Jigarthanda - The first Karthik Subbaraj!

With Pizza and now Jigarthanda (#jigarthanda) you cannot now deny the fact that there is a new story teller now in tamil cinema industry after Bharathiraja and Manirathanam. These both are legendary directors who respected and believed that if you are passionate then you cannot fail. To them success was never a goal, it was only 'keep going.'

As in a scene in this movie, there is a dialogue, 'success is not what others talk about you, it is what your inner self acknowledges', a very true man he is to this - Karthik Subbaraj.

The movie starts off with Siddarth being rejected in a TV Reality Show in the semi-finals. The comment he get is 'Kuppai Padam'. But the past rift between the two judges of that reality show, a producer and a national award winning director, the producer chooses to produce Siddarth's movie. But he insists that Siddarth does a cold blooded gangster story. This starts the journey for Siddarth to look and learn the life of Sethu (played by Simha) a psychic gangster in Madurai. Once this starts, you are all set for an experience.

Something that is very wonderful in this movie is the Interval. It is a very MASS scene. And when you expect a very racy movie for the second half, that is when Karthik get's you into his world again. You will actually forget that you expected a very racy second half! Personally during the 2nd half I was having a feeling that 'Who are these guys? How come they are able to entertain us like Pros! There is no veteran actors / actress and yet you have a feeling of watching a good movie. The climax is also MASS.

The music director - Santhosh Narayanan is one of the hero for this movie. The background score is really exceptional. Though songs are not great when you hear them as audio, when watched with the movie, it all seems to be very collected.

There were several places the audience clapped for dialogues and laughed their mind out too. No doubt that the narration will grab you into the movie.

Simha with this movie, has now reserved his special place in Tamil cinema. Not sure if Karthik had Simha in mind when he wrote this character or Simha moulded himself after hearing about this character, but he has certainly set a bench-mark for the role. He deserves a very huge applause.

Siddarth deserves a huge applause. Knowing the entire script he has choose to do this film. He is a true chennai boy. Especially in scene when he tells Lakshmi menon that 'Let's be just friends' he is very much Chennai!

Overall, your expectation is 100% met in this movie. All you expect when you walk-in is a different movie from Karthik Subbaraj and you are not let down. It is indeed a very different and yet enjoyable movie. I was actually amused to the hall full at 8:50 AM in the morning.

All the best Karthik and team. Keep entertaining us such!

Neethanae En Ponvasantham

My verdict : It is light. It is nice. I was able to remember a poem that I read during my school days from John Keats. 

There is an expectation set when you hear the names like Gautham Vasudev Menon, Illiyaraja, Jiva, Samantha, Santhanam. All have done their job with an intention to give a very good movie. It has really come out well. I initially read and also heard from my friends that this was a very huge disappointment for them from Gautham Vasudev Menon. I even saw few similar FB posts. But to me it was a very nice movie.

Story: It is a love story. A love story very raw and very natural. Normally I term only Subramanipuram kind of movies as raw, but this too was a raw love story.

Screenplay: Poetic! The narration is actually excellent. The director along with the cameraman and editor has done an excellent job. Flashback's are an very essential element for story telling. Even for us a story is something that happened in the past. Gautham is an amazing story teller, no doubt. He has handled this subject too very well. Heard that in VTV the story itself was from Gautham and in NEP he wrote the screenplay and was the director. But his improvisation to the script has been really cool. Coming back from this movie was very light. Like Ok, get back to work. But after an hour, you have Varun Krishnan and Nithya Vasudevan haunting you. The story line says "This could be your love story". But there are certainly a lot of elements that each one of us could relate to ourselves. 

Jiva & Samantha :  Jiva is so handsome in this movie. In a few scenes I was not able to take my eyes off Jiva and have a look at Samantha. I should say he is a very professional guy. If most of us say that Surya may be the next Kamal, here is one guy who is silently surpassing that. Watching Jiva is something that you would love in this movie. Earlier I said that this was a *raw* story, it is because of Jiva. The way the climax was narrated and how Jiva did that was like *real*. 

Samantha, she is beautiful. She knows acting too and has did well. She is picture perfect! The scenes to quote her acting are the scenes in that Tsunami village and the climax. She has done it very well. 

Music : Breezy. Don't expect anything less here. It is all very real instruments being played by very real human beings! A lot of LIFE gets added into the movie when real people play it.

Could have been better: 

1. Camera - I personally felt that few shots very shot in long which made us get out of the scene. One shot to quote was the fight that they would have on a terrace when Jiva says he is going to join IIM Calicut.
2. Few Santhanam scenes could have been avoided in the 2nd half. Especially that VTV mimic scenes. 
3. The night walk and talk in the climax could have been cut short. Because it was not that time that Jiva and Samantha spent triggered the climax, it was Jiva's father who says "Be a man". 

Watch it! Varun and Nithya are sure to pass through you. 

My rating: 4 STAR