Nov 24, 2007

Movie Review: Azhagiya Tamizh Magan – Good concept; well spoilt !

Before getting into the theatre to watch the recent Vijay Starrer ATM, it would be better if you could get two aspirins for urself. Headache is the only feeling you would take back home once you get out of the hall. Debutante director Bharathan had some of the best technicians in the industry to work with him, a renowned producer and the rising superstar of the Tamil industry, and yet he could deliver only a below mediocre product. The concept- Extra Sensory Perception(ESP) is still not tried by many in the industry; but the flimsy screenplay tampers it big time. Its sad to realize that this concept cannot be made use of in a better way in another tamil movie atleast for a couple of years as it would lead to comparisons.

Guru(Vijay) is a MBA student with a special power to foresee the future(why is it that the power here for him is only to foresee bad incidents?) and a
psychologist diagnoses it as ESP. One fine day, he meets his lady love Abhinaya aka Abhi(Shreya), and wins both her and her dads heart in the most illogical way ever. However, when Guru comes to realize through his gifted power that he is responsible for Abhis death, he leaves the city and reaches Mumbai. He meets his look alike there on the streets of Mumbai and immediately ends up in an accident. The torture begins now as the second Vijay makes his entry. The look alike; Prasad is an exact replica; the hair style and even the stuble is no different! It would have been a little convincing if those were made to look the same as the movie progressed. We reach the interval at this point and its time to take one of your aspirins. Prasad is a bank employee cum fraud cum womanizer cum man with a sad past. He impersonates as Guru, thanks to Abhi, and creates havoc in Gurus love life. The rest of the movie is how Guru proves his identity and wins everyone back. Get prepared to have your second aspirin now as you are going to experience the worst ever climax scene in the history of Indian cinema.Phew!

Vijay as Guru is at his usual, but as Prasad, he gets on our nerves with his histrionics and over the top performance; but the villain here has all the punch dialogues and the comic one-liners. His performance as the bad guy is highly unconvincing and unimpressive. He looks completely exhausted and uninterested throughout the movie; probably he knew what went wrong midway. Shreya looks as if she came right from the sets of Sivaji, especially in her intro scene and in the Valayapatti song. But she has a meaty role (underperformed) and is present throughout the movie; something rare in a Vijay movie. The rest of the entire cast is wasted in their inconsequential roles. Namitha comes as a special appearance just to pull in some perverts and it is nothing but cruelty when she is compared to Merlyn Monroe and Jennifer Lopez in a song !!!

Music by A.R.Rahman is just average and the fate of the movie is definitely going to let the music down in the charts. The graphics department (god knows who all) had no idea of what they were doing. One could see better double role graphics in the movies of 80’s and 90’s where in they use to cut and paste both the frames. It’s the direction, screenplay and dialogues that are responsible for this dismal state of the movie, all the departments single handedly taken care by Bharathan. It should have been the story alone(S.K.Jeeva) that might have made Vijay, Appachan (the poor producer) and A.R.Rahman to accept this project. The screenplay is filled with flaws and loop holes.The ESP concept is not effectively utilised and is shown only in the first half. Guess with Gurus accident in Mumbai, his power to foresee is lost; but the screenplay doesn’t show any traces of how he acquires this power too.

It is very obvious that this movie was made in haste, taking into consideration the aweful graphics, the abrupt ending and the replacement of ARR with Sabesh-Murali for the BGM’s(which btw is nothing but the instrument version of the movies’ songs). Probably, they wanted it to release it well before its actual dates to avoid competition from the Ajith starrer Billa which is scheduled to hit the screens very soon. Or it could be the craving of Vijay and Bharathan to simply have their movie released during the festival season. Bad Extra Sensory Perception Guys !!!

4 comments:

Priyadarshini Vasudevan said...

Give me a moviee dats soo logicaly writen bro...
If u r going 2 expect suchthings wid indian movie.. hahahah.... i wld call u an amateur reviewer :-p....
U have songs n dances.. do v dance n sing new songs in life?? hahahah.. contradictions start frm d very scratch...When u r going for Vj's movie.. U need to knw wat u shld look for..
I think i feel it wld be absolutely perfect if u confine ur comments to documentary and art films.. coz logics n real acting....watevr u expect u would get der.. Vj's movie go swift, wid fun, good dances and style n happy ending.. rate him in des and let me knw.. if he has failed...
and abt ESP... For a 3 hour movie if v r going to show all his ESP.. he he he.. it wil be a mega serial and not a movie.... I think it was absolutely a 5 star for vj's fan and a real good movie for the ROW. The characters were clean.. n everything was enjoyable... see it again.. :-)
Music rocks !!

vimmuuu said...

thanks for ur comments sis. Now, lemme get into the details one by one....

first of all, tell me atleast one line where i had written about the movies logics except in the second stanza wher i had written abt the dads acceptance of his daughters relation....that particular scene was boooed in the theatres....and also the last scene where Shriya speaks on chastity (karppu) was boooed.....my blame was only on the flawed screenplay....

second, i had not written any art movie review at all to confine myself to a particular genre of movie...all my movie reviews are from commercial movies....

third, u had asked for a logical indian movie?..dont have to go anywher far?...have u watched Tamizh M.A...it is not an art movie, a pucca commercial...tell me one point wher the logic is lost in the movie...or a movie like Mozhi or Paruthiveeran....i guess u shud watch movies and then comment on the logics in Indian cinema...

fouth, abt the songs and dances..a normal indian movie is bound to have songs and dances...there are movies without them too...very rare in Tamil though..but pls do not generalise on the presence of songs and dances in all indian movies...

fifth, my expectations from a vijays movie is jus like a vijay fan...because i myself am one...i liked his pokkiri, ghilli, sivakasi and to an extent thirupaachi also(mentioned here only the recent movies)...but i dint find the excitement in vijay while acting or the electrifyng performance that he used to give...even in the dances , he has disappointed...the spark and the smile when he dances is completely missing...watch the dances carefully...he is doing it in a grace, at the same time, in a very forced way...

sixth, to rate an actor on his swiftness, dance, style and a films ending alone and not acting is somethng which is contradicting now...i shud rather rate someone in a talent hunt contest then, like in indian idol or Jodi No.1 ....again, i like vijays acting...but he has done nothing but overacting here..

seventh, to show ESP throughout a movie isnt difficult...watch the Mammooty starrer Iyer the Great released 17 years back....there are a lot of other english and hindi movies where the concept of ESP has been shown throughout the movie...and they arent tv serials....again, i reiterate, its the problem with the screenplay....

eighth...regarding vijay fans..one small fact...in madurai, ATM tshirts were worn by vijay rasigar mandram members and they tore and threw it in anger after the movie got over...my colleague is the most die hard fan of vijay i had ever seen and he himself said that vijay shudnt have done this mistake....

and last but not the least...this isnt my opinion alone....although the review is 100% my views, check out any review in any site and it would completely go with mine....wht more, the fate of the movie has already been known to many....

Each point mentioned above has been derived from facts, be it the audience response or the box office collections and none of them are manipulated to make my point clear.

Thanks!

Selva Ganesh said...

We cannot expect the big performance form Vijay's movie.He was lucky as he was in the hands of good directors....so they cook up the role where he could shine better....but off late he tried many remakes and that paid him off well....so as for as his courage in taking a fresh concept /director we should say big thanks to him and his team.Vimal rightly said it was the screenplay that went wrong....and i am sure this COSTLY mistake will wake him off the superstar dream and do some sensible mass entertainer.....

Anonymous said...

just a lil bc wid work, not able to pen down.. gve me time i will reply for all ur points dear....