Jan 23, 2015 03:10 PM
15419 Views
(Updated Feb 02, 2015 11:32 AM)
After watching Tamil Superstar- Vijay’s movie for the first time, ‘Thuppaki’(meaning Gun) recently, I had to become a big fan of him. I had heard of accolades of him in the Tamil world since many years. Since then, I have been hunting for more of his movies- the second one I watched being Kaththi(meaning knife). It is a coincidence that both movies I watched were names of weapons! The stories though, were poles apart – Thuppaki has Vijay playing a cool - headed army man(later adapted in Hindi as ‘Holiday’) and Kaththi has Vijay playing a carefree con-man!
Vijay, also called as a ‘Young Storm’ in the Tamil movie world ranks 41st in the Forbes India's "Celebrity 100 List" and has won a quite a few awards in the popular hero category. Not scoring much in looks, his acting, style, action and dance have been appreciated and mesmerized many a fan. To give a comparison with Bollywood, he is the Akshay Kumar of Tamil world!
Story: Kathiresan or "Kaththi", (Vijay) has escaped from jail using his clever conning methods and the city police are on the look-out for him. Due to circumstances, he gets wrongly blamed of having murdered 3 cops while escaping. When he is planning to flee the country, he sets eyes on a beautiful lady at the airport and loses his heart to her. What a lame excuse by the script writer for the most wanted criminal to stay back in India. Anyway, this is the weakest part of the movie and can be conveniently ignored just as we ignore Sonakshi Sinha in Bollywood movies.
The twist in the movie comes very soon when he witnesses a murder attempt in the darkness of the night and gets struck by horror after discovering that the shot victim looks just like him. He admits him in the hospital but also makes sure that the identities are swapped. The victim Jeeva now gets blamed for the 3 murders and gets scorned as a criminal. Our unashamed hero Kaththi now discovers that Jeeva has been a very popular social activist and the owner of an old age home.
Jeeva has been an intelligent student on ‘hydrology’ and was keen to use his knowledge for the betterment of a drought-struck village. His ambition was to unearth the sources of water in this village and kick-start agriculture which is till now a dying dream for the villagers and farmers here. However, being a simpleton, Jeeva was never able to establish the right contacts or scare away the baddies. We are now introduced to the dashing villain who looks better than the hero- Chirag(Neil Nitin Mukesh)! This marked Neil’s debut in the South world. He claims to be the future owner of an IT park to come up in this area. He has power, money, advocates and his fellow IT businessmen to his side.
After knowing all this, Kaththi promises his own regretting soul to make amends and win justice for the villagers. For this he would have to resort to his forte – cunning. Will he be the one-man army? Will he, with the sole support of around 60 old men from the old-age home, be able to achieve anything fruitful? Will Jeeva be able to get back to his dream’s implementation?
The movie is written and directed by AR Murugadoss(the Ghajini and Holiday movie’s director) and he does not disappoint here as well.
Fun-to-eat food:
Vijay was the main ingredient and shone all the way. He was the sun that over powered all other acts. Action choreography(that’s what we call it now, it is no more action direction) was a real treat. One can imagine the whistles that would have echoed loud in a Chennai Theatre! Superb entertainment!
Kaththi’s side-kick Sathish had a plump role to play with impressive dialog delivery skills.
Dialogs also were flavourful interspersed with commanding punch lines. Some translated in English:
-Retirement is never determined by the Date of Birth, it is determined by the youth of heart.
-TV channels have the time to show skin creams, cookery shows and give marks at dance shows, but not two minutes to spare to show the plight of farmers at a tiny village.
Could- not- Digest food: Although the entertainment quotient was high, our brain that plays back the movie later on in the head gave way to find a few flaws.
The end was open. It was for the viewer to speculate if the case of 3 murders on Kaththi /Jeeva were taken back and also whether the village was after all able to execute the grandiose dreams laid out.
The common man of the city was never shown supporting Kaththi’s motives, yet the movie propagates that he received the city’s sympathy .
Useless songs and a useless heroine, both were marring the flow of the movie just like villains were marring the flow of water in the village.
Finally, a tip for Sonakshi Sinha: Get ready, a role made just for you will be there in Bollywood soon! 3 songs for dancing and 4 lines to speak! Whoopey!
Rating: 3.5
First attempt at Tamil Movies. Vanakkam!
