ExpertDabbler

I don’t want to call it a review because I am not sure if it’s one. Let me just call it as my thoughts on the movie.

Before I go to the movie, I have a word or two about the theatre. I saw this movie in Baba Complex, Coimbatore on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The theatre was a big let down. Till very recently I think Baba Complex was one of the better maintained theatres in Coimbatore. The toilet(the yardstick I have for measuring the maintenance of the theatre) was horrible. I should thank my stars if I don’t get urinary tract infection.

Coming to the movie, I think it’s appropriate to start with the good points of the movie.

Screenplay:
Ah! After quite sometime we got to see a tamil movie with a neat taut screenplay. Mind you there is nothing too novel about the underlying story. We have seen enough stories like this. But anyone who wants to learn screenplay writing can take a leaf or two from Vishnuvardhan among the new directors.

Just consider this. Vishnu has to establish that Selva, played by Bharath is a ruthless, cool killer in about as short a screen time as possible with maximum effect. And this is how he goes about it.

Bharath has a look at a photograph of a guy.
Freezes it in his mind.
Burns the photo.

At the Hotel.
Outside the Hotel Room.
He presses the calling bell.

The guy in the photograph is inside the room and opens the door.

“Yaaru nee? Enna venum?”

Bharath comes close to him. Stab! Then a few more thursts. It’s all over.
Bharath drags the guy inside the room. Closes the door. Takes out the knife. Wipes the blood stain in the knife on the guy’s shirt. Goes to the bathroom. Cleans the remaining blood from the knife. Cleans the wash basin. Wipes the basin with a tissue. Flushes the tissue.

All this is done without the least fuss as if it’s a mundane household chore.

Comes back into the room. Switches on the TV. Flips the channel and tries channel surfing.

Scene over.

All this in screen takes like 5 minutes! But what a way to establish the nature of the character in minimal time! Impressive!

If we think long and hard we would realize that this is what a director and a screenplay writer is supposed to do. But tamil cinema is so bereft of quality writers that we have to hail Vishnuvardhan for his crisp screenplay. He has seen to it that every little detail in the movie adds in some way to move the story.

Bharath’s acting:

Top class. His range is evident in the way he coyly looks at his love interest and the cold bloodedness when he goes about on a murder spree. His expression on seeing his best buddy dead is touching and realistic. A perfect example of underplayed acting.

Yuvan:
Looks like yuvan is coming of age as a music director. The songs add to the mood of the situations quite well. I don’t want to get into the reusable part though. The bottom line is his music for the songs and the BGM is certainly an asset to the movie. Even if he reuses, he knows what to re-use where. Atleast he is a professional.

Quite a few scenes stay in mind a bit longer than others.

For example, the scene where the couples meet in a restaurant.

And another pick is when Bharat and Arya begin practice with their handgun.

I particularly remember one dialogue by Haneefa drawing an anology of buying a fridge for buying the gun.

“Orey vidhyasam. Adhu kulirum idhu sudum”
Now coming to the minuses.

One major drawback of pattiyal is the shallow characterization. To my mind all the characters are one-dimensional.

It almost goes like this.

Heros 1 and 2 : Killers

Heroines 1 and 2: Their main job is to fall in love with Heroes respectively.

Bharath and Pooja have a duet in exactly 5 screen minutes after they see each other.
Arya and Padmapriya are always bickering and suddenly there is an item number and they are in bed.
I know all this is a given in tamil cinema and Pattiyal is nothing more than a quick kollywood flick but such shallow characters means there is no way we can ponder about characters and relate to their psyche. It’s actually scenes which expose the various shades of human emotions that take a mani ratnam movie to a different level.
And that’s precisely what is sorely lacking in Pattiyal. I felt it was a bit too fast for my taste.

Also the climax fight with the villain had so much gore and blood than was necessary. It was inconsistent with Bharath’s characterization. Maybe the director wanted to convey that Bharath takes revenge on his friend’s behalf but did not go well with me.

On the whole Pattiyal is decent cinema but nothing great. It’s way better than the likes of Gajini IMHO.

Comparing Vishnuvardhan to Maniratnam is totally uncalled for to say the least.

It also laid to rest speculations about similiarities between Pattiyal and Pudhupettai. To my mind, Selvaraghavan would never make a movie like Pattiyal.
His style, from whatever I’ve seen in 7g and KK, is completely different from Vishnuvardhan. So even if both shoot the same story it will still be as different as black and white. I’m convinced about that. Let’s wait and see.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.