Tamil anti-heroes

Originally posted 16 Aug 2006

In the midst of all the packing we did these past 2 weeks - we found time to watch two tamil movies; quite a feat considering each movie is about 3 hours long. Of course, we did end up fast forwarding songs and other chunks from the first movie.

The one thing both movies had in similar was that the hero was not the traditional epitome of virtue, but was instead a flawed twisted character shaped by the evils of modern society.

The similarity ends there.

Thiruttu Payale was a confused and drawn-out peice of cr*p. It was as if the director could not decide if the protoganist was a hero or not. Accordingly the guy alternated between murdering people and singing songs for the heroine and lecturing about true love to others. It was as if they were trying to define the boundaries of his evilness and that in my opinion was kind of unnecessary. Of course the torture of watching the movie was exacerbated by the fact that none of the actors could in fact act! The ending was forced into being moralistic and preachy. Cheaters never prosper, right?

Or do they? This was the premise of Pudupettai, one of the best tamil movies I've seen in a while. The camera angles, the way the scenes were lit, the way the dances were choreographed.. it was a visual treat; one that I didn't know tamil cinema was capable of delivering. The dialogues were simple and realistic. Dhanush portrayed the central charecter Kokki Kumar rather well. There were no euphemisms and endless justifcations of why K.Kumar behaved the way he did (apart from the background info already woven into the story). The premise might have been a little cliched, but the way it was handled definitely wasn't. This movie, we didn't fast forward. It was fast paced enough on its own.

One of the biggest weaknesses in this movie was the music. The music was 'borrowed' from several English movies, most notably from 'The Godfather'. The ending was a bit weak and confused as well, although I did like the cynical note on which it ended.

If you must see a tamil movie anytime soon, I'd recommend 'Pudupettai' over 'Thiruttu payale', unless you prefer soppy melodrama over fast paced action.