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AZHAGANA PONNUTHAAN MOVIE REVIEW
Review by : Behindwoods review board
Starring: : Raja Karthik, Namitha, Nizhalgal Ravi, Mayilsaamy.
Direction: Thiru
Music: Sundar C. Babu
Production: K cinema Presents
Maathi Yosi is director Nanda Periyasami’s second offering after his Oru Kalluriyin Kathai. This time around the director has plunged in with four new boys and Shammu of Kanchivaram fame. The title kindles one’s hope of freshness in the film sans clichés. Unfortunately, Periasamy’s unusual thinking has adhered to the title alone.

Maathi Yosi opens with four waywardly lower caste young men in a village who spend their life in ineffectual activities. While three of them have tattooed their favorite actors on their back, one of them tattoos the name of the daughter of village head who of course happens to belong to upper caste. Reacting to the ouster of a girl from their caste from the temple, the four bring the temple chariot to the place where the lower caste folks reside. Irked by this act, the village president arranges to thrash the four and discovers his daughter’s name in the tattooed back of one of the boys.
  Azhagana Ponnuthaan

This leads to further flogging of the boy who upon his friend’s insistence kisses the girl while she is sleeping in her house as a retaliating act. The backlash of this event results in the police inspector (who is already exasperated with the boys for various reasons) of the village to go on their trail but is thoroughly humiliated by them. Realizing that their stay in the village would be very dangerous, the four leave for Chennai where they meet Shammu (who happens to figure in the film after a long one hour). The rest of Maathi Yosi deals with what happens in their life after the arrival of Shammu on a highly predictable and unexcited path.

It’s as though the director is not sure about the premise of his film. When we think he is going to deal with the caste issue, he meanders to poverty and from there he ambles to a non-related subject. It leaves the audience completely flummoxed about his objective. It appears that he is inspired from the current Madurai fad of Kollywood. But Madurai Tamil, blood and gore without any sensible content can never save a film. At a time when there are directors who are on an untiring path to take Tamil cinema to the next level, it is appalling to see films like Maathi Yosi on a regressive journey.

The characterization of the four boys is fine but what about Shammu? Where does she come from? Who is she? Why does she trust these boys? Absolutely no clues! The activities of Shammu who is portrayed as an urban girl are an antithesis. She trying to have a function organized for the kidnapped girl attaining puberty and explaining it to the boys is one such example. There are many many characters that appear; they either kill or get killed. The boys are on a killing spree and conveniently nobody bothers about them! The director could have given some credence to audience’s intelligence.

Performance of the boys is just adequate and so is Shammu’s. The other members have done their job and some of them are very infuriating. No one stays in the mind. Ponvannan as a police officer does a small part.

Few dialogues reveal some kind of sparkle in this otherwise mindless film. The friends asking the jittery boy to pray to Kamal Haasan when he is on a mission to kiss the village headman’s daughter is one such example. Another scene when the police inspector chasing the culprits who looted the van, asking the boys who appear to be defecating on an open ground – did anybody go this way? And the boys replying, the entire village goes here. Who do you ask? (Inda Pakkam Yaarana Ponaangala? Inga Daan Graamame Poradu, Neenga Yaarai Keekareenga?)

The efforts of technical team do not come to the fore when the content cannot render them adequate support. Nothing remains in the memory about the songs scored by Guru Kalyan. The maamaama Maathi Yosi line that appears quite often is such an aural sore. And so is the screams of the ladies in the film for reasons known only to them. There is not much work for costume designer in Maathi Yosi as the boys are featured in just drab shorts most of the time.

There is one character in the film which says ‘I can’t see, I can’t see’ and commits suicide. She could not have echoed the audience’s sentiments in any other better way.

Verdict: Maathi Yosi only in title

Star: 0
Tags : Azhagana Ponnuthaan, Namitha, Nizhalgal Ravi
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