Jigarthanda - Audacity at its peak.

Wellll…. Where do I start? Before I start showering my praise on this movie, people who haven’t seen the film please read this review after you watch it. This may be a spoiler. And if you don’t have an idea of watching this movie, get the idea into your head right now. This is one 2 and half hours and 120 bucks well spent.

When I watched the trailer, to tell the truth I wasn’t really into the gangster musical idea. But I had watched Karthik Subburaj’s first movie – Pizza and I loved it. So I decided to give this one a try. I respect that decision now.

It is very difficult to describe this movie as I can’t seem to pen down the right words. I was just blown away by the sheer audacity of the director to come up with this idea of a musical gangster comedy flick. I mean who would have thought of making a story with a gangster who wanted to act! Something that could have gone disastrously wrong, works amazingly well because the director had the right actors, the right technicians, the right dialogs, the right music all at the right time. From the beginning, where he shows how TV reality shows are hyped today, the director is bold with his story.

The trailer was purposefully misleading. I went in the theatre expecting gunshots and violent deaths. I got them but turns out that was only a side dish, served along with cheeky and intelligent dialogs and lots of raucous laughter and fantastic acting. Simha is definitely this year’s best find yet. His raw and stylish portrayal of Sedhu took me completely by delightful surprise. I had already noted his versatile acting in different movies like Neram, Pizza and Soodhukavvum. But I definitely couldn’t believe the guy who acted as the guileless dumb Pagalavan (in SoodhuKavvum), could pull off such a powerful core role like this, that would have ideally suited an old established actor. But he shows no signs of nervousness or doubts. He is completely at home for his expressions and body language and timing were all just right there. After Vijay Sethupathi, I think I have become a Simha fan! :D

One of my favourite parts of the movie was when a detective kills someone else, assuming he is Sedhu and the part where they show Sedhu had actually witnessed this murder. Sedhu merely looks at the guy and gets in the toilet and that itself was quite enough to convey the scene and raised loads of cheers from the audience. The most notable part of the movie was the very smart dialogs. KarthikSubburaj doesn’t mince the words. He knows the audience today is quite capable of understanding the language. So words like “gibberish and virgin” and not given a detailed explanation and I liked that. Such cheeky dialogs! And the scene with the acting classes, it was a complete laugh riot in the cinema hall. The music by Santhosh Narayan is one of the main reasons for the stylish portrayal of the gangster. It is very laudable and adds the right mood to the story.

If I had to find a fault with the movie, I guess the romance part of it lacked lustre. You don’t really care. After the extremely romantic “Mogathirai”, I expected something similar. That would probably be the only fault I could find. But to be honest, the story is not keen on romance and I don’t complain because the movie compensated plenty more on the other parts.

Being a very biased Vijay Sethupathi fan, I would tell one of the best parts of the film was seeing my hero on the screen as a guest actor. I was so happy that I wasn’t the only one cheering for him. A sizeable portion of the audience erupted as he gave a sudden unexpected entry. The audience laughed and cheered at all the right places and itis refreshing to know we appreciate good acting, whether it is from a reputed actor or a team of newbies.

This Jigarthanda is one that has all the right ingredients. It is a thriller, gangster musical comedy, if you name that as a genre. Again being a biased Vijay S fan, I would say after SoodhuKavvum, this movie is a trend setter. Established actors, directors and musicians, you better look out. KarthikSubburaj and his team mean business. And they are here to stay! 

PS: I am definitely going for a 2^nd time!