Kuselan - Not your usual Thalaivar padam
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Kuselan for the most part is the telling of a simple story of two friends. This is a story that had potential for understated and yet effective performances, considering the caliber of the leading actors in the mix. Having watched the Malayalam original, one went into this Tamil remake with just a few expectations. While all of them were satisfied, I haven’t been able to digest some of the additional parts that have been added to the Tamil version ,perhaps to satisfy the front benchers.
Case at point - the “comedy” track featuing Vadivelu’s character and his wife. And why the fixation with skin, be it Nayanthara’s or the other actress who played Vadivelu’s wife? Not something I’d want to see in Thalaivar padam, but this has been an alarming recurring scenario starting with Chandramukhi. Thalaivaa, can you step in and put a full stop to this nonsense?
While I am still the quintessential die-hard Rajini fan, I try to take the movie’s story at face value and mold my expectations accordingly. But that is just me. I can’t speak the same of the other members of the fan fraternity. From what I saw around me in the screening in the premiere last night here in Jersey, if this movie tanks in the box office, it will be because of misplaced expectations. And one can only blame the promos of the movie and the creators of these promos for creating false notions of this being a standard Thalaivar padam. In reality though, this story was (at least originally) not about the Superstar. It was/is all about his friend, Balu.
But the promos (including the official website) have so far featured only Rajinikant with rest of the cast relegated to mere footnotes. Even the music CDs that were handed out yesterday for everyone at the premiere, have only Rajinikant’s image on the cover. That, IMO, is a great disservice to the other cast members, especially Pasupathy and Meena. Their’s might not be award winning performances, but they played the characters that the movie was about. And those are the characters that I will recommend that you watch this movie for.
For a longer extensive review, check out my post in UberDesi.
ÜberDesi
mlc
August 1st, 2008 at 9:40 pmperfectly said! my thots exaclty anantha! na post podanum nu nenaikumbodhu, i def. thot i shd start off w/ sayn this is NOT yr typical rajni movie and look at yr title:-)! and u knw what? i knew b4 hand that thalaivar wl b there only fr abt 30 mts in the whole movie and knew i shd’nt expect that this wud b like anyothr rajni movie. aana avar yeppolaam frame le vandhaalum, it was AWESOME! last 20 mts made me cry.. romba touching-a irundhadhu! and yes, i felt the ’skin’ show was added & unnecessary.
maxdavinci http://www.maxdavinci.com
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 pmwell i suggest you watch subramaniapuram then. realism hits you hard. Kuselan was badly marketed. What should have been a multiplex movie was sold to the masses.
Arun http://arunsundarthinks.blogspot.com
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 amAanaalum dolphins’ varradhu ennaala thaangikavey mudiyala!
Anonymous
August 5th, 2008 at 2:47 am@maxdavinci
Kuselan, a multiplex movie?? lol thats a joke!
I am happy that P Vasu finally got what he deserved - nothing.
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August 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pm