Could have been Better . Review on Kaadhal Movie

?Kaadhal(Love)? is the first movie produced by the popular director Shankar. Balaji Sakthivel, shankar?s assistant who also directed the Vikram starrer ?Samurai? directs this movie with all fresh cast and crew. The director says that he has made a screenplay out of a true love story that he heard from his co-passenger during a train journey. Let us see whether this real life story gets life in the reel?

The plot has nothing fresh or new to offer. It is the same poor boy loving rich girl, parent?s opposition, and running away from home, getting married, and facing real life problems etcetera. But the climax is different as usual.

Plot (Without Spoilers): Muruga (Bharath) is a two-wheeler mechanic. Aishwarya (Sandhya) is 12th standard student. Aishwarya?s father is a local don in Madurai and owner of a wine shop. Muruga and Aishwarya mutually fall in love after few teasing scenes and clashes. When Aish?s father arranges a marriage for her, helpless Aish decides to run away.

She compels Muruga to take her away somewhere and also to marry her immediately. Without knowing the reality the love birds flies from Madurai to Chennai. After facing many practical problems in Chennai, they both get married in Chennai with the help of Muruga?s dear friend. Meanwhile, Aish?s uncle comes to Chennai is search of her and finally finds her and takes her back home along with Muruga. Whether the young couple is allowed to lead a peaceful life? Watch it on screen.

Definitely we have seen 100?s of movies with same plot but the three factors that make this story look fresh are

~ Place of the story

~ Fresh cast

Madurai is the place where story happens and happened in the true story too. So far we have seen such movies either set in major cities like Chennai or rustic villages. But Madurai is a place in between a city and a village. Madurai helps in justifying the characters in Aish?s family. Some of the people there still live is past beliefs and myths about caste and they use violence to achieve anything in their life. All the characters speaking Madurai Tamil gives a different outlook to the film which otherwise looks like an urban love story.

Realism and Screenplay: We can such love stories going on in each and every streets of our state. The moments between the lovers, their meetings are so lively, earthy and to some extent funny. Balaji has tried his best to be as realistic as possible and succeeded in weaving a neat screenplay for ¾th of the movie. First half is full of romantic scenes, comedy scenes and songs and just goes like a fraction of second. But it is from the second part of the second half film drags a bit. Second half has some avoidable inclusions like comedy scenes and ?Pura Koodu? songs on bachelor life in a typical mansion in Triplicane. It distracts the tension build up.

Suddenly all the bachelors in the mansion helping so much for a stranger to get married is not convincing and believable. Even more irritating are the scenes that follow after the young couple is brought back to Madurai. Though we all know that ?Reality is stranger than fiction at times?, it is difficult to digest the scenes in which a group of people including their family members beating the young couple so brutally on the road.

And films doesn?t end here it stretches even more as ?After few years? and we are stunned to see Muruga turns a mad and is roaming alone as a beggar in the roads of Madurai. And here comes another patience test for us, Aishwarya shouting and crying in the middle of the road at mid night after seeing Muruga after so many years makes us uncomfortable sitting inside the theatre. Director could have very well reduced the noise in the final moments and could have handled with a reasonable subtlety. That is why even with a sad and negative ending, when we come out of the theatre we come with heavy head instead of heavy heart.

But the Director needs to be lauded for his realistic approach. Naturally the couple draws our sympathy when we find the innocent teens stranded in the streets of Chennai facing all practical problems even for their basic needs. He has very well portrayed how confused minds are in their adolescent age, they don?t have a proper planning and foresight the only thing important for them in the life is their Love by which they can?t bear the hard hitting reality of day to day life.

Bharath as Muruga is extremely believable and has done a good job especially in the final scenes. He has a bright future ahead. Sandhya as Aishwarya is equally promising. Together both of them look like an ideal pair. Among others Aish?s tricky uncle and the small boy working in the mechanic shop stays in our mind for their performance. Almost all the co-actors are new faces and director has extracted some natural performance from all of them.

Cinematography by Vijay Milton is good. Editing is fine. Music director Joshua Sridhar is promising in his debut. The songs are romantic and peppy and are an added advantage for the movie. But he fails miserably in the background score; especially copying Rahman?s Taal music for BGM is not good for a debut musician.

Well with all been said the movie is worth watching at least once. It is partly good but not great. It is early to predict whether the movie will make it big in box office. Will have to wait and watch.

My rating is 3.5 stars.