Saturday, January 30, 2010

Tamil Padam Film Review

I am not going to evaluate this movie analysing it's Camera composition, Sound Recording, Editing excellence and the likes. Keep aside the sacred rules of Cinema and hop onto it ... But, I think it is reasonable on my part to expect an engaging screenplay, even though it brands itself a Mockumentary feature. The Only reasonable benchmark against which the movie can be accessed should be, Vijay TV's weekly feature "Lollu Sabha". But, honestly speaking, the movie fared much below-par, the standards of a spoofy mockumentary and presents a much boring endeavor altogether.

If you look at the rolls of Tamil Cinema, if this movie is the curtain-riser of this so-called genre "Mockumentary", the answer would be "Yes". A few of the Satyaraj flicks (like Englishkaaran and Mahanadigan), Venkat Prabhu's cocktails and the most recent "Quickgun Murugan" etc have a pinch of this genre, but not as wholesome as Tamil Padam. The movie's stills and trailor only heightened up our expectations and we were all set for an absolute rib tickler. Being aware of the fact that the movie is going to pick up pieces from various tamil films, the only expectation from my side was, "How will the screenplay be adjusted to fit in all those pieces of a jigsaw puzzle ?". Ahh !! And, the result, I should say, was miserable.

The characters - I understand that the movie is a parody and that the characters are caricatures, but you need not be caricaturously caricaturesque. I don't ask for touchy characters but for logical & hilarious ones. The cast of Manobala, M.S.Bhaskar, Vennira Aadai and Paravai Muniyamma - the oldie-foursome with all their college-dude characterisations and machi-conversations just torture you to the highest possible extent. I was frequently glancing at my watch for the movie to get over and the second half was an extreme prick and I should say, a lot (if not all) of Lollu Sabha episodes were better than this movie. The problem, I think, was with the length. The movie runs for close-to 2:15 hours and you only rush out of the theatres as it has got over.

Complaints apart, the film has it's hilarious moments, Thalapathy-Mammooty and the Mani ratnam style one word conversations, "Ippaadalai Paadikondiruppavar ungal Siva", Mouna Raagam-Karthik, Lady Don Sornam and her rape attempts, becoming a millionaire in half a song, A English song - etc were good. Mirchi Shiva just fits in the role and he is becoming more of a type-cast, these days ... His performance was good anyways. The film parodies various tamil masala regulars like Introduction song, punch dialogues, village panchayats etc but definitely loses out in keeping you engaged, the whole slot. The heroine was a regular face and a more regular role - Nothing great.

The film tries to score on the shock value, by parodying tamil cinema to an all new, non-existent low stature. But, even then, it doesn't seem to work all fine. The film looked more like an unfinished product, with hanging scene sequences and absolutely out-of-nowhere plot incidents. I still feel that the movie would have kicked-off with the script in its infancy and the product, instead of being a polished outcome, was crude and looked like patches pasted together.

I am supremely confident that, with however lighter vein, you are in, you wouldn't be able to avoid those distressed disturbances & uneasiness, at some point or the other, with the movie. Considering the fact that you have the entire 80 year old tamil cinema history at your disposal, the film could have been more interesting. A bit of more homework on the director's part would have resulted in a better-fit pieces on this jigsaw board.

Miserable and Missable.

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