Monday, August 12, 2013

Thalaivaa

Every wannabe male actor enters Kollywood with big dreams of becoming a Rajni, Kamal or Sivaji. A decade into the industry and after having worked in the usual romance-action type films there comes this 'teeradha daagam' of doing a Nayagan , Devar Magan, Mudhal Mariyadhai type film.

'Ilayathalapathy' Dr.Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar is no exception. 20 years in the industry and a variety of action kalanda sentiment kalanda romance mixed movies, our man also wanted to a 'different' film. Enter director A.L.Vijay with his intelligensia of the intellectual look. After having copied from films like Titanic, Lagaan (deeiiiii) and I'm Sam but still insisting they are original scripts our man decides to join hands with 'Ilayathalapathy' in this 'different' venture.

So these two meet, discuss storyline etc. Aal izzz well . But you know there is thing that they need to add to the script. It is the thing called 'Massssssss' at times called as 'Marana masssssss' . We've seen it on hoardings by fans, fb posts, tweets particularly during rockzzz vs Dr.Joseph fights. Nobody exactly knows what it is but all the directors and actors know is that , be it an 'Elipathayam' type film or an Avatar or even our own Veerapandiya Kattabomman type film, if Dr.Joseph Vijay or rockzzz decide to make a film of any kind, it should be 'Masssssss' or 'Marana Massssssss'.

So here we are. Making a GodfatherdevarmagaNayaganSarkarBaasha-ish Marana Masssss film titled Thalaivaa -film by Vijay with Vijay for Vijay-ians! 


Dharavi to Down under 

In the 90s, Sathyaraj becomes the Don of Dharavi in Mumbai after his friend and leader of Tamilians in Mumbai, Nasser gets dejected and decides to escape from Bombay with his son, after some random riots. Sathyaraj gives his son Vishwa (Vijay) to Nasser and tells him to take care of him. 

Cut to 2013- Both sons - 'Bro' Santhanam & 'Bro' Vijay are now in Australia running a mineral water bottle company. 'Bro' Vijay meets Amala Paul , love happens and they come to Bombay to seek the blessings/ approval of father Sathyaraj unaware of his Don-giri. Circumstances make him to take up Don-giri ... How he became a 'Don' from being a 'dude' is what is narrated in 3 hours 2 mins. With 'Nurai eeral panju pondra....' + Mukesh dying a dozen times on screen it ends up being a 3 1/2 hour film.

The Vettis of Ozzz

The first half set in Australia is quite a breeze . Santhanam's brand of mokkai kaamedy adds to the fun. Surprise surprise there's no 'Amala Paul, Aavin Paul' joke in the film. The Sam Anderson scene is easily the best one in the film. (Then you can imagine the rest) . Vijay and friends put one super dance for 'Tamizh Pasanga'. This anthem of sorts for Tamizh dudes definitely needed to be a better song.  What to do? Our nephew composer Pragaas thambi is so busy putting angry tweets with 'En Kadamai En Urimai'  that he has no time for unimportant things like making music. 

Vijay and Amala Paul's costumes (Deepali Noor) were semma cool and thankfully she was not wearing sleazy Deepika Phadukone type 1/4 sarees . 

Bro to Bhai 

The film start losing steam once the story shifts to Bombay. It's director A.L.Vijay's film and since he is known for his 'original' scripts, you already know the story from what we saw in the trailer. Vishwa 'bro' becomes Vishwa 'bhai' bashes up random people in Bombay, walks out wearing cool black goggles with 2-3 people behind him (minus the 'Baasha' background score . Miss you Deva! ) 

There's also this 'You are God, You are leader, You are our next CM' feel song. What ya Bro? Not all songs can be MGR's 'Neenga nalla irukkonum' and make you CM no? Poes Garden Poongodhai watching this time no? You didn't foresee all this?

At one point of the film both hero and villain were after some video tape. Apparently I was yawning so much I had missed that "key" video tape scene in which an amateur cameraman films something being plotted against some people or some such thing. No no not in Mudhalvan bro. This scene is in Thalaivaa only bro.

As long as he was a dude in down under all was ok. This Bro becoming Bhai became a big bore.

Side 'Bros'

Villain bro - You know our director Vijay Saar. He thinks original. He directs original. For villain bro also, he wanted one unique identity. We've seen 'deeei' villains, 'eeeei' villains, cool villains, kaamedy villains. This villain is very different. He meditates and chants enemies' names always. Very different no? Pppah!

India's Matt Preston a.k.a our own 'Panneer Pushpangal' Suresh 'bro' - He plays V.K.Ramaswamy, Saroja Devi's father in Pudhiya Paravai... sorry, meant Amala Paul's father in Thalaivaa. 

Y.Gee.Mahendra - You hear his voice in the trailers. His entire 'we-are-Superstar-Rajnikant's-relatives' family was present during the audio launch of Thalaivaa. So one obviously assumed 'ore da' important role. But bro, his screen time in the trailer was more than what he had to do in the main feature film.

Bros Manobala, Ponvannan as Janagaraj, Delhi Ganesh in Nayagan... cha cha, again again mistake... meant Thalaivaa. 

Company artistes bros - Our director A.L.Vijay's films are like anda kaalathu Gemini studios / AVM films. Just like the pazhaya kaalathu films,  he ensures the same faces are repeated over and over again in his films. It honestly gets tiring to see the same mix.

The one and only 'Nephew composer' Bro 

GVP with all the 'bandha' instead of spending time demanding Royalty can, I'm sure spend more time creating better songs than these 'Thalaivaa thalaivaa' or 'Sol Sol Sol' ones in the film. The only good song was 'Vaanganna Vanakkanganna' very well choreographed by Dinesh. (Also is it like an unwritten rule these days that the dance master must put a guest appearance in every song?)

Slick and Slack

You remember these old films with constable being called out as "4 nought 4" or police making entry in the climax with their "Hands up!" . The film is full of such clichés'. There is one "crucial" scene where two people say "We are from Crime branch". Instead of  getting ore da shocked you actually say "ivangaLa vecchu kaamedy geemedy panliye" . What's the point when you get the best of technicians and make the film look good but has such para kadi done-to-death scenes?

Vijay-iyawns

Vijay looks semma fit, neat and trim in the Jeans-Tshirt (bhai) costume. He dances really well and as always better than the dancers behind him. His last film Thuppakki, again a marana massss hit was fairly decent. Copy or not , I don't know but it kept the audience engaged and interested in the film especially the non-Vijayians (or is it un-Vijayians?)

This one's made for Vijay's fans but the director should keep in mind that you can make a marana massss masala , with no logic etc. You copy and all, no problem. We have enough English / Spanish / Korean (new fad) movies to be copied from. But if you are going to copy from Mudhalvan , Sarkar, Pudhiya paravai (which completed its 5000th broadcast on ktv last week), every MGR film (where he bashes up villains for 15 minutes after being beaten up for the first 5 minutes ) , I'm sorry bro, the film ends up being a...

Thalaivali - Time to sleep - 2.5/ 5

6 Responses:

VR said...

Still 2.5 is more for this :-)

VR said...

Still 2.5 marks jaasthi :-)

Gokul said...

Though Thalaivaa is not mass, ur review is "marana mass" :)

க விக்னேஷ் said...

Akka...totally agree with 90% of the review :D
But u really felt "Vanganna Vanakkanganna" was a good song?? :O

For me, it was jus a combination of various songs...
1. Pallavi is the tempo upped version of "Vamma Durayamma...".
2. "Oothikka oothikka oothikkanna" is exactly the same as "Suthuthu Suthuthu Thakayum Suthuthu..." bit of "Kaathal yen Kaathal" from Mayakkam Enna.
3. Charanam is a direct rip-off of "Kann Pesum Vaarhaigal..." from 7-G Rainbow Colony...

There might be more...but I listened to the song a max of 3 times...so I jus remember these 3...

Agila said...

sorry for comment abt something else in the post.
Do you know what happen to http://inbavalli.wordpress.com/?
Is she moved somewhere else?

Harini said...

pls to review raja rani