentiment-u overflow-ala blade adichutaanya. Last scene had pondaati, thai and thagappan sentiment and because Maara has no siblings, they made up with mannu/bhoomi sentiment. The words of a hit SEL song from Arakshan came to my mind – Seedhe Point Pe Aao Na.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Satya
November 12, 2020
I find it really hard to digest these “socialist” dialogues from the mouths of these actors, and was wondering if there are any others who feel the same way.
Recently we had posts remembering SRK, so I’ll use his quote – Don’t be philosophical until you are rich. Though he is an unabashed capitalist, he does have a point. No matter how empathetic and compassionate these stars are (or not), they cannot do anything without money. If they want to do something, they need money. Stardom isn’t a bucket that just needs some water. It is like a well – you have to help it sustain, keep filling with water and still, you don’t know when it dries up. It is a relentless pursuit – at least in Indian cinema. Give up and turn all ascetic, and we would have another Vinod Khanna before us. Let our stars try that way, and even BR wouldn’t bother to listen to what they got to say about the common man’s struggles (correct me if I’m wrong).
On the other hand, there are filmmakers like Pa Ranjith who want the stars to drive his ideologies. If not for Rajinikanth but some other hero, Kaala might have invited unwanted attention from groups like RSS and NNS. So you see, Rajinikanth is both the speaker and the shield. Most of the stars of such ‘ambitious’ films are only useful that way. In fact, lack of concern for the society in films is equally considered very bad – a day shall come when a film production company would go for CSR activities and let the world know.
Speaking of that, I have an incident to share, too. Mahesh Babu has been sponsoring the heart-related surgeries and operations every year from, maybe, 2012? My relative’s kid had a heart ailment and his operation was sponsored wholly by Mahesh, though I have no idea how it reached him. I read somewhere he does this for personal satisfaction, especially after his daughter was saved from some serious health problems, and wishes to see those kids happy and healthy too. Should I give him the credit for pulling it off every year with random children, tying up with hospitals and getting it done? Or should I point out that in every film post Srimanthudu, Mahesh has been lecturing on the evils of the society? I’ll conclude that later leisurely.
LikeLiked by 4 people
H. Prasanna
November 12, 2020
Yeah, it should have just been called Sooriyavai Pottru
LikeLiked by 2 people
Prakash
November 13, 2020
A good film. I don’t know why such a lukewarm response in this forum. Light years ahead of the usual fare.. let’s appreciate the film for what it set out to do rather than comparing it Hollywood fare..
LikeLike
brangan
November 13, 2020
gnanaozhi: Oh come on. I agree the film has lots of issues (say, everything feels so rushed and we can’t connect at times), but it’s light years from “putrid trash”.
Are you saying absolutely nothing worked for you?
LikeLike
Madan
November 13, 2020
Prakash: I don’t have to compare it with Hollywood fare. Guru was miles and miles ahead of this film. So was Dirty Picture. And neither were perfect or factually accurate accounts; even Guru glorified Ambani more than I would have liked but at least the narration was coherent and crisp. I am not even going to compare with Scam 1992 because a web series gives the space to the makers to chart out a story that can be both engrossing and have depth (that said, if it starred Surya, I wouldn’t hold my breath).
I guess I have outgrown Tamil films or rather, a certain stripe of Tamil films. I won’t go as far as gnanaozhi and I didn’t pay attention to the caste distortion angle but in a two and half hour film and with us skipping the songs, it shouldn’t have felt like eppada mudichu tholaiyuvan.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
November 13, 2020
Going beyond the sentiment jokes, my fundamental problem with the last hour or so of the film where it ought to definitively move to the endgame is we didn’t have a clue as to what the jeebus was going on with the airline. It felt simply like they were lurching from crisis to crisis. What were the milestones they were trying to hit, how did Paresh’s machinations thwart those milestones, didn’t come out clearly. Again, in the beginning, it did. But the portion AFTER the first flight catches fire was just super chaotic. It does not help that this was way fabricated because Naresh Goyal was too savvy to so directly oppose Air Deccan. And to think of him doing that would also involve not being aware of segmentation – Jet and Air Deccan were not competitors at all. I bet Goyal laughed his ass off when Kingfisher acquired Air Deccan. Jet was sitting pretty with the, uh, jet set and corporate clientele. It was when Indigo offered the essential comfort and convenience of a full service airline experience while still doing away with several frills (and also running the flights on time, which Air Deccan repeatedly failed to) that Jet got into trouble. With the economy remaining in the grips of a slowdown, by 2014-15, more and more companies had cancelled corporate accounts with Jet and made arrangements with Indigo instead.
I get that a film would be fictionalized. The problem is the way Soorarai Pottru is fictionalized is to force fit the story into the tropes of a standard Tamil mass film. This cuts out all nuance and reduces most characters apart from Surya’s and Aparna’s to caricatures.
LikeLike
gnanaozhi
November 13, 2020
@BR, the first half was racy but felt a little too breathless, but slickly shot (ergo not putrid trash) and that BGM, loved it.
But the nonsensical issues I have raised, just pulled me out of the movie entirely and I used the 10 second forward option very liberally.
The scenes in the airport, his village all praising him (like a scene out of Sura), the excessive thai sentiment they really killed the movie for me.
The issue I have like I have said is, if this happened in a Vijay movie, I would have just swallowed 8 aspirins and continued watching, maybe even laughing ironically at a guy lecturing the masses on the poor farmer when he earns 50 cr + for a movie and avoids taxes to boot (refer the recent tax raids on him).
When it is in a bio pic, albeit “based on” about a fairly capable entrepreneur who had a whole host of real life challenges but all this was skipped in favour of made up generic Tamil cinema staples….it was really bad.
Esp the cognitive dissonance in projecting a very urban Brahmin who was very rich by the time he started Deccan Air vs the poor, subaltern caste based Surya in the movie.
For the record though my wife and mom consider me crazy because they loved the movie to bits. But then they found 96 to be so boring that they declared that they would rather watch DD news instead. Guess taste in the end is really a subjective element 🙂
LikeLike
madhusudhan194
November 13, 2020
Capt. Gopinath’s reaction to the film:
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/laughed-cried-family-scenes-captain-gopinath-after-watching-soorarai-pottru-137547
LikeLike
shravangr205
November 13, 2020
@ BR.
I see quite a lot of mentions of the whole ‘caste barrier/angle thing’.
Could you perhaps at sometime do a writeup of how certain upper class communites / educated are always portrayed in a negative shade as if they’re living off the poor etc? It’s gotten to a point of being annoying, offensive, insensitive (even to a not so religious person like me).
Of course we don’t have to take names be specific etc. But you get my point.
This whole trend over the last decade (or more) of mocking / villifying a certain community (you know who) just because they are easy soft targets who don’t necessarily ‘fight’ back.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Srinivas R
November 13, 2020
Not sure any movie can cover these things – the then aviation ministry was working hard to favor Kingfisher. The merger of Air India and Indian Airlines + withdrawing Air India from key domestic routes and allowing Kingfisher to cover those routes. Placing so many regulatory roadblocks on Air Deccan, that he saw the writing on the wall and sold it off to Kingfisher. The wilful destruction of Air India is a movie in itself. May be some web series can try.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Madan
November 13, 2020
“This whole trend over the last decade of mocking/villifying a certain community” – I would like to point out here, as a member of self-same community but not a resident of the Tamil Nadu political echo chamber, that neither Naresh Goyal nor the character based on him are Brahmins. By caste, they would be Vaishya. Is there a certain amount of projection then in these grievances? Yes IMO there is.
LikeLike
Yajiv
November 13, 2020
@shravangr205:
This is a tangent but I am a part of that you-know-who community. The mocking has been going on for significantly longer than the last decade. But I take one look at my regressive grandparents who won’t even eat food or drink water if a ‘vera jaathi’ person comes in their vicinity (because apparently even the very sight of them is ‘polluting’) and I think “maybe we brought this on ourselves by treating people like dirt”. I’m not saying we deserve all the mocking, but we definitely deserve some of it.
LikeLiked by 5 people
KP
November 13, 2020
“(I am going to sanitise my hands after touching you, etc.“
Paresh character shook Surya’s hand at the first meeting but not the VC guy I think this trait was shown more as a anxiety disorder with his medicine and all and nothing to do with caste
LikeLiked by 1 person
brangan
November 13, 2020
KP: I agree. I saw this more of a snob/class thing than a caste thing. Paresh Rawal is this way with everyone — the steward who used the same loo, his driver…
This is more about the economics, i.e. lower-classes (the “masses”) vs the upper-classes.
I didn’t see any explicit caste angle in this film. Was there one?
LikeLike
Jeeva Pitchaimani
November 13, 2020
Then again, had these films been written better, this dissonance wouldn’t be there at all, and we’d just see it as “acting”…
Rangan sir, this is a solid point. Kamal Haasan does all these ‘socialist’ things and gets away comfortably- the reason- his writing is robust. In Anbe Sivam, he played a communist despite the fact that he was a multicrore-earning star and none complained about the ‘dissonance’. And this, considering one more crucial fact. Generally, it is wrong to attribute political propaganda to actors who mouth these lines since they are just being paid to speak what the writer/director has written. Vijayakanth’s early career was based on communist films like Sigappu Malli and people did not call him a ‘communist’ at any point in his career. And the director of Sigappu Malli (which was a remake of a Telugu classic) too, Rama Narayanan who went on to make Amman films later, did not face these issues.
But one of the major draws of Anbe Sivam was how the real Kamal and the on-screen Kamal kept alternating between one another just like what happens in his other ‘writer-directorial’ ventures. When the on-screen Kamal speaks rationalism, we know pretty well that it is the writer or real Kamal who is speaking and Kamal consciously makes a killing out of this game.
As long as actors like Vijay, Surya consciously use ‘socialist’ propaganda to build their off-screen personas as well, these kinds of ‘dissonant’ questions will keep coming. But if the propaganda is folded neatly into the film, people and even critics would simply not mind.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Honest Raj
November 13, 2020
I find it really hard to digest these “socialist” dialogues from the mouths of these actors, and was wondering if there are any others who feel the same way.
Reminds me of this:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Honest Raj
November 13, 2020
Generally, it is wrong to attribute political propaganda to actors who mouth these lines since they are just being paid to speak what the writer/director has written. Vijayakanth’s early career was based on communist films like Sigappu Malli and people did not call him a ‘communist’ at any point in his career. And the director of Sigappu Malli (which was a remake of a Telugu classic) too, Rama Narayanan who went on to make Amman films later, did not face these issues.
Agree. A few years later, the actor-director duo made Karimedu Karuvaayan, which glorified a certain dominant community. Even in this film, Karunas’ (who in RL is the founder of a caste outfit and an MLA) character conducts a Periyarist style self-respect marriage for his niece. However, the problem here is with the half-baked politics of Sudha Kongara and Vijay Kumar (the co-writer).
As for the Brahmin-hatred, apparently, Kongara herself is a Telugu Brahmin, no? Since the Periyarist/Ambedkarite brand of politics is gaining some momentum among the youth in TN, she seems to have capitalised on that.
About the caste aspect, in the beginning when the heroine’s family travels in a train, an elderly Brahmin man enters the compartment and shouts at a woman when she touches him. Needless to say, this was shoe-horned into the script.
LikeLike
brangan
November 13, 2020
shravangr205: Could you perhaps at sometime do a writeup of how certain upper class communites / educated are always portrayed in a negative shade as if they’re living off the poor etc?
Well, it’s inevitable, no? There are a few communities in India that are instantly recognisable on screen, due to external manifestations — like a way of speaking, or a turban, or a forehead stripe, or the topi (that Parsis wear).
So it’s easier to use them as a symbol of the oppressor on screen, as opposed to one of the other communities/castes that are harder to “guess” on screen.
LikeLiked by 1 person
KP
November 13, 2020
This is more about the economics, i.e. lower-classes (the “masses”) vs the upper-classes
Why did he shake hands with Surya he was not shown as an upper class on contrary why did he not shake hands with the VC guy? To me it looked like they were depicting a medical condition.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rajesh Balasubramanian
November 13, 2020
As a movie it definitely a watchable movie. Surya needs a big success. Hence, the movie ends on a Success note. I can understand why they didn’t want to show Kingfisher Airlines poached Air Deccan employees and made it difficult to operate and finally merge the companies. However, they showed the poaching aspect somewhere in the middle of the film itself. So much time was wasted initially in this movie while the Surya says at many places that he doesn’t like to waste time.
I understand that it is only over a 2.5 hours film and we cannot take an entrepreneurship course in a movie.They are certainly showing that he has people around Vivek Prasanna and Krishnakumar . But, the book Simply Fly (which I read 10years ago) will clearly highlight how Captain Gopinath made clear cut decisions like he will take care of sales/ business development/ govt-relations while his friend took care of operations. At least those decision making stuffs on day to day stuffs (like how a CEO decides could have been highlighted .
@BR – Do you think such things could have been included in the movie?
Also, Why they bring a Periyaar /Ambedkar “touch point” in the background in this movie when Maara and Bommi get married? Puli saadhathukku (motivational /entrepreneurship story) edhukku thakkali thokku (periyar/ambedkar – self repect marriage)
@BR – What do you think about that?
LikeLike
KaaviyaThalagani
November 13, 2020
Agree with everyone about the bits on the editing of the film. It is incredibly rushed and erratic throughout.
But intentional or not, I found the father and his relationship worked for me. The limited screentime somehow reflected the painfully abrupt relationship.
Especially after that “Neengalum oru loser than pa” scene coz an otherwise rebellious kid can say something like that in the heat of the moment and really mean it.
So the airport reception “begging for tickets” scene at least emotionally solidified the answer to “why his obsession with airlines and flights IN PARTICULAR” coz his social inclinations and “he saw a flight on screen as a kid” arc didn’t really cut it for me.
But this stretch where it was so close yet so far SOLIDIFIED his need to go with his low-cost airline dream since he first-hand saw the difference a ticket price could make for somebody who can’t afford it. It’s good masala writing I thought.
Also in the queue, while the pitch is a little extra – if there was a man drenched in rain and sweat without the right amount of money, I know a lot of people would really be disgusted or irritated at the waste of time (although actually speaking it may not have been much at all)
(That smell! hahahaha horrendous dubbing throughout this movie!)
Or give out a deadpan lecture “If you want to board a flight, you have to bring money” hahahahah very true to life! Adhu avnuk theriyathu paaru!
So while it isn’t 100% convincing, I bought it including the breakdown with Urvashi at home with the notes, scribbling, hallucinations etc.
Also I thought the equivalent of your “touching the flight shot” was way earlier when he sped on his bike to feel the takeoff. Incredibly personal moment and done SO well despite his shades and everything. Just beautiful.
Although a similar echo moment after he started his own airlines might’ve worked too.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Karthik
November 13, 2020
This was certainly a very very well made film, Sudha Kongara’s scenes burst with energy, and in a good way. Few people can pull off a cheesy “chasing the airplane” scene with such style. But then to go on to create a high pitched echo of the same scene, with an explicit comment about it no less, makes for a jarring contrast. That was the kind of dissonance I felt throughout the movie. Where on the one hand, like Kaaviyathalagani, the melodramatic pitch and the sentimentality worked for me, on the other hand some of the contrivances felt too contrived. It seemed natural to use a “breaking the class barrier” narrative for this story, and in that sense, situating the central character in a lower class is a valid choice. But to push that narrative with cartoonish portrayal of elites wanting to keep the commoner out of their domain makes you wince. Turning the name Gopinath into Nedumaaran liberates you from the shackles of the real person’s character, but then why rhyme “Paresh” and “Balayya” with Naresh and Mallya, especially when you are caricaturizing them. This struck me as bordering on dishonesty. There were some nice touches in the writing like paralleling the cultivation of a discarded land to utilizing discarded resources for the business, and showcasing the practical business acumen of the female lead to contrast with the bleeding heart socialist male lead. But there were other touches that didn’t work like the parallel between Suriya refusing the buyout, and the the senior pilot being bought out. In general, the fact that the movie was planned for a theatrical release certainly showed, and watching it on an OTT platform with a sharper radar for inconsistencies made a big difference, and not necessarily in a good way.
btw, did anyone else think that the opening scene of the movie which ends with the air force pilot hero falling to the ground with guns pointed at him was a hat tip to the you-know-what film made by the you-know-which mentor of the director?
LikeLike
Enigma
November 14, 2020
These Tamil and should I say South Indian movies are one of the reasons why the poor communities in India will always remain poor. Instead of getting themselves educated these idiots waste their hard earned money on stupid movies. They are happy to see their idols get the rich girl. The cunning politicians/filmmakers end up making lot of money. The joke is on the poor slum residents not on the upper class.
LikeLike
Enigma
November 14, 2020
With respect to Brahmin hatred in Tamil movies, these periyarists/ambedkarites are quick to cry Islamophobia even if there is mildest criticism of Muslims in movies but have no problem subjecting Brahmins to the worst form of abuse. This is one reason why the extremist BJP is able to win elections. Both Islamophobia and Hinduphobia should be condemned by all right thinking people.
LikeLiked by 2 people
shravangr205
November 14, 2020
Also, the privileged complaining of the ‘smell’ or stench of the other people reminded me instantly of the finale in Parasite 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sumana
November 14, 2020
In the initial part of the movie there was a scene where a Tamil Brahmin travelling in a train with other villagers, was mocked for his inability to stand the stench of fried fish and for having to travel with lower caste people. Was this stereotyping of Tamil Brahmins necessary ? Considering the fact that this movie is actually based on captain Gopinath who himself is a Brahmin and who worked with a vision of creating cheap airline for the use of common people…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Madan
November 14, 2020
Still waiting for an answer as to how a Marwari Goyal became a Tamil Brahmin (or proxy for). Not holding my breath for one. And I thought the AIR journalist who helped Maara looked very TamBram but she’s just a ‘brainwashed’/’communist’, I presume?
LikeLike
Satya
November 14, 2020
Also, the privileged complaining of the ‘smell’ or stench of the other people reminded me instantly of the finale in Parasite
I was waiting for someone to say this…
LikeLiked by 1 person
shravangr205
November 14, 2020
Oh also Capt.Gopinath himself was an upper-caste dude who struggled. However in the film, they’ve made him a lower-caste person who fights his oppressors.
Why? Cos who wants to watch an upper-caste person’s struggles yeah?
Sad. Pretty shocking that Capt.Gopinath didn’t take offense to this.
LikeLike
Faroo
November 15, 2020
The journo and the train scene seemed to be the only scenes I noticed caste creep in.
Now that I have said that, the movie itself was boring. Scenes between Maara and Bommi were the highlight (although she was better in Maheshinte Pratikaram).
You know it is going to end well for Suriya – and while you can feel his intensity as an actor, it was very hard to empathize with his plight. There are multiple scenes of failure, but very little on how he overcomes those.
The movie was also way too loud, melodramatic and sentimental – It should just been made into a serial with amma/appa sentiment. The scene where he is asking for money is very cringy and overwrought. How long are they going to keep putting scenes like these in Tamil movies?
Above everything else, I think the main USP of the movie — make the common man fly — was the culprit. It feels too altruistic and not personal enough.
LikeLike
Sharath
November 15, 2020
Very disappointing movie. Surya isn’t a great actor and the begging scene at the airport made it more visible.
Too much of unnecessary emotions, random plot points which move at a frantic pace and the constant messaging made it sound like a samuthirikani movie
Felt like a movie deliberately commissioned to highlight captain Gopinath’s life and came across like 5% truth and 95% fiction.
LikeLiked by 1 person
kaizokukeshav
November 15, 2020
The movie definitely kindled entrepreneurial spirits and did pretty well from Surya POV. Especially those parts where Suriya had to do out of the box stuff to make his voice reach is great writing. But when it comes to the villain, grey shades would have made more sense. Paresh Rawal’s entire character made me wonder how he became a conglomerate with such a stupid thinking. Businessmen hate elitism, they can’t even make money out of it (or may be ? Tim Cook is entering the discussion..). But the point is.. take for eg. It’s true that Mallya had a playboy image etc.. but he was never a caricature to begin with. Mallya was either a hero or a villain.. but not a guy who is foolish and talks like a side character of Arunachalam.
Paresh’s one sided character gave complete freedom to Suriya to succeed because a huge market was in Paresh’s blind spot. All Suriya had to do was put some extra effort and alas the rest of struggle is just drama. Guru was a far more realistic in portraying the same spirit.
LikeLike
Madan
November 15, 2020
“The movie was also way too loud, melodramatic and sentimental – It should just been made into a serial with amma/appa sentiment. The scene where he is asking for money is very cringy and overwrought. How long are they going to keep putting scenes like these in Tamil movies?” – Exactly. I thought the same thing “yevlo varusham aanalum ivanga Tamil padam pannardha marakkamatengara”. Sakkaraila oori thegatina jangri pola sentiment overdrive.
LikeLiked by 2 people
e221
November 15, 2020
One can easily see “Maniratnams” Vibe just seeing the film without ever knowing anything about the director. My only and real problem with the film is the portrayal of reality. Its OK to make fictitious account of any living person to tell a very good inspirational story. Everything appears as a digitally staged drama rather than a movie…You could easily tag each segment of the movie as “Village time”, “Love time” “Sentiment Time”.. I mean commercial cinema is all about the mixed emotions and masala but the writing appears so amateurish that it appears as if its written in a way to provoke certain emotions from the audience. In short the movie appears to be prisoners of its own writing and format. There is a scene in which Surya says “We can break the norms..Lets try something new” and Let me ask the director “What have you done differently that broke the norm other than telling a inspirational story of a entrepreneur”..”Guru” was a more superior movie and although it followed certain template, the drama and tension in that movie was so real that honestly Dhirubhai could not have expected a better fictional biography based on his life. The village that was shown in Guru was more realistic than the village shown in SP. The cotton market in the Guru appears with more life than lifeless airports here and i can go on and on. Bottom line, the reason Guru is more superior movie than SP is because Audience can relate with Guru more than Maran. When Guru gets paralyzed, it did not appears as another trope of failure as BR mentioned, the audience know why he got paralyzed, the director dont even need to explain that. Even to this day, Whether its fictional biopic like Atticus finch or Guru or velu nayakkar, the magic is that audience feel their protagonist pain and dreams. Unfortunately I cannot connect with Mara in any ways. Its a good flim but could have been much better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Samuel Durairaj
November 16, 2020
Decided to watch the movie with friends on Diwali night and it turned out to a boring affair…Way too melodramatic even for the wives in the group who have lot more tolerance for it. Highlight for me where the surya-aparna scenes… It felt much longer than it actually was and wish sudha cut it more appropriately for prime/OTT audience.
I also have this nagging feeling Surya had a lot to do with the caste/class angle and unnecessary melodrama.
Btw, this movie now is 4.8/5 in prime :)…Any ballpark #s on sale to prime? Do they get to still sell satellite rights?
LikeLike
Madan
November 16, 2020
BR, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Why is the editing so chaotic lately in Tamil mass films? Is there some strain of influence I am missing out on or is this just some hackneyed idea of cool that has come to dominate Tamil cinema (the big name ones)? I am fairly up to date, I would like to think, and have watched Baby Driver as well as Parasite and enjoyed both. I don’t even mind the Jaume Collet-Serra action capers starring Liam Neeson. But something about the editing in recent Tamil films feels off to me. It’s like they have over corrected for overly conservative approach in earlier years and simply don’t let a good cinematic moment linger on long enough.
LikeLiked by 2 people
shaviswa
November 16, 2020
@Madan It is the Dharani (Ghilli) and Hari (Singam series) effect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
abishekspeare
November 16, 2020
BR once said that he wasn’t able to name a character in K2K as Rahul because it sounded TamBrahm. Captain Gopinath’s real name is Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath. If the Suriya character was a Brahmin then the movie wouldn’t have been able to make all those caste points( a song lyric goes like keezh jaadi kaaran odambu la oduradhu saakadaya). A character in tamil cinema, especially a lead star’s role, can never be Brahmin i guess, unless its the role of a privileged asshole.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Heisenberg
November 16, 2020
Just watched BR discission with that annoying abishek hosted by behindwoods. Prashanth was supposed to join too?
Next time please have a discussion with blue sattai, preferably for a bad movie. That video will be legendary. 😀
LikeLiked by 2 people
hari
November 17, 2020
Yajiv, Tamil film makers are not mocking Brahmins because they deserve the mocking (somewhat), but because they can mock them at will and get away with it. Even in a anti-caste movie like PP, they had to mock a Brahmin, and they did not have the gall to name the majority caste of Nellai as the main perpetrators.
Most of the Brahmins are such wusses that they don’t realize they are mocked. But even if they realize they are mocked, they feel that they are somewhat deserving of it because their grand parents were casteists. Sigh, grow a spine guys.
LikeLike
shaviswa
November 17, 2020
@Heisenberg Agree on Abhishek. I could not watch that video longer than the first few minutes. Abhishek was so annoying. Why is he even famous as a reviewer?
LikeLiked by 1 person
KaaviyaThalagani
November 17, 2020
@madan & @shaviswa – Go back to Ghilli – for a slighty louder style, the core moments and songs are edited very very well 😀
It’s just insecurity that an audience might walk out or lose attention, mostly from the producers or a few focus group screenings who don’t want to savour anything but the highlights.
I’ve been a part of a star vehicle that never finished post-production because of this problem. And then another star took the same title as that film, and oh well. Things have been in limbo since.
IT IS JUST INSECURITY.
LikeLiked by 3 people
neabs
November 17, 2020
Very true
LikeLike
Yajiv
November 17, 2020
@hari:
Thank you for your sermon. I see a bright future ahead for you in writing Samuthirakani movies 😉
And I’ll be sure to get an X-ray done to find out what happened to my spine!
LikeLike
Kay
November 18, 2020
Abhishek made that Behindwoods video completely ‘unsahikable’ (Thanks, Madan, for introducing that word).
LikeLiked by 2 people
anjananarayanaswamy
November 19, 2020
In the scene where Prakash Babu (SCI investor) meets Maaran to fund his idea, he got down the flight in which he was supposed to travel. How could someone like Maaran have been so gullible? I found this glaring and am quite surprised that nobody raised this anywhere.
LikeLike
TamilThanos
November 20, 2020
I don’t get so many comments criticising Brahmin bashing in the movie. The movie seemed to just milk the rich/poor elite/common-man angle. Now, for those who keep commenting about how Brahmins or upper caste people shouldn’t be mocked, I am really sorry if you think it is not warranted for. This New York Times article talks about how caste discrimination is prevalent in Silicon Valley (out of all places)
If it could happen in Silicon Valley out of all places, you think it cannot happen anywhere else in Tamil Nadu. Time to get out of the bubble, you think?
LikeLike
brangan
November 20, 2020
TamilThanos: Let me tell you my issue with the Brahmin-bashing in this film, or let’s just say “dominant caste”-bashing.
It’s not a deal-breaker, but equally, it’s not needed. It’s not part of the narrative we see. This is not a story of caste. It is a story of class. If, say, someone from an oppressed-class community in Suriya’s village had or borrowed the money needed, Paresh Rawal’s company would not deny him a ticket. Because they simply don’t care. Money is money.
OR, you HAVE to build the caste element into the film, then do it organically. Show a few early scenes about the casteism in the village, or whatever. I’m saying, if you want to bash a caste, do so by all means — but do it like DRAUPATHI, where the caste-bashing IS the whole point of the movie.
Here, it seems like something slipped into the film just to make it more “mass”, and bring about punch lines like “I want to break not just the cost barrier but also the caste barrier.”
LikeLike
Madan
November 20, 2020
Tamilthanos: The problem here isn’t with Brahmin bashing but with changing the caste of the protagonist to forcefit that angle when in fact Gopinath is a Brahmin. Like I asked, what is the point of saying it is based on Simply Fly when 90% of the movie isn’t based on the true story at all. We are not talking about a few cinematic liberties here but wholesale disfiguration.
LikeLike
Jallikattu lover
November 20, 2020
How many films in Tamil cinema have portrayed the villain using hand sanitizer after shaking hands with someone? I’ve lost count. It was cliche even 2 years back and now, with the call for cleanliness, it just seems smart, instead of being villainous. Props to Paresh Rawal for being a neat freak.
Thats a great observation about Gopinath’s real caste being suppressed. A. You suppress his caste and B. Bash his caste in his own biopic. That’s just low, man.
But, the opening scene is so cringe worthy, not just because of the pointless caste bashing, but it felt as if the script was read on screen as opposed to staged, with the characters just popping out to recite their dialogues, because it was their turn instead of the scene unfolding in an organic manner. The Data Udipi scene , in contrast was well done.
Years ago, when I saw the futuristic sci fi movie Elysium by Neill Blomkamp, I shuddered at the point where William Fichtner’s super rich character who resides in Elysium, tells a ‘lowly’ Earth supervisor to cover his mouth while speaking to him and not breathe on him. Uncannily, it’s now considered the norm. Makes you wanna think if the perpetrators of casteism in India were just advocating an extreme form of social distancing and were ahead of time.
LikeLike
H. Prasanna
November 21, 2020
@BR although it is not clearly fleshed out, the argument being made is that class privileges were born out of caste privileges and are an extension of it. And it is central to the storyline they chose. The whole “success” of Maara was getting “his” people on a flight. It would only have the impact of him taking them on a carnival ride if not for the caste/class oppression. It is akin to gaining entrance into a place of worship/education previously denied because of class/caste oppression.
Yes, it is enough to say Maara didn’t have the money to get the first class ticket. But, that would go down only as a misfortune on top of all the misfortunes he suffers. The issue discussed is that he, and by extension his people, are made to feel that they have no place on a flight. The argument is that oppressors used caste before and now they use class, education, money, etc.
However the argument is not well made. Maybe because of the rich actor/poor hero dissonance.
LikeLike
Satya
November 21, 2020
Jallikattu lover: Social distancing is a condition. Caste, well, is more of an identity. I am positive that social distancing will perish one day. Speaking of caste… It is going to stay.
To be true to you people here, I didn’t care for the hero’s caste or his self-respect marriage. Because I could not take anything happening on screen seriously. Soorarai Pottru, for me, wasn’t a rousing tale in any aspect. It was just a timepass film. That is how I viewed it, and still do. You are welcome to accept it as a rousing drama, no issues. 🙂
But yes, as BR says, caste isn’t an actual conflict where class difference is the main one. Inserting it felt very… opportunistic. But then the reach and all… I don’t think this thread would have these many comments if not for that caste angle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
November 21, 2020
Satya: Yeah, that equivalence between social distancing and casteism was, uh, weird.
LikeLike
brangan
November 21, 2020
H. Prasanna: My point is just that if they wanted to make caste the point of his journey, it doesn’t come through organically in the film.
LikeLike
krishikari
November 22, 2020
Suriya is terrific, but we are responding to the actor’s efforts, not the character’s plight. We’ve been air-dropped into this moment. We’ve not arrived at it organically.
This is an interesting observation to me knowing you read the script before it became a film. I wonder if one can see this as a non- lorganic moment in the script itself?
LikeLike
Srinivas R
November 23, 2020
I read a recent interview of Sudha. She specifically said the breaking the caste barrier thing was directly from Gopinath himself. She gave example of how he had people good with local language in his flight crew and he(Captain Gopinath) being ok with people not not knowing how to use the WC, was all from his understanding that there is a caste barrier to it. I guess it doesn’t weave it self properly in the screenplay so it looks like its a silly tacked on point.
“Makes you wanna think if the perpetrators of casteism in India were just advocating an extreme form of social distancing and were ahead of time” – of the many justifications of casteism I have heard, this seems too far fetched.
LikeLike
H. Prasanna
February 24, 2021
I saw a poster celebrating 100 days of Soorarai Pottru on Amazon Prime. Meanwhile, ellame en raasa thaan celebrates 10000 days as a DVD 🙃
LikeLike