Farmers' suicides, malnutrition among kids, corporate greed, consumerism, hardships of emigration, rural-urban divide, old age homes, yellow journalism, corruption, unemployment, and communism. (Perhaps the movie might have grazed a few more issues too.) Intersperse this material with the nuts and bolts of a commercial movie template like friendship, romance, mother/sister sentiment, dumb heroine, foolish police, comedy, mindless songs and jarring dance numbers, 1:50 stunts, betrayal, sacrifice, villain wearing dark glasses, etc. You get Kaththi. Yet director A.R.Murugadoss has managed to add one more hit to his kitty, proving once again he is a neat hybrid of Shankar and K.S. Ravikumar. ARM has acquired the message-giving gene (a very strong one) from the former, and the emotional gene (also a dominant one) from KS. Kaththi, taking the lead from his earlier movie that was dedicated to the army men, is dedicated to the farming folks. The movie is about how the hero outwits a corporate giant from buying out a (dry) village that has a huge ground water potential, thereby saving hundreds of farmers and their farmlands.
The script takes you into the movie right from the word go. But very soon it veers into the vapid territory where the heroine functions as a set prop to add glamour to the the oddly placed, loud songs. ARM's earlier creation Thuppakki (2012) too had the same problem of plentiful songs in the first half. But certain hooks and pinches embedded in the early stages ensure that you endure boredom and wait for that thing to be revealed. And when it is revealed in the form of a stage introduction made during an award function, it moves you. Full marks to Vijay for the flashback episode. He has performed. I cried. But here is where ARM falls short of joining the league of the big guys like Maniratnam or a perfectionist like Shankar. ARM does not bother to spend his time to tweak the dialogues as per the local slang, nor he cares for the finer details. The director's broad-brush approach also ends up in compelling the movie to touch base with the host of things like consumerism to old age homes. But here again, Vijay impresses with his performance during the media interaction scene and conveys every single thing the movie claims to stand for. (though shades of the statistician Capt.Vijayakanth can be felt when Vijay sincerely spits out various numbers on Tamil Nadu taken out from wiki) Shatish has delivered a neat support to Vijay; not as loud as Santhanam nor as innocent as Sathyan.
Some action blocks and the climax stunt heroism are noisy, yet they have the capacity to make you yawn. I enjoyed the sound tracks of Anirudh at home, but in the movie somewhere down the line the magic is lost. The tunes seem repetitive. Not much effort has gone into the background score; probably he was happy with that single, nice piece he got. The same tune comes again, again and again.(Theme music?) Refreshingly, Vijay does not have his usual intro songs like neeyum naanum brotheru, namakku edhukku botheru etc. Instead it is a neatly shot rap in Chennai airport. There was probably no great challenge to the cinematographer and he has fulfilled his mandate. But certain graphics remind us that, well, it is not real but only graphics.
Yes, it is another watchable and to an extent enjoyable movie from ARM, filled with enough diverse material like Bengalis and African goondas and a Bollywood guy as the villain, fit for a pan-India release with Salman or Akshay very soon. ("Prisoner"?) The movie also has a solid central message that needs to be told. But how long can such format-oriented creations stay above the thin line that separates the blockbusters from mega flops?
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