I had not scribbled anything on “A Wednesday”, but some how wanted to for this tamil version. May be, because it’s a dual Padma shri movie, may be I saw the original version a couple of months later its release or may be this is something new to the “Tamil” audience.
This movie should be enjoyed in theatres as I did. This movie which has been released with hardly any hype unlike the previous venture “Dasavatharam”, is a fast paced political thriller involving five to six characters with absolutely no songs and the total duration winding up in less than 2 hours. It’s also very un-common in Tamil cinema to flash the hero’s name without a title, and this movie is one such. There is no “Ulaga Nayagan”. There is no “Padma Shri”. Of course there is no publicity required for this proven star. The whole movie is about a series of incidents happening in 3-4 hours duration of time and Kamal Haasan raises question on every one's mind about his portrayal of character in this movie until a few minutes before the end credits. His only company being a set of hi-tech gadgets which includes laptop to routers to cell phones and others. He has only phone conversations with two characters, except for the climax scene. Neither his name nor his religion is revealed in this movie though he gives hints in a few scenes. It’s always difficult for me to understand his dialogues which most of the time has an inner meaning. I saw Dasavatharam twice to grasp some. I think I should do the same here too.
Padma Shri Mohan Lal is the serious and responsible commissioner of Chennai, who speaks Tamil in his own Malayalam accent. His character just shows how, who and what kind of decisions will be taken at the time of an emergency situation and its impact. No doubts to his performance. He has done this role like a cake walk. The other guy, worth to mention was the clean-shaved-smart-rough cop. The interrogation scene is one of the scenes which just shows the attitude and power of that particular character with less action and dialogue. They have showed the female press reporter as a smoker in this movie. To avoid controversies, they never show the lady smoking. I am still not very clear on the point of such a characterization. Is it the job that is stressful or I don’t know why?
I enjoyed the dialogues in this movie. In fact the dialogues play a prominent role in this movie. It had a good number of sarcasms and revolves about the current affairs, especially the conversations between the both legendary actors. Unlike “A Wednesday” the character of Lakshmi was an addition in the Tamil version and was interesting too, especially her political heated arguments with Mohan Lal.
Shruthi Haasan’s background score was apt. I liked the song “Unnai Pol Oruvan” which was played at the background during the end credits. It remembered the end credits of ‘The Matrix’, when this song started with the lines from the holy “Bhagavad Gita”.
Finally, I felt it’s a welcoming movie for the Tamil audience and I do like to watch more such fast pace movies with no songs. It’s just like the T20 version of Cricket from the conventional 50 over ODI. It’s more thrilling and exciting you see!
