So where do I start? Perhaps with Nithya Menen, who as the Punjabi
kudi, is the single redeeming factor in this borefest aka
Mersal. (Don't ask me why is she a Punjabi. Your guess is as good as mine!) But I must hand it to director Atlee for having done a better job than what he did in
Theri, his previous collaboration with Vijay. Yet... The filmmaking is at best desultory. Farcical even. I know, in a commercial potboiler, I'm not going in exactly expecting logic, but is it that hard to
narrate a coherent story? Vijay, in a triple role, tries as much to infuse some life into the proceedings, but a weak plotline (about medical malpractices in private hospitals, treated in such a reductive, slipshod manner, it beggars belief) and Atlee's tendency to go larger-than-life (after all, he was Shankar's assistant, wasn't he?) more often than not lets him down. Also, even going by movies of this kind,
Mersal's other two heroines Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Kajal Aggarwal are saddled with roles that can only be described as blink-and-miss. Why tack on such thankless characters in a story where they are hardly needed? Yet... I loved watching
Aalaporaan Thamizhan. The song is a riot of colours (beautifully captured by G. K. Vishnu's camera), and there is a sense of world building that left me enraptured. If only the rest of the movie was just as effective!
Comments
Post a Comment