Ok Kadhal Kanmani!







 We all had been crazy Mani Rathnam fans when he was at his peak – Nayagan, Mouna Ragam, Agni Natchathiram and Thalapathi – of his creativity. 

I remember it used to be like a mini festival, whenever those movies got released. Waiting with huge expectations before its release, discussions regarding story, stars and music and once the movie was out, to boast about first day first show, thronging the theatre in big groups, commenting, cheering loudly during the show, making sure others don’t enjoy the show peacefully, standing in the long queues with the unruly crowd– getting a ticket to movie like Thalapathi was tougher than getting a PG seat through All India PG Entrance exam!...

Mani Rathnam’s path breaking Style of film making, inspired by Hollywood movies, became a trade mark not only in Kollywood, in Bollywood too. He became a national icon with the massive hits like Bombay and Roja .That image forced him to think at national level when he chose subjects for his subsequent movies; slowly faded away from Kollywood. His Bollywood ventures like Dil se, Yuva,Guru and Ravana did not match the initial euphoric moolah at Box office. He tried a few comebacks in kollywood with Alaipayude and Kannatthil Muthhamittal.

To sustain long in the film industry -for that matter in any field, repeatedly reinventing one’s own abilities plays an important role. In his second comeback, exactly he tries to do that – tries to feel the contemporary audience’s pulse with this outing.

When I saw this movie trailer with pulsating ARR’s “mental manathil song,” I got hooked and pre-booked tickets before its release – never happened before!

Story
Adhi (Dulquer Salmaan – Mamootty’s Son), a game software developer falls in love at first sight with Tara (Nithya Menon), an architect, who works in Mumbai. Adhi is from a Chennai’s middle class family, comes to Mumbai for his new project and puts up as a paying guest with an orthodox Tamil elderly couple Ganapathy (Prakash raj) and Bhavani (Leela Samson- Ex censor board Chief)). Tara belongs to a wealthy family from Coimbatore, unhappy with her widowed dominating mother (whom she thinks the reason for her father’s suicide), tries to live independently with  great career ambitions.
 Both are young, modern, career oriented, do not have faith in marriage institution. Both fall in love with each other. What is next…Yes you guessed it right. They decide to live in together without marriage. With great difficulty they convince that elderly couple and start living in at Adhi’s place.
Retired banker Ganapathy takes care of his Alzheimer affected wife with lots of love.
What follows later is the climax. Yes again you guessed it…..
Adhi gets an offer to go to US to finish his dream project. Tara has to go to France for her dream offer.
Career vs Love/marriage. What they decide is the climax?

What worked...?

1.      PC Shreeram: Youthful, restless camera wanders around and captures every tiny emotions of the leading pair beautifully. For the song “Mental Manathil” he takes us pillion ride on hero’s Royal Enfield through streets of Mumbai. 

2.       AR Rahman: Western, Carnatic and Hindustani - he travels through all genres with such ease. He has improved tremendously in composing BGM. 

3.       The Lead pair and the Elderly couple – performed perfectly. Dulquer Salmaan - for someone so new to the industry and performing at par with Prakash Raj is commendable.
The way Bhavani calls her husband” Ganapathy “is so cute.
In a few places Tara’s innocent acting goes overboard and looks like a mentally retarded girl.

4.      .Live sound recording and Dialogues are another plus points. Witty youthful dialogues throughout - Mani Rathnam is still young at heart!

5.       Thumbs up to the Art direction – for creating Mumbai in Chennai!


What did not work…?

Weak story with a predictable screen play and superficial characterisation make you feel bored even before half the way mark – in spite of the wonderful technical crew.

The way he handled the living in subject is also superficial – immature. Independent strong woman would not have behaved the way Tara did in the film.

I don’t know when Mumbai became a part of Tamilnadu – everyone (most of them) speaks in Tamil!
Ok kanmani is just an ok movie nothing great about it...  You may watch it once. 

தங்கத் தட்டில் பழைய சாப்பாடு !

Cheers!

25-04-15,
9pm
Chennai.


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