I

Whenever Sachin walks back to the pavilion, he is not judged by the numbers of hours he spent in the nets the day before the match; he is judged only by the score he made while at the crease during match. The same thing is applicable for most things in life. Outside the Bhagavad Gita, what matters is only the results. I has been in the making for about three years. (Roughly about one year for one screen hour.) During this period, the most bankable, mega scale director of Kollywood collaborated with the best of the talents around, the lead actor Vikram proved he was ready even to die for I, some Rs.100 crores got pumped into the project, Arnold electrified Chennai and we got to see an out-of-the world Tamil movie trailer. But apart from the trailer shots, there are not many scenes in the movie that will make your eyes light up and jaw drop. Shankar is known for making lengthy movies, but unlike Sivaji or Indian I runs for 3 hours plus - without the backing of an interesting and intelligent script. The movie is around love, jealousy, betrayal and yes, revenge. Body builder Lingesan goes behind a set of four guys (or is it three?), who for various reasons like love, fame and money, destroy his career and life by injecting a virus that nastily deforms his body. And Lingesan takes revenge in Shankar style, or to be precise in Anniyan style - the only difference being Lingesan does not want to kill anyone; his motive is to make these guys experience hell every single day of their lives.

I is a mix of The Elephant Man, Anniyan and a typical Tamil movie of the 80s - unfortunately, with the last one dominating. Right after the initial scenes, the movie fails to take you with it. So you have accessories like Power Star comedy, heroine intro songs, etc. making attempts at entertaining you. But such things do not come to the rescue of a weak script that swings between moments of technical brilliance and long footage of boring dialogues. It is very hard to state the central theme of the movie, as it is undecided between a revenge drama and a love epic. Boredom and confusion march behind indecision. In a way, the main plot of the movie could be construed as the absolutely unconditional love of a rich girl for a innocent boy punished cruelly by some cunning minds. But the poorly made love portions, especially the situation that lead Diya to propose to Lingesan, make you sit and wonder if love were the central theme at all. There is no build up. There is no fresh thinking. There is no magic. Then you start thinking perhaps the movie is all about revenge. But when Santhanam tries to make fun of the deformed, contorted, wasted villains in the end, you start doubting even the revenge theme as you do not feel the usual vicarious satisfaction and fulfilment that you have when a hero demolishes a villain.

The initial portions on the lives of body builders are novel and interesting. But the script could have paid more attention to the characterisation of business tycoons and models. Perhaps, the team should have seen a movie like Fashion a couple of times before sitting for a discussion. Many dialogues remind you of mega serials that come on the weekdays across all TV channels. But the Chennai slang chat Diya-Lingesan have in China is enjoyable to a good extent. In Shankar's signature style, the punctuation marks of stunts and songs are painstakingly executed by his top notch team of technicians and a composer - even to the extent that they are no more mere commas and colons. But do they necessarily engross you? Probably, no. Shankar has reached a level of predictability in the way he picturises the songs. It is time to reinvent. It is time to get over the obsession of making grand songs at the cost of a good movie. The bicycle stunt atop the Chinese rooftops stays afresh in your minds. But a hunchback fighting a six-pack model on the roof of a running train - that is beyond any reasonable logic. And a movie, as we know, is not just a collection of brilliant stunts and breath taking songs.

Lingesan uses various forces like fire, electric power, honey bees, virus, etc. to deform the physique and destroy the psyche of the villains. But after seeing the Garuda puranam inspired Anniyan, such methods appear childish, if not outright dull, to a large extent. More than that, the script has failed to capitalise on the pity generated by the deformed Lingesan. So, when you see various levels of damaged and deranged villains in the second half, you just feel a little uncomfortable - you do not feel satisfied that ultimately justice has been done, that the good has won over the evil. And this is a major failure. This blunder makes me to think if the audience (especially the ladies and children) will be comfortable living with a lot of distorted guys with burnt skin, hairy skin, and other degraded body types in the second half. I was not.

With a good amount of trimming and very basic care for the lip-sync of non-Tamil artists including the heroine, I could have been a well-made movie. But even then it will be been nowhere near the standards Shankar has set for himself - and for us.

I belongs to Vikram. Watch it for him.