Dasavatharam - Hail Kamal, not the movie.

I hate to write movie reviews, but yet I wanted to write about this movie - Dasavatharam, which is probably the most anticipated movie after Sivaji.

Note : For those who know about me, please do not consider this review as biased just because am a hardcore Rajini fan. I was also very anxiously awaiting the movie just as any other Kamal fan. Another thing to be emphasized is, am a die-hard Rajini fan, but that doesn't mean that I am a Kamal hater. I am writing this review as a normal fan, who carries the usual expectations about such a big film.

Now, the review....

Century Berryessa 10, San Jose, California - This is the theatre where I watched Dasavatharam. It was the very first show in the USA, but the tickets were available at the counter at 9pm for 9.30 show. It might be because the next day is a working day. However, the theatre was full when the movie started.

I'm not going to narrate the story here as there is nothing significant to be narrated as such. It's all about Kamal in the movie. The first twenty minutes of the movie seemed to justify the hype created, but sadly there ends the fascination. After that, its all about drama, chasing and usual cinema stuff. The biggest disappointment comes in the form of the way the story has been handled. It could have been much much better.

Kamal scores full marks as usual, but out of his ten characters, I would give maximum marks only to Rangarajan Nambi, Balram Naidu, Poovaraagan and Fletcher. May be for the rest of the characters, a bit low. Differentiating the two characters in a dual action role itself is difficult (Am not taking films like ATM, Billa into consideration as both Vijay and Ajith have not even bothered about that), but performing ten different roles in ten totally contrasting ways is simply brilliant. Not just the acting, but the body language, voice modulation and manerisms were totally different from one another for which Kamal deserves exuberant compliments. Nobody but Kamal could have done such a brilliant job. Special mention to his fantabulous 11th avathar - the dialogue writer (missed to notice the title card and I was just wondering whether it was Crazy Mohan). He has really excelled as a dialogue writer.

But, once you come out after watching the movie, you can't help the feeling that the story is made to fit the ten characters and not the other way round. A few characters seemed to be un-necessarily stuffed into the movie, just to make it ten. The "Khalifullah Khan" character is one such example. If you try to make sense the need of each and every character in the movie, the question "Is it necessary?" would arise. The movie doesn't seem to be coherent with too many characters coming in and trying to get stick in the screenplay. Asin looks cute, but her characterization was a bit irritating as it is quite difficult to imagine such a dumb teenage girl in this era.

The desperation of making this movie a commercial hit was clearly visible throughout the movie and it didnot seem like a Kamal movie at times. Mallika Sherawat singing and dancing for a tamil song in a Las Vegas night club and the pistol taking away the cancer from Avtar Singh's throat are good examples for the blemishes. When movies like "Anbe Sivam" donot get the commerical value, one cannot expect such kind of a classical film on such a huge investment. But the thing is, the movie stumbles not knowing which path to follow - the commercial or the classical. The response in the B and C centres remains to be seen, as there are nothing much in this movie to please them.

I would say that too many things are tried out in this movie, which is difficult for the audience to take. Too many things conveyed, too many characters used and everything was a overdose. There is a saying, "Too many cooks spoil the food" but, here too many ingeredients have spoiled the taste of the food. The technical qualities of this movie is not so brilliant as hyped. The second big disappointment comes in the form of the graphics used in this movie. They were a touch better than the usual tamil cinema graphics, but nothing extra-ordinary. The much expected "tsunami" set was also not so appealing.

Songs, except "Mukuntha Mukuntha" and "Kallai mattum" are pretty ordinary and the usual trend of the songs becoming big hits after the movie's release doesn't seem to happen this time. But, the background score was appreciable.

After Kamal, comedy was the next best thing in this movie. The "Balram Naidu" character was the best for me out of all the ten which was characterized beautifully for handling the comedy part. Infact, it got the movie going in the second half. Thanks to the editor for making the movie fast paced. The first half was infact better than the second. "Ulaga Nayagane" song is used as the credit song and the make-ups Kamal had to undergo for all the characters were shown briefly, which was good to see, but it was K.S.Ravikumar who spoiled the visual by his annoying screen presence and dancing. I don't really know why is he very particular about showing his face in all his movies.

There is a lot to talk about Kamal's make-ups but it is not wise to disclose everything here. It was really hard to belive that Kamal has donned certain characters as you cannot really identify him! Some makeups were really amazing and some were looking odd. Let me rate the get-ups out of ten.

Balram Naidu - Very minimal makeup yet very realistic - 10/10

Vincent Poovaraghan - 9.5/10

Fletcher - 9/10

Nambi - 9/10

Japanese - 8.5/10

Bush - 8/10 (Looked odd in the first long shot, but later on it was good)

Krishnaveni Paatti - 7.5/10

Avtar Singh - 7/10

Khalifullah Khan - 6.5/10

The tenth character is Govind, the normal looking Kamal, so I don't think I need to rate that.

There is a lyric in the song "Ulaga Nayagane" which says "Oscar dhooramillai", but after spending so much of money and putting up a lot of effort, it seems that Oscar is not even near the vision. People can now stop comparing this movie with hollywood as it is nowhere near to their technical qualities.

After the movie was over, I came out quickly and was waiting near the car for my other friends to come. They came to me, shook my hands and said "Sivaji was far better", "Thalaivar, thalaivar dhaan". Mind you, they are not Rajini fans. May be since they all know that am a Rajini fanatic made them say this to me, but I was not comparing the movie and infact I didnot even talk bad about it. They didnot like the movie as much as I did! The thing is this, people would automatically start comparing a Rajini film and a Kamal film. If we say that there is no story in Dasavatharam, his fans would argue whether Sivaji had a story in it and start making the comparisons. I am not here for comparisons and I have always insisted that Rajini and Kamal shouldn't be compared as they serve the cinema industry in two different aspects, but it is a painful fact that the story line is very feeble and hard for people to correlate.

Though not a part of the reivew, I wanted to write this because I was just wondering what it takes to please the audience. You might have put on a hell lot of efforts, show them something that they have never seen before, but it takes something special to reach the masses. Sivaji was not made with such big efforts, Rajini didnot do ten roles, but still nobody can deny the fact that when people came out from the theatres after watching "Sivaji", they felt so energetic and happy after watching "Mottai Boss" on screen. May be that is called the "Rajini magic".

One-Line:

Worth watching for Kamal.Don't carry much expectations though. Time pass, bigtime!