Naan Mahaan alla - Tamil movie review

An apt title - if you ask me.  For the thing that the hero Karthi does at the end, one does not have to be a 'great soul' or a 'mahaan'.  Why he did what he did is probably justified.

The main story track goes on very vibrantly.  Karthi effortlessly essays the role of a happy go lucky hero, who always teases his sister and takes money from his parents!  He is from a middle class family.  On the side is a dark track, a group of good for nothing, perverted youngsters who habitually molest girls and on one occasion dump the girl after hacking her body into small pieces.  As fate would have it, the crooks had used Karthi's father's taxi (he works as a driver in a call taxi company) and he recognises the victims face broadcast on tv.  Being a conscientious citizen, he reports to the police that he can identify the culprits.  Knowing this, the crooks make an attempt to kill him.  Karthi is very shaken by this attempt on his father's life.  The miscreants will stop at nothing and this time they take the help of another bigger rowdy and plan and successfully kill his father in broad daylight.  This devastates Karthi and inspite of police's repeated requests, he does not proactively volunteer any information/help to catch these criminals.  He does not give himself any airs about his 'heroism'.  It was quite a refreshing change from the usual rut.  According to him, nothing is going to bring back his dad and he thinks these crooks deserve a harsher punishment for their heinous crimes.  

He does not plan on going after them to avenge his father's murder but coincidentally he encounters them, that is the end of this story.

Nice movie with the right mixture of romance, comedy, thrill etc.

Kattrathu Thamizh - Movie review

A very unique theme, certainly caught my interest.  Though initially the movie seemed very slow moving, focusing on the violence in the police station and subsequent cold blooded murders, the love story unfolded very well, it was refreshing to see the simple and naive ways of the young couple - Jiva and Anjali.

Karunas plays a pivotal role too, he is the camera man who records the memoir of Jiva under threats from him - he has been kidnapped by Jiva for this purpose.

The hero is a Tamizh language teacher in Chennai.  He has taken up study of Tamizh out of interest for the subject and the positive influence his own Tamizh teacher had on him.  Had he chosen to follow the masses and study IT (Information Technology) he would be earning thousands, may lakhs per month but now his salary is a meager 2000 Rupees.  He is very hopeful and upbeat as his salary will double after he completes Bachelor of Education which is necessary for every teacher.

Gradually the reality hits him - repeatedly he comes across his college mates or others who are not necessarily smarter than him but make much more and are well settled only because they work in call centres or in so called IT job market.  What bothers him even more is their haughtiness and their prejudice against him just because he chose to pursue the subject of his liking.  The points that he makes and the questions that he ask are very relevant; not simply because he has a low income.  These are very reasonable and sensible questions for which we have to find answers only by soul-searching.

It reminded me of the time that I took such a decision to study Sanskrit which people senselessly call as 'dead language'.  I too was a smart science/computer science student who took Sanskrit to prove that you do not have to be necessarily dumb or turned down elsewhere to pursue this subject as the main course of study.

It is indeed true that these days the IT folks make much more than average salary.  Of course they face their set of difficulties - excessive work pressure / ridiculous work timings etc.  They may or may not have job satisfaction but at the end of the month they see considerable amount of money whereas all those people who did not take the beaten road, who may be smarter and hardworking just struggle to make ends meet.

The hero's personal life of course is riddled with tragedy, the death of his mother, then later in life, of his dad; his childhood sweetheart getting lost to him and then later reappearing in his life.  A good movie, could make the common man introspect a little.

Yuvan's music is awesome - memorable, melodious, poignant  and apt.