VISITOR COLUMN

With few low budget movies that released on the first week of 2013, Alex Pandian is the first star valued movie that hits the screen in 2013. We had many movies in 2012 that elevated the Tamil Cinema status to greater height, winning laurels among the media and public. Year 2012 closed with a good note overall and showed healthy runway for the movies to follow in 2013. Did Karthi starring Alex Pandian lead the way or pull the Cinema trend down?

Alex Pandian is said to be a mass, action entertainer but sadly it is neither of those - mass/action/entertainer. Lessons are to be learnt from the failures; necessarily not it should be their own failures. But the Director in spite of giving two consecutive flops - Padikathavan and Mappillai, he has not attempted to rectify his mess and seems to have reproduced the same mistakes much worse this time.

It is one and only Santhanam who runs the show till interval, keeps you stayed in the seat .This could have been better received if the double meaning dialogues were avoided. The first half of the movie has hardly 4-5 scenes about the story plot, the director tends to make it interesting by not revealing the roles of the lead characters but unfortunately the movie is tolerable only till the scene where the lead roles are revealed (which is the first half), rest all is up to you to stay in theatre or save your time. The pattern of the first half is wafer thin, there are four scenes where the baddies search for the lead pairs...these scenes are sandwitched at regualr intervals between Santhanam-Karthi comedy track.

It would not be fair to say that the movie has many holes in logic; rather there is hardly any logic in the story. An IAS Officer and a commissioner pointing the gun at a C.M at his residence is the best example of the logic handled .The way the director has taken the logic for granted would arise a question in audience that "Is this movie exclusively for kids who doesn’t even know what logic is and all they need is some fantasy”. It is high time Tamil Cinema quits lengthy action sequences especially the ones where the hero and stunt guys are flying up on the air...its time to wake up. The only savior in the second half is Mano Bala, his scenes in the movie are enjoyable .Story writer could alone answer what value does Saravanan’s role add to the movie...just for the sake of having the Paruthiveeran pair to re-appear on the screen the role has been penned. Two songs are of okay type - (Naalu pakkam & bad boys) out of which one is screened at the end of the movie.

Budding heroes are simply rocking; they are making the best use of the opportunity in their very debut. Karthi has to take it seriously in selecting scripts to sustain his fans that he has gained in a very short time of his carrier. Poor scripting makes the movie very average and leaves the actors and technicians far behind of worth a mention.

The year 2013 has begun with Alex Pandian setting an example of how a movie shouldn’t be made in this era.