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Movie: Jigarthanda (2014) (******)

Genre: Gangster Comedy (Yes, both)

Director: Karthik Subbaraj (******)

Cast: Siddharth; Bobby Simha; Lakshmi Menon

Music by: Santhosh Narayanan

Synopsis: This movie is based on a young film maker, Karthik (played by Siddarth), who’s looking to make a name for himself producing a gangster film. His pursuit of good storyline leads to him to a notorious gangster in Madhurai named Sethu, who agrees to the film as long as he can play the lead protagonist. The movie ventures through Sethu’s life and Karthik’s troubles of working with a real gangster in making his dream film.

Opinion: The plot, the acting, cinematography, and background score, makes this film one of my favourite movies of all time.

First, the acting. Bobby Simba, who plays Sethu, some how found away to make the audience fear him as a ruthless gangster and laugh at him, as a movie star. You rarely see dynamic character types in tamil cinema and its even more rare to have villain with comedic attributes - Bobby was exceptional! Second, each character was developed thoroughly, which is also rare in tamil cinema, and added so much fun scenes in the film.

Second, the cine cinematography

Third, the background score. The right music at the right time.

music and plot are amazing.

#Jigarthanda

Ravanan

anirathnam films have always found a best way into the category of foreign films for his singularly special treatment of even simple plots. Most of his best works were either inspired from Hollywood films, real life incidents or Indian epics: Thalapathy (Mahabharatha), Nayagan (Francis Coppola’s ‘God Father’), Roja (Sathyavanthan Savithri), Bombay (Hindi-Islam conflict of Babri Masjid Clash in 1993), Anjali (Artificial Intelligence), Aayitha Ezhuthu (Amros Perros), Kannathil Mutthamittal (An article from Time Magazine about an Indian couple adopting a Eelam girl child) and now Raavanan (Ramayanam).

This stands as a topmost identity of Manirathnam. But this time, he has disappointed simply with his own style of making a film with nonlinear narration. You cannot expect the same FIRST HALF-SECOND HALF format here.

It is a sort of international cinema brand where the complete story flows through ACT 1, ACT 2 and ACT 3.

Sorry to say Mr. Manirathnam, this film shouldn’t have been made for the Tamil Nadu audiences as major groups belong to ‘B’ and ‘C’ categories while multiplex audiences are relatively low.

Despites every conflict of opposition, Dev (Prithviraj) – a righteous cop and Raghini (Aishwarya Rai) – a classical dancer get married. Soon they move together to the deep-rooted region of Vikramasingapuram, a rural town in North India. This place has no regards for the police and court law, but in the hands of Veera (Vikram). Being a man with his own principles and handling the issues down his way (partially based on Maoist groups), he has no problems until Dev enters his way. On a mission to put an end to Veera’s realms, Dev tears the things down as it leads to unexpected twists with shocking and surprising turns.

Broken down in spirits as his happiness is completely lost through his close blood relation, it’s turn for him to retaliate. It is just as you expected as Veera kidnaps Raghini only to find the justice in his own way.

But then, things are completely gonna be different as the journey that upholds in second hour with more characters involved in this drama will surely entertain you with a different dimension

Aishwarya Rai has done a better job than her previous films ‘Guru’, ‘Iruvar’. In fact, she comes in more scenes as the entire plot revolves around her. Vikram is good at parts as he tries living on the screens for the character designed by Manirathnam and Prithviraj looks cute. But there is some sort of chemistry missing between them. Even there aren’t any romantic scenes between them. Vikram’s reason to fall in love with Aishwarya Rai is not properly revealed. But in reality, the love blossoms within fraction of moment and there need not be reason for it. Karthi as Hanuman of present age steals the show and Prabhu also gets more roles to act. Ranjitha gets some whistles as she appears for 3-5shots and you know the reason why. Silandhi Munna does a good job and Priyamani isn’t up to the mark.

Technically, the film is at best as A.R. Rahman, Santhosh Sivan and Manikandan make the film look richer and offer a grand visual treat.

For the working class people or the other following groups, they may want explanation for each and everything. Why Vikram is called an outlaw? How does he fall in love with Ash on the first sight? Wouldn’t have been alright if there was a flashback scene where Vikram had already seen Ash before? For many, why Prithviraj offends Aishwarya Rai at last remains as a million dollar question. They may expect a formal and existing pattern of proceeding of the flashback falling in the first half and so on.

All we can say is that Manirathnam shouldn’t have exploited his energy for the Tamil and Telugu audiences.

As of now, the film producers need not worry as the film has already crossed the production cost and yielding them big results across the globe. But for Manirathnam, he could have made it strictly for other cohorts.

Vikram & Surya in Pithamagan (2003)

The Industry

Indian Cinema doesn't just represent Bollywood. It is a heterogeneous composition of multi-language, regional film industries representing the many cultures of India. From the composition, the South Indian film industry

An epic scene with Rajini and Ramiyakrishnan in Padiyappa (1999). The characters definitely brought out the strengths of Ramiyakrishnan and put Rajini in the stratosphere as the Action King through great scenes via directing and writing.

Greatest Tamil Movies of All-time (Unranked)

This is a rough list of some of the top movies created in Tamil Cinema over the last 50 years. I will continually be editing this list, even as I add other posts to this blog.

Kamal Hassan in Thevar Magan (1992)

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