Monday, November 9, 2009

Movie review - Kanden Kadhalai

This is a tamil remake of the popular Hindi movie Jab We Met with actors Bharath and Tamannah (did I get the spelling right?) in the lead. I haven't watched the original version but my friend who accompanied me had and she was quite sure the Hindi flick was better. Anyway, its been a year since I had gone to the theatre, I quite enjoyed it inspite of its cliched storyline and having got stuck in corner seats with couples all around us who had not exactly come there to watch the movie. We were the ones who were not a couple and after squirming uncomfortably for sometime (whoever said tickets for two meant only couples) decided to chuck it and watch the movie, who cares what other were doing...

I guess everyone knows the story by now. Boy meets girl, girl is sweet as saccharine plus suffers from ADHD, histrionic personality disorder and a host of other mental disorders whose names I've forgotten (I mean, she's bubbly and all, I can quite understand that she's a happy person full of joy but this was simply too much). Boy gets ditched by previous gf , goes into deep depression and tries to commit suicide and Anjali (Tamannah) helps him come out of it, shows him the 'brighter' side of life and plans to elope with her boyfriend. But she gets ditched too and is 'rescued' by Bharath from a school (Anjali becomes an English teacher) and they live happily ever after. Its the story of two ditched people finding love in each other. Sweet ain't it?

Inspite of it being so predictable I liked it because for a change we had very less of those fight sequences and unnecessary heroism (though I still feel the songs were like jarring notes in the movie, they could have done away with the songs altogther, the narration would have been taut).
The best part of the movie was the comedy track by Santhanam. The guy is really funny and the last half of the movie was watchable entirely because of him, the movie as such did not have much of unpredictability or suspense.

Anyway what's with this whole boy saves girl from a bunch of baddies who mistake her for a prostitute? It just seemed so filmy and made the movie look unrealistic if not to say stupid. Directors should give up the urge to show the men saving women in all their movies, it not only is unrealistic but only reinforces stereotypes. Well, its a commercial flick alright, so I guess the director's got to play to the gallery. Another thing, Tamannah looks suave and urban, hardly like someone from an interior district of TamilNadu (Theni). That seemed too incongruous even for a commercial flick. And oh yeah, the fair and lovely beauty seemed so out of place in rustic Theni surroundings, whoever said directors had common sense...

Both the actors did their roles well and if Tamannah appeared hyperactive all the time it was entirely the director's fault for having taken it too far. I think this is her best film so far. Bharat for a change appears restrained and its a pleasant surprise considering that most of his previous roles had been about the angry young man and his arivalu.

Worth a hundered bucks and can be watched once.Watch it if you don't have anything better to do on a lazy afternoon and if you're a couple do get those corner seats. ;-)