When you have an attractive ensemble of stars that includes - Aravind Swami: the original chocolate boy of Kollywood, STR: the ageless rebel, Vijay Sethupathi: the man of the masses - in a film, backed by an ultra strong crew, unless the maker is your average guy the chances of the movie turning out to be a dud are very less. Going by that obviously, Mani Ratnam's Chekka Chivandha Vaanam cannot be a dull film; and it is not one too. But it needs an extraordinary level of dominance over the craft to convert such multi-star, huge canvas films from just fine and passable flicks to great ones. Unfortunately, the transformation has not happened here.
Short of 150 minutes of run time, CCV traces the power struggle in Senapathi's family. He is a ganglord and just like Vito Corlenone, Senapathi (played by Prakash Raj) has three sons and a daughter. In the very first scene, there is a botched up assassination attempt on Senapathi and his wife. Over the course, we get to see to what extent the brothers go to take control of their father's empire. There is a lot of razzmatazz filled with gun shots, Dubai skyscrapers, gunrunning, a Sri Lankan wife, a Serbian girl friend, a journalist mistress, Nepal police, etc., but the backbone that is supposed to bind all this together firmly and glue us to our seats - the screenplay - is not well formed. It is not strong enough, not smart enough. As a result, while the individual scenes like a chase here, like a song there are beautiful, as a whole them film is not captivating enough.
Perhaps, some kind of a backstory, just required to etch the characters and make us enter their world may have worked wonders. Characters look like fairies hanging from thin air. When Senapthati says something, you know it is Prakash Raj saying it; and similarly with Aravind Swamy. Maybe factoring this, STR and Vijay Sethupathi have been cast in characters that are in sync with their 'images'. So whenever Vijay Sethupathi (playing a cop, Rasool) says something he says more like Sethupthi and less like Rasool. His fans love it.
There is a host of artist like Jyotika, Mansoor Ali Khan, Aditi Rao, Aishwarya Rajesh, Jeyasudha, Thiagarajan, et al and you are reminded of your school parade ground. But each one of them has justified the role doled out. While Jyotika proves her mettle, Aditi's role does not have meat, and the sad part is Mansoor Ali Khan stands in as a dignified set prop; But he need not feel bad, there is Thiagarajan.
In Mani Ratnam's films, we expect a certain level of quirkiness in the dialogues and the auteur has not let us down. Like for instance the response of Ethi when he gets a call from India about his father's condition; the response of Thyagu when his wife shouts at him from a boat. It is enjoyable. We feel at home. There is also the usual mirror-sequence - a very important scene that builds up the tension among the three siblings is done brilliantly. You feel at home. You feel you are in the hands of the person who gave Tamil cinema an identity. But the feeling does not last long; and such flashes do not create great movies.
A R Rahman! While in most places the movie is dabbling with us, the songs and the BGM lift us to a different plane. CCV is easily among the best works of Rahman in the recent years. Vairamuthu has made us look at poetry. It's sheer magic with words. Awards waiting. There are no special moments with the camera (Santosh Sivan) but for the climax. The ending scene of the movie is written well, shot interestingly, packed with stories and well performed by all the four lead artists. In fact, the ending scene salvages the entire film that starts to drag in the second half.
Without revealing much, I can say the climax of the movie proves once again to all of us, well, how important is the culmination to any story. In the very old hare and tortoise fable, there is no fun had the hare won the race. The story is eternal because the tortoise won.
CCV - mostly brawn, less of brain.
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