What if, 4 of the most heavily armed countries decide to defect from the United Nations and form a rival federation named “The Republic”? They grow in number with many more countries falling in line and posing an international embargo on the ones that don’t. Now picture yourself taking a stroll down your neighborhood on a random Tuesday. BOOM!
You feel the aftershock of an explosion that’s happened a few thousand miles from you. That atom bomb could have very easily been dropped on your street now. The Republic has come to collect. There’s loss all around, your material possessions no longer matter. War breaks loose. This could be the end of the world. But what’s more likely is that it could be the end of you.
Scary is it not? I would not quite say that is unlikely to happen. But let’s not get there now. Until now, it just reads like an extremely interesting one-liner for an artistic war film. At least, it does to me. But hey, when Hip-Hop Thamizha directs such a plot, it’s nowhere close to that. This movie was a tale of two halves.
The Kingmaker
A brief history of why I’m writing this. I’ve had the unfortunate honor of getting to watch Aadhi na on the big screen for his last three films. But hey, I’m still standing (patting myself on the back for being such a brave soul). The title credits of this film caught me off guard for a bit.
Because one of those cards said – Story, Screenplay, Dialog, Directions, Music, Lyrics, Production (who else is gonna produce this though?) et. al. – Hip Hop Thamizha. This is some T. Rajendar level of credit. Still, he’s not the kingmaker. Natti is.
The first half of the film is pretty much a typical political satire film with Natti being the self-proclaimed Kingmaker. We have cliched jokes on politics, the ruling government, language impositions, migrant workers, and nepotism. Oh wait, I almost forgot. In this world, they have Thalaivar Rishikanth as the superstar played by Shaa Ra. There was a small shout-out to Temple Monkeys as well. And when I said cliche, I hope you didn’t forget the hero’s love track that just exists for the sake of it.
Whew, I’m already tired of writing it down. (Mudiyalada yebba). Now nuke them, and we cut to intermission.
There was an action sequence in this half with blood and knives and tea cups, plates, and saucers used as weapons. Blood thinks he’s Lokesh or what? Moving on…
Not all bad, meh!
Post-apocalyptic, Republic-occupied Chennai was a nightmare to witness. Just when it felt like it was going to become a sobfest, they reveal Aadhi na to be the playmaker who is going to save us all. Let me cut to the chase now. Again the cliche of people uniting together for a common cause, villains reforming, heroes leading the citizens to victory.
There were a few good scenes here and there that I felt like I could have enjoyed, if someone who knew how to write, had written the film. F the art film. If you wanted a spoof, you should’ve taken this script to Sundar C na! The kutti-kunjans in my theatre were screaming and shouting whenever Aadhi na did mass stuff though. “Avaru kids ah lam pudichutaru”.
Why am I writing this post when it makes me cringe and each sentence is a pain to write? The same reason Aadhi na made this film. Because neither of us had anything better to do 🙂
Come to back to Iraiva era na. Filmmaking is not for you. Your music is facing the brunt of it as well. Overall, this film was a badly made, good bad-film. If that makes sense. Good night.
(Oh, if you do happen to watch this film, there’s a post-credits scene )
