GANGS OF MADRAS

CV Kumar's second directorial Gangs of Madras has a shot of Raziya holding a cup of tea in her hands and an ant falls into it, struggling really hard to get out. This single shot summarizes the story of the film. She leaves everything she has, including her name, to lead a life with Ibrahim (played by a subtle Ashok Kumar). The problems start for Raziya, and the film after his death, because things go over the top more often than not.

The plot of the film is not as novel as it seems. We've seen countless films where a man seeks revenge for a tragedy in his life. Here we see a role reversal of sorts. Priyanka Ruth as Raziya is a revelation. Her acting is intense, and more importantly, she is the one who keeps you invested in the film. Her lack of stardom should have worked really well because you won't have the compulsion to compose a few slow-motion shots or close-ups give her character the extra-build up. However, the film spends more time trying to make her the 'heroine' than utilising her good acting skills. There is an interesting cast in Daniel Balaji, director Velu Prabhakaran, Aadukalam Naren who has played their roles well to the genre.

We are shown that Raziya is a woman of pure heart, and cannot go wrong. Her only negative trait - she serves revenge cold. When someone slaps her, she slaps him back the very next moment. So, when someone kills her husband, you know what she is going to do. To give it back to the perpetrators, she goes to Mumbai to get trained in kick-boxing and shooting. Within a few montages, she's back in Chennai, ready to take on the system that consists of cold-blooded gangsters, politicians, middlemen, and policemen too.

These events take place so fast, at the cost of depth. A section of the audiences might feel them artificial. The characters, the screenplay, and the narrative could have added more details. We get a high point during the interval block. Yes, people in the theatre clapped for it. Like a bottle of soda kept open for too long, the film loses gas towards the end. Even the narrative is non-interesting because a character tells you what happened, and we see Raziya doing exactly the same. For example, a policeman tells Raziya killed a gangster named Hussain. We are shown a visual of her killing Hussain, but not how.

One of the elements that keep us hooked is Shyamalangan's background score. It does remind us of Santhosh Narayanan's score for Jigarthanda, both sound-wise, and mood-wise (He is the music supervisor for the film). Even Karthik K Thillai's visuals remind you of Pudhupettai and Jigarthanda, because of the colours used. These are not issues as such, but a lot more creativity could have gone into the technical department.

That doesn't make Gangs of Madras a bad film either. There are good interesting moments, for instance, there is a painting in Raziya's house, that shows three lions cornering a tiny creature that looks like a mouse. This shot appears during the romantic portions between Raziya and Ibrahim, but later holds relevance to the proceedings. When so much care is taken about the detailing and metaphors, why sacrifice the narrative and screenplay to make the film more 'massier'?