Papanaasam : A beautifully scripted Kamal Haasan driven film

The film is based out of a small town located in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. The town of Papanaasam is a quaint, peaceful town with blankets of greenery draping it. The story is of a mature, middle aged, cable man in this town named Suyambulingam (played by Kamal Haasan). Uneducated, but the smart, Suyambulingam often prides on the fact of being a self made man, repeating it to all who are his friends in the movie. We see Suyambulingam often hang out in a small restaurant owned by Bhai (played by M.S, Bhaskar).

This is the only let down in the movie. Suyambulingam is often shown as a miser but one can hardly understand why he visits and spends money in the restaurant daily. the first 20-30 minutes of the film are woeful and boring showing the Suyambu family consisting of his wife (Gautami) , and 2 kids. Suyambu's love for family is what the director has tried to depict in these minutes. The on-screen chemistry between Gautami and Kamal seems forced and its the sequences with his daughters which actually force a laugh from the audience's face. That being said, Kamal portrays his role of a miserly, middle class husband and dad to the full extent and his acting and dialogue delivery show why he is still the Ulaganayagan of this industry. The comic scenes in this movie, though few and far, are impeccably constructed and show Kamal's brilliant comic timing previously seen in the portrayal of the Telugu police officer Balaram Naidu in the film Dasavathaaram.

 I would say that the actual story starts when Suyambu's daughter pleads with him to attend a nature's club excursion in her school. It is seen that when she is there she meets the son of the Inspector General of Police who comes across as a perverted, young and doped individual who finds solace in taking pictures of Girls. This guy is shown taking a video of Suyambu's daughter bathing and is shown to blackmail her regarding this video. the young girl afraid of its reach on the internet, conveys the blackmail to her mother Gautami. When the young boy asks to meet Suyambu's Daughter alone, she brings along Gautami and what ensues is a lot of begging on the part of Gautami and her daughter to prevent the leakage of the video. When he does not agree to do so, Suyambu's daughter tries to knock the phone of his hand and in doing so, inadvertently kills the adolescent lad. How the family hide the body of the boy, and how they escape from the police is what forms the rest of the story. 

According to me, it is a beautifully scripted story with a nail biting finish. A rating of 4 would be fair with the length of the movie being the only real con of the story. A tighter plot and faster screenplay would have made this film as one of Kamal's classics.

Shamitabh: Dhanush+Amitabh steal the show

The story is basically a rags to riches to rags one with Danish (Dhanush) and Amitabh Sinha (BigB) playing the prominent characters of the story. Akshara Haasan impresses in her debut by playing the glue binding Danish and AB together.

The movie starts out showing a young child showing immense love towards movies to such an extent that when his teacher is talking about MK Gandhi, he writes Ben Kingsley's name in his book. A beautiful scene showing the little kid acting out a scene asked by his
Teacher. This scene signifies the impact of movies on the kids life. The song Salaam-e-film ensues showing the little kid growing up to be danish, and showing his repeated attempts to flee to Mumbai only to be stopped by his mother faking an ailing condition.

Through the song we see the Kolaveri star professing his love for films and trying to imitate famous characters from movies. The song ends with Danish, now a bus conductor, trying to wake his mom from her sleep slowly realising that she has moved on...
This makes Danish move over to Mumbai in order to realise his dream of being a star. He breaks into the film studio to meet his dream directors. This scene is laced with humor showing Danish as an individual desperate for cover and his desperation leads to certain actions which bring a smile across the faces of the audiences . Seizing a perfect chance, he starts 'living' in an actor's vanity van! And when he gets caught by the security guards, he tries to explain his aspirations of being an actor, which makes all the security guards laugh at him. Amidst all this, the film's Assistant Director Akshara (Akshara Haasan) sees the burning passion in his eyes to become an actor, which impresses her to no extent. That's when she decides to help him realize his dreams and thus puts him through her doctor uncle, who in turn, suggests a certain technological breakthrough in medical science through which a dumb person can actually speak!

 But the only condition is that the voice won't be of his own but of another person. Thus starts the search for a 'perfect voice' for Daanish begins. After many a vocal auditions, it's finally the drunkard Amitabh Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan), whose voice Akshara and Daanish choose. The deal is signed with Amitabh which states that he will have to remain silent about all this and not utter a word to anyone, against which he will be paid handsomely for being Daanish's voice. Daanish, who then, rechristens himself as Shamitabh goes on to become an overnight sensation with a voice to match. Thus starts his journey into the skies. It is during this journey, when success actually goes into his head that he starts dictating terms to Amitabh, who also starts suffering from the same ego issues as Daanish. Amidst these clashes, there arrives a journalist who gets his hand on the much guarded secret about Shamitabh's truth. 

Does the journalist become successful in exposing the truth behind the real 'Shamitabh', who amongst the two (Daanish and Amitabh) agree to compromise with the other, where does the duo's ego clashes leave Akshara who is working really hard on her directorial debut with Shamitabh as the lead, does the world ever get to know the decoding of Shamitabh... is what forms the rest of the film. 

Overall, this movie can be given 2.5 stars, with half a star being added for Dhanush's performance in the film. The slow pace of the movie is its biggest con. The plastic acting of Akshara too does not help the movie's cause.Its a one time watch.

Yennai Arindhaal : An Intriguing Cop story

The plot of the movie revolves around 4 characters, Sathyadev SD (Ajith Kumar) , Victor (Arun Vijay), Thainmozhi  TM (Anushka Shetty) and Trisha ( her character was so inconsequential that I dont even remember her name in the movie ). And we don't even mention the legendary comedian viveik here.

The movie starts out with TM (Anushka) being shown as a free spirited, independent and young individual going to the USA to see her newborn nephew. One day before boarding the flight, she is shown very busy.... Not packing her bags but singing some random English-Tamil hybrid song with her friends (The first forced song of the movie). Through the song she travels to the USA without a boarding pass, sees her newborn nephew and does all sorts of disgusting dance steps moving backwards while the camera is rolling. Commendable dont you think.. At the end of the song she miraculously appears at the Boston airport flirting with the officials to get a seat in the business class.. And well the Arundhati actress does get a seat and guess next to whom... Namba THALA ...

She immediately falls for the salt and peppered SD (Thala).. What does she do.... Start puking... So that SD holds her hand and she gets mushy mushy with him.. But thala being the gentleman he is does not do anything that would set the screens on fire, reacting in a lukewarm manner to TMs advances. Being the typical Indian aunty , TM overhears SD talking to a person repeatedly calling her darling, and talking about meeting someone at a cafe the next day. Being a curious kitten TM meets SD at the cafe and professes her love for him.

Meanwhile Victor ( Arun Vijay ) comes in to the cafe with his gang of men... This is where Thala Masala starts... Namba Thala beats up Victor's men and in the battle that ensues with Victor gets injured bad enough requiring medical attention.

In the hospital there is a conversation between TM and SD with the Veeram star revealing his past, and the reason for why Victor targeted them at the cafe. As the film goes into flashback, we see Gautam Vasudev's Mennon style of filmmaking.. The narrative style with SD lending his voice gives an insight into SD's childhood, the reason for the enemity with Victor, and the prominence of Trisha in his life..

It is beautifully shot with Thala and Trisha looking fabulous. But unfortunately, Trisha's role in the movie is so small that there is no scope for the VTV actress to weave her magic. This portion of the movie is saturated with songs with none of them It is shown that Victor was caught by SD going undercover eliminating all his (Victor's) friend. He goes to prison with Thala giving him some advice on bad and good..

Meanwhile on a parallel track, Trisha is miraculously murdered one day before exchanging vows with SD, leaving Thala the custody of her young daughter. Victor returns from prison with a vengeance turning into a fit and fab gangster , taking part in the organ racket.

One such customer (Suman) of his requires a heart from a rare blood group. And the person whose blood group matches is TM. Overhearing this, Thala tracks TM down and makes sure she is protected.

Finding the identity of his wife's killer, protecting TM and his daughter, foiling Victor's attempts and eradicate the organ racket is what SD does till the completion of the movie.

Overall the movie is good with its main con being the lack of focus in screenplay on what GVM wanted to convey. It is neither a full fledged cop story nor is it a full fledged love story, thereby bucking the trend of Gautam's previous films. Also, the character of Viveik (who plays the sidekick of Thala) has been wasted. It was a big letdown in the film. Trisha and Anushka too have a small and inconsequential role in the movie. But apart from these small disappointments, one can take a positive from Arun Vijay who has acted incredibly and has more than held his ground against Ajith Kumar. Thala, as always has been Thalatastic.. 

Overall, this movie can be given 3.5 stars, with half a star being added for Arun Vijay's performance in the film.One can watch Yennai Arindhaal for Ajith’s majestic screen presence and the underlying emotional current.