Singam Film Review

Spoiler-alert !!!

Lets get the governing dynamics clear - Saamy + Vettaikkaran = Singam --> Equation 1

If all the Vijay films are turning out to be colossal disasters under the pretext of "No novelty in the storyline and performances", then why pick Vettaikkaran in the above equation ?. Because, it is the most recent Sun Pictures - Vijay combo, I watched on screens.

One can actually enter a bet to find six differences between "Vettaikkaran" and "Singam" - and can come up with points like, Aspiring police officer - Established police officer, the anti-social activity committed by the villains of the scripts etc. Anushka and Sun Pictures will contribute to the similarities list.

Well, the substantiation for Equation 1 needs to be presented. Now, have a look at the following template (for the first half of the movie only) and just match with how many ever movies you want. Saamy, Arul, Vettaikaran, Singam are some notorious titles which will readily sit-into it with some minor tweaks.

Villain's introduction - during and before title cards

Hero's introduction - Fight and opening song compulsory

Comedian's introduction (Association of the comedian with either the hero or the heroine)

Heroine's introduction (naughty, sportive, beauty)

Villain's family (the whole TN will know how bad the villain is, but the villain's wife is still not aware of it - the only job she seems to have is to serve breakfast for him)

Comedy scene 1

Heroine's family (the heroine is the darling of the 10-odd people in her family, she is offered all freedom but to choose her guy)

The villain is a bad guy - Instance 1 (committing some horrendous murders)

Hero's family (one more serial-family - this is optional)

The hero is an epitome of goodness - Instance 1

Villain's younger brother is a cheap rogue - womaniser, most of the times (turned on by the worker-maid or some shopping mall chic)

Hero-heroine look at each other, sometime some place (But, the heroine still haven't reserved some real-estate in her heart for him)

Comedy Scene 2

The villain is a bad guy - Instance 2 (So many crimes in the Indian penal code - Pick one here)

Hero catches a sight of the above (Trembling shoulders and boiling blood, he is not involving himself into the mess and stays away as he is not directly impacted by the "The villain is a bad guy - Instance 2" )

Villain's younger brother commits a heinous crime (related to his innate womaniser instinct or some acts of rowdism)

The hero unknowingly bumps into the Villain's brother and thrashes him (and 20-odd "office room boys") aside.

Heroine, fortunately gets a glimpse of the above - fall in love

Duet 1 in foreign locales.

Hero - villain main encounter - No punch dialogues here. The hero shows his intentions to shy-away from the mess but the villain is not letting him to do so.

Comedy Scene 3

Romance followed by Duet 2

Hero-Villain Head-on collision followed by the challenge - Punch dialogue guaranteed.

Freeze the frame as the hero concluded the punch - Spin the letters of I-N-T-E-R-M-I-S-S-I-O-N and deposit it on screen.

Hari - what more can be expected of the Master-Masala-Maker who invariably - will pick up a town/city, have a powerful villain dictating the story, eyecandy heroine reserved for the duets and a mean "meanwhile" style screenplay interspersed with comedy pieces. Hari has started maintaining a police-template also, I believe and "Singam" is the latest output of the template. Dialogues - "I ll make you run out of Tamilnadu", "Chivalry, courage, intelligence of the Tamilnadu Police" - Yappa !!! Enough of it man ... starting from Sethupathi IPS, many police officers have uttered these stuff out.

What is this "meanwhile" stuff, anyways ? - Pick the first 40 minutes of any masala movie - the hero, villain, heroine and comedian will be doing things on their own with zero correlation coefficient. The villain is doing some anti-social activity - "meanwhile" the heroine is playing around merrily in her home - "meanwhile" the hero is doing some good deed to the society - "meanwhile" the buffoon is doing something somewhere. Scenes follow one by one, like the above ... Don't dare to call this "screenplay" ever. Kamal Haasan, who has been conducting screenplay workshops should do one for these guys and inculcate some sense of screen writing in them.

When the first half was shot, well in lines with the above template, "Saamy" came to the rescue in the second half, in terms of screenplay. The hero - Romancing while in duty at check-posts, leading the ruffians to a lonely place to clobber them, losing some of his kins in the last 20 minutes, smartly follows the villain as he escapes to Andhra, delivers the final monologue message to the villain - are you not reminded of "Saamy" ?.

Surya - His 25th film this is. While I am very much happy with his resume thus far (starting out as a shy-ridden, seemingly resourceless and a naive youngster, whose only credential then was that - he was the son of the veteran actor Sivakumar), I am not full-of-praise for his 25th film. But, there were enough films in his kitty which will speak of his value as a performer to the present day tamil cinema. With his penchant for performances and an undeniable panache, Surya seems to be the only actor whom you can bank upon in look for good cinema. Way to go Surya and if he is inclined more to be a "hero" like his contemporaries (like in "Singam"), he is disappointing many in our camp.

Coming to Surya's performance in "Singam" - He just exhibits an animated, arrogant, powerful, adrenalin-ridden police officer, pulverising the jumbo-looking "office room boys" (like "Vettaikkaran" Vijay) in a few strokes. While speaking to his adversaries, Surya stands with his legs-apart ("stable equilibrium", probably) and shouts-aloud the dialogues (a bit irritating and monotonous mannerism, it becomes). He is soft-spoken only to Anushka and his family-people. There's a remarkable improvement in his dancing abilities as well, no doubts. The fight sequences should be loads-of-work for the film editor - so many shots - Juggernaut-like Surya thrashing the baddies, exploding tata-sumos, flying rowdies, slashing glass pieces - so much to cover and add to that a racy speed with which the sequence is enacted.

Though one can be easily critical of Surya's performance in the movie, owing only to the monotone of a masala movie, you can only admire his crackerly-attitude in whatever he does on screen. His body language evokes an unconditional strictness (of a police officer) through-out and his fit 'n' trim physique add a special punch for the role, he enacts. Now, on a comparative note, there is a substantial difference in the character displayed by Anbuchelvan (Kaakha Kaakha) and Durai Singam (Singam). The former sounds more driven by intuitions & smartness and the latter by emotions & raw physical abilities (yeah, there is a lot of cognitive smartness as a police officer, exhibited by Durai Singam also). Anbuchelvan is a calm-n-composed urbane police officer whereas Durai Singam articulates pages of punches in high pitches. Gautham Menon and Hari !!!

Anushka Shetty - Has she got some meat in the script to chew upon ?

This is a masala/mass/entertainer

This is a hero-centric Hari film

This is from Sun Pictures

She is reserved for songs, precisely. Especially, in the second half, where the hero's itinerary is really filled up with appointments-with-villains, Anushka should have tried keeping herself busy with her dance master and the wardrobe-expert for the upcoming duet sequences (Hari has already sent her lines in several SMSes). Her cleavage-friendly attires in the songs successfully received many a "oohs" and claps from the audience. And yeah, she is tall and gorgeous.

And, I wanted to mention this - There's this atrocious sequence which would lead Surya (Durai Sngam) to nick-name the heroine "Puli" in line with "Singam", which Hari also uses to get them introduced to each other - absolute lack of creativity, I felt.

Prakash Raj - looks aged - made up for the role, probably. Nothing special here - he has tossed up tons of performances like this, on us. For the umpteenth time, he is the Big Dada of the city with the police and politicians under his belt - owns many Tata sumos and elephantine "office room" boys. Loses out finally to Durai Singam, the untouchable tough cop.

Support Cast - It looks like, there has been an ordinance in effect at the Tamilnadu Film Artistes Association that atleast two from the following set {Vijaya Kumar, Radha Ravi, Manorama, Nizhalgal Ravi, Nasser}, should be a part of the support cast in any big budget production. Hari, so graciously includes the entire band here. No offence meant on the extremely talented artistes above, but we have got so much used to these guys' body language, dialogue delivery and mode of emotions that nothing new is in store for us. Support cast, on the other hand, is only horribly typecasted, thus trashing the real "potential" in these wonderful actors. They, like countless other occasions, deliver a cliched but balanced performance. we should feel sorry for talented thespians like Nasser, Girish Karnad who were always picked for petty malefactor roles. On a welcome note, our cinema these days, is actually getting progressive in sorting out the support artistes from the "society".

Vivek - should consult a good doctor - His "Mokkais" are turning pathetic. The concept of "Sirippu Police" has been tested by time but the comedy track just sucks here. Same old "Injury between legs" man !! ... When Murali and Vadivelu pole-vaulted and Vadivelu hurt his "%^&*" (for the first time, I believe), it was moderately funny with his facial expressions. Enough of it, Vivek tries to sound funny calling it by different names - Mani, Sombu, bulb - Not funny any more.

Songs were actually a let down. But, Sun pictures can make Dindukkal Sarathy's songs popular. Sun Music will take care of the rest. This has been in light for some time now - tamil pronunciations by North Indian singers - Shaan sings "Oru Vaarthai MoLiyaale" - Unbearable. "En Idhayam" was shot well in some ravishing foreign locales. And, according to Sun pictures rules, there was a real kuthu number 20 minutes before the close of the movie - Surya did a almost-Vijay here, dancing really well.

I have this feeling that we turn a bit hypocritical when it comes to Surya and very much hypercritical to Vijay. Of course, Surya has proved his capability as a performer many a times before while the latter has never done so. Surya should, in future, choose his scripts judiciously to not to fall into "that" category.

Singam - Tamed circus lion performing routine stuff.

The Informant

Of course nothing, with Whiteacare was what it seemed. Calling himself 0014, because he’s twice as smart as 007, Whiteacare soon became the informant from hell.

Soderbergh tells Whiteacare’s story in elegant, minimalist frames. The film never engages you emotionally.

But it provokes a laughter that catches in your throat because the sub-text is so cynical and sad.

The Informant is propelled Scott Z. Burns’ screenplay, which includes a long-running monologue by Whiteacare, on items as varied as used girl panties on sale in Japan and polar bears. But its biggest strength is Damon’s performance.

The A-list star, wearing a ridiculous hair-piece and 30 pounds overweight, transforms himself into a brilliant character actor.

He is ferociously funny and yet, always, tragic. The Informant isn’t a Soderbergh classic. But there is enough juice and fun here to make it a worthy watch. I recommend that you catch it.

Kamal sir and Remakes

"There is nothing wrong in remaking a good idea. In fact Kamban's Tamil Ramayanam itself was nothing but a very intelligent remake of the original Ramayana." - KAMAL HAASAN.

In an era where people, in an attempt to recreate magic, tend to completely miss the point made by the films they try to remake, one man gets the soul right more often than not. His screenwriting career has had several bouts of both legal and illegal plagiarisms but one thing common about everything he remakes is the intelligence factor. He has an uncanny knack of always coming up with smart adaptations of already tried and tested stories.

With his latest film being the remake of last year's bollywood hit ' A Wednesday', here is a look back at the various movies kamal has remade/copied and the various ideas he's intelligently adapted.

1) Kurudhi Punal/Drohkal - as they say, we should always start from the best. This is one rare remake, where the maker of the original came out in public and said the remake and performances in it are better than in mine. Not just Govind Nihlani but also the association which sends Indian movies to the oscars was completely awed at the way this film was shot.

2) Vasool Raja MBBS/ Munnabhai MBBS - "This movie did not take me anywhere. I did it for friendship's sake" is what kamal had to say about vasool raja. I agree. The original was definitely ahead but the remake wasn't a bad one either. It did have its own moments of magic coupled with some very witty humour thanks to the great language that Tamil is.

3) Virumandi/Roshomon-life of david gale - Though brilliantly conceived and executed, this film at its release recieved some criticism from a few quarters which pointed out that the film misses out on its main aim - talking about the journalist interviewing a capital punishment accused. This aspect and only this aspect of the film is actually taken from the Kevin Spacey starrer - Life of David Gale. The screenplay is taken from the Akira Kurosawa classic - roshomon. This can't even be called a copy because the roshomon screenplay is so famous that it is now called "The Roshomon Effect", which is "employed" as a screenwriting technique.

4) Anbe sivam/ Trains planes and automobiles - Well this not even an inspiration. Anbe sivam just takes the 'two people with opposing views travelling together' concept and beautifully mixes it with its own emphasis on love,god, communism, humor,charity, art and what not...

5) Thenali/ What About Bob - The entire plot is lifted in from the Bill Murray starrer but is credited to Crazy mohan. A few scenes especially the interview sequence is completely taken. But here again, kamal improvises with some spectacular original acting like in the long "ellam siva bayam" dialogue where he makes us laugh first and then makes us weep. Only a few actors can do that through a single dialogue. Kamal is one of them.

6) Avvai Shanmukhi/ Mrs Doubtfire-Toutsie - Though the plot is a straight lift from the Robbin Williams comedy- Mrs. Doubtfire, the original inspiration for this role is from one of Kamal's favourite actors' movies - Dustin Hoffman's Toutsie. Kamal delivers an unforgettable performance as the super maami in this complete rib tickler. Crazy is at his best too.

7) Sathi Leelavathi / She Devil - Not exactly a copy or even an inspiration but both films deal with a very common issue. The stress in sathi leelavathi however is intelligent humor unlike the completely slapstick she devil. And the coimbatore accent from Kamal completely steals the show.

8) Devar Magan / The Godfather - Intelligent script writing is at its peak. To take the "son rises" soul of the Godfather and effortlessly insert it into a magnificent rural setting is no mean task and kamal the writer breezes through it. Trivia - It was a bet between two friends on who will remake the godfather first. Mani won the bet, but Kamal made the better remake.

9) Sathya/ Arjun - Suresh Krishna's brutal potrayal of the angry young unemployed is actually a scene by scene take from a sunny deol starrer. The romance track in sathya however was much more watchable thanks to some exceptional performances from Kamal and the super cute Amla.

10) Enakul Oruvan / Karz - The mutual admiration between Kamal and Rishi Kapoor is obvious. Both being masters of romance in their own right. Kamal liked Rishi's karz and decided to star in its tamil remake yeilding some decent results at the box office.

11) RaajaParvai / Butterflies are free-Graduate - The Hoffman fan in kamal rises to the fore again. This time dedicating an entire climax to him through his first screenplay- Raajaparvai. But the rest of the story is taken from this classic called "Butterflies are free" - A neat attempt at remaking.

12) Magalir Mattum / Nine to Five - An unfortunate brutal rip off credit to Kamal's Pen. I am not really sure about what was in his mind at this point of time. Though he tried his best to make the movie as Indian as possible

Some other mild inspirations - Nammavar (To sir, with love), Panchathantiram (Things gone wrong), Naladamayanti (Dont remember the movie's name) have mild tinges of inspirations.

Movies remade from kamal's - Well there are plenty of them. A very high number. Many of Anil Kapoor's works are taken from Kamal movies like Virasat (Devar Magan) , Eshwar (swathi muthyam), Etc. Etc. An article on this is coming up soon.

So lets hope film makers like Jeyam Raja take the cue from Kamal Haasan and make some intelligent adaptations instead of indulging in costume remaking.

Happy filmmaking. Happy remaking.