Many years back a scientist placed dying people on a delicate weighing balance and measured the change in weight at the instant of death and came to a conclusion that the human soul weighs 21 grams. Now, whether the existence of the soul has been scientifically proven or not, its weight has been ascertained and the fact has now been used as the curiosity evoking title of a Tamil movie.
One would wonder whether this movie is an interesting intellectual take on the existence of the soul, afterlife and some other such uncertain concepts. Please be assured, if there is anything in the movie that is worth being curious about, it is only the reason behind this rather odd title. Everything else is as run-of-the-mill as you have seen in Tamil cinema over the past few years. A gang of dons, infighting, groupism and gangs within the gang. The rivalry goes from push to shove and before you know the sickles are out. There is betrayal, double crossing, killing, shouting and a struggle for power, all faithfully put in to make what is an aspiring gang war story which should end up showing the birth of a criminal from the shadow of another. In the end, the director seems to want to say that criminals are like banana plants, they never go down without making sure that another one is on its way up.
If you want to know the meaning of mediocrity, you should watch this film. It looks completely out of place in our times where film making is thoroughly professional. It looks like a half baked attempt at putting together a full length feature film with oodles of violence without fully learning the trade of filmmaking.
The script is amateurish, the lighting seems deliberately dark and dank throughout without proper reason, dialogues are unnecessarily over the top, characters are jukeboxes of weird sounds, and violence is gory. Every scene in the movie is a test of your patience.
The movie has been made by a set of film institute students. Their enthusiasm and confidence is not to be criticized. But, they still have a lot to learn before coming out as quality filmmakers, which they might emerge as, in the future. But, this time, it is a lesson learnt the hard way for them. The only bright spot in the entire affair is performance of Thilakan as an ageing don, his presence is commanding as ever.
Verdict: Amateurish filmmaking!
UYIRIN IDAI 21 MOVIE REVIEW
