After a hard day’s toil at the office and entering my house with full of hunger and tiredness, I was shocked when I got a call from an erudite school friend. I picked up the call with eagerness and anxiety to hear him say “Machan, Kuselan ticket irukku, varriyaadaa”. I immediately said a yes to him just because it was thalaivar’s movie and that too first day night show in albert (summa thaaru maaraa irukkum, seriousa). Everyone arrived in the theatre on time and he went inside the theatre at 10’o clock only to know that the show will begin 20 minutes late due to some problems among the fans and the theater owners (What the fuck????)
Now coming to the review:
Kuselan is the remake of Malayalam hit Kadha Parayumbol which was written by Srinivasan and had Srinivasan and mammooty in the leading roles which has Rajinikanth the “superstar” of Tamil cinema industry in an extended cameo role.
I haven’t watched a single scene in the Malayalam original so I cannot compare it with the Tamil remake. The film is about a financially poor, struggling barber Balakrishnan (Krishna) who has some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and is forced due to circumstances to seek the favor of his one time close friend and now popular star Ashok Kumar (Kuselan), but is not even able to meet the star in person.
The film starts on an extremely boring note, with some extremely illogical scenes of a poor man struggling in his life; he is struggling to pay the school fees of his children and without money to renovate his antiquate barber shop and blah, blah, blah….
Then this is followed by some by some silly over the top comedies by Livingston, Santhana Barathy and M.S Bhaskar .The comedy from the trio is extremely senseless and illogical and just makes you wonder how these things happen in a super star film, (I heard a rumor that the superstar wanted Livingston to act in this film (Ennala mudiyala)).
Then it is followed by the most anticipated introduction of Vaigai puyal Vadivelu (who said this film doesn’t have a villain?) He is the man on a mission; he is portrayed as a comic villain to pasupathy but he is actually the villain to the audience.
He is irritating to the core and simply annoys us to the hilt with his crap piece of work in the name of comedy. I don’t know how long would he survive in the industry with his silly “always getting beaten up” and double meaning dialogues. Then there is one actress who comes as the wife of our Vaigai puyal (who looks like she has just come back from a porn movie shooting). She looks absolutely pathetic and she is a total disgrace to the tamil cinema just like Mr.Peeee Vasu. The first thirty minutes in the film is the worst I have ever watched in recent times with one really bad song (but Cinematography rocks in the song).Well Mr.Perarasu be happy, you are not the worst director in tamil cinema; you have a big competition to face in your next movie because Mr.Peee Vasu has overtaken you by leaps and bounds. Then comes the much anticipated and much relieving introduction of our “Super star”. This is one of the superficial introductions Rajini has ever had (sporting the KURUVI vijay getup and with a horse which can fly). I think the director must have watched Animal Planet the previous night. But still you enjoy it to the core (may be because of the nonsense you had to endure so far). Followed by Cinema, cinema song which mostly praises superstar than cinema with guest appearances from Surya, Dhanush, khushboo, soundaraya rajinikanth and sneha. Then comes some shooting scenes of the film Annamalai part 2 and if you think that the film is bad the film within this film is worse to say the least (SS mouthing punch dialogues to nayanthara).
Then the most anticipated words appear in the film; “The Interval” and everybody literally run out to the toilets (to vomit I believe). Some pop corn and pepsi goes inside with everybody crying that they missed out on a good sleep (like me).
In the second half the same old crap continues (it is midnight, wish I had a good nap), you have an inconsequential song sequence which has no relation whatsoever to the film. Nayanthara dances in the rain flashing all that she has, showing cleavage and others as usual (At last, some bright spots in the movie!!). Then everybody in the village starts asking pasupathy for favors; you just wonder how come so many people believe that he is close to Ashok kumar (may be because he has been portrayed as a very honest man, very logical indeed). A song for that too (OMG)!!
Then there is the one of the three interesting scenes (entertaining) scenes in the film, the scene when Vadivelu meets Rajinikanth. Vadivelu who had literally tortured us so far does a really commendable job in this scene. But still as usual, the boss is the show stealer. He simply rocks with his trade mark smile and stylish reactions. Then an another song (om zare) sticking out like a sore thumb ; but the sets, cinematography (Aravind Krishna rockz) and costumes rock and you would love to see superstar and Nayan in that song.
Then comes, the second most interesting scene in the film when R Sundarrajan asks a few questions to Rajinikanth . This time R. Sundarrajan absolutely rocks and steals the shoe from SSRK . More than the questions its way he put forward his questions which was rocking. But Kamal Hassan dialogues could have been avoided I believe. Even though the climax moves you; when you think about it you will feel that it is illogical.
1. How come Ashok Kumar speaks about his lost friend Bala Krishan exactly in this school meeting it is not even a friendship day. Does he speak about his lost friend where ever he goes?
2.Odipona payan kitta eppadi appavoda chair (as told by pasupathy in the first scene).
3.The most important thing. How come the director takes two movies (annamalai 2 and chandramukhi 2) at the same time (Extraordinary thinking I believe)?
Many could feel that the film is watchable because the final impact is the climax and that’s pretty decent but overall the film sucks to the core.
Positives
1. Rajini screen presence and rocking performance in the climax
2. Really appealing climax
3. R Sundarrajan
4. Cinematography by Arvind Krishna (One request to Mr. Aravind Krishna: don’t do movies with such crap directors and plzz reunite with selvaraghavan).
5. Nayanthara (for her structure and cleavage!!)
Negatives
1) Vadivelu ( biggest negative, Mr. Vadivelu plz try something else.. this is getting monotonous).
2) Boring buffoonery done in the name of comedy by almost every body.
3) Extremely boring and clichéd emotional scenes.
4) Very average below par performances from everybody (except SS and pasupathy)
5) Totally inconsequential songs
6) Screenplay moves at snail’s pace
7) CG work (Where are dolphins in the lakes of TN???)
Wafer thin plot with a listless screen play written depending only on SS.
All in all a double thumbs down for P. Vasu’s Kuselan. It is the worst movie by “Super Star” Rajinikanth and P.Vasu (all his films are worst anywayz) till date.
FINAL VERDICT FROM EVERYBODY: Aiyo poche!! 100 Rs poche!!!
MY VERDICT : 1/10 (Chandramukhi was far better).