NUGAM MOVIE REVIEW

Nugam is about two educated young men who land up in Chennai with destructive motives. They are contracted by foreign Nationals to bring down the Indian economy (!!!) by carrying out acts of terrorism such as mass bombings and a high-profile assassination, in Chennai.

There are other cinematic elements which are forced into the movie such as a couple of inexplicably amateurish romance tracks, a steamy little segment before the interval and not to mention the omnipresent song-dance routines. As a result of such large scale dumping, the movie goes out of form and shape, thereby resulting in a tiresome movie viewing experience.

There are several scenes where foreign languages are used and the subtitles for these scenes disappear in a jiffy, before we can even register them.

We also have the director, Jeffy enlightening us about the terrifying bomb blasts which have rocked our country over the preceding years.

Why should an actress with potential such as Iniya accept such a movie where her presence is inconsequential? One just hopes that good offers reach her doorstep. Ganja Karuppu appears in a couple of scenes where he is supposed to make us laugh.

The two male leads are newcomers, Jai Bala and Vijaya Kumar. Jai speaks like a robot and there are these odd pauses when he utters his lines. He has several pages of dialogues and these pauses prove unsettling. Vijaya Kumar has the typical ‘son of the soil’ looks but has a long way to go if he has dreams of making it as a hero. Another newcomer, Suresh shows some potential in a small role as a local romeo who is madly in love. Preethi (as Yazhini) partakes in the aforementioned unwarranted hot pre-interval segment.

The only segment of the movie which shows some spark and offers a little entertainment is when the two leads debate and test whether the people of Chennai are worth their lives, in the second half.

Editor A.L.Ramesh has attempted an interesting transition pattern for showing time shifts in the narrative. Cinematographer E.K.Ramesh’s work loses some points for the out of focus shots which can be found at a few places in the movie. D.J.Gopinath’s songs may probably sound good on FM but when seen with the movie, they suffer due to the poor positioning.

Alas, this small timer doesn’t spring a surprise and turns out to be a movie which falters bigtime due to its poor execution.