Aadhavan - Mediocre/Watchable!!

Movie - Aadhavan (Tamil)

Director - KS Ravikumar

Producer - Udhayanidhi Stalin

Cast - Suriya, Nayanthara, Saroja Devi, Murali, Rahul Dev, Vadivel, Shayaji Shinde, Anu Haasan

Music - Harris Jayaraj

Cinematography - Ganesh

Editing - Don Max

Release Date - 17th October 2009

KS Ravikumar's movies have always been extremely watchable. Some have even turned out to be the some of the biggest hits in Tamil Cinema (Muthu, Avvai Shanmughi, Padaiyappa, Dasavathaaram, etc.). He joins hands with rising star Suriya for another mass entertainer, produced by young-gun Udhayanidhi Stalin. It has all the trappings of a typical mass movie that we expect from a typical Ravikumar movie, but the magic is missing here. I watched it in Rohini multiplex, Chennai -probably the worst multiplex ever in the world. It has some six odd theatres in it, each of them being worse than the other. There was a bat flying inside the theatre, and for most of the time, I was amused by that more than the movie.

The movie begins by paying homage to the great Malayalam actor Murali, who has played a crucial character in the movie. The story is about an assassin Aadhavan (Suriya) who is hired by Rahul Dev, to kill a judge Subramaniam (Murali) because he is the head of the commission against him. Aadhavan fails in his attempt to kill the judge first and works out a plan to get into the judge's house and kill him there with the help of the servant of the house (Vadivel). The story develops from here with a lot of humour, songs, family sentiment and a twist towards the end. 

Suriya shines throughout the movie. The actor, who did a similar mass masala movie earlier this year (Ayan) looks like he is trying to earn the mass hero tag too, something which every actor needs to have, to survive in the Tamil industry. The actor almost succeeds in doing that. He also dances to MGR songs, mouths dialogues written by Ravikumar himself for superstar Rajnikanth earlier and does everything that a mass hero is supposed to be doing. He carries the whole film on his shoulder. The portions where he appears as a 10 year old, look freaky in the beginning, but we get used to it. And he has done a good job in that too, with the help of some graphics. Nayanthara has nothing much to do. She does not even get to show some skin, something which she does in all her movies now. She doesnt look very nice also, except for the scenes where she comes in half-sarees. Murali, in his last screen appearance, plays the role of the strict judge well. But the man who almost has as much screen time as the leading man, is Vadivel. It is a relief to see him doing a role which actually has some connection to the main story of the movie. His comedy is not bad, for a change and the audience were loving it. His combination scenes with Suriya are quite hilarious. Yesteryear actress Saroja Devi is just there so that the director can add some scenes to joke about MGR and of course, her make-up. 

Harris Jayaraj's music is not his best. Ayan's music was much better. The 'Masi Masi' song was totally unnecessary. Suriya's introduction song, 'Damakku Damakku' was pretty good. The song shot in Iceland, 'Yeno Yeno Panithuli' was good to watch, even though Nayanthara was wearing some stupid costumes. 'Hasili Fisili', the already hit song was received with maximum applause and the song has been picturised very well too. 'Vaarayo Vaarayo' is melodious. The background score has nothing worth mentioning about. Harris Jayaraj should stop recycling his old tunes and give us more stuff like Vaaranam Aayiram. 

Cinematography by R Ganesh was apt for the movie. Though there are not many impressive shots that you will remember, he has done a decent job. Don Max, the editor from Kerala, impresses with his editing, discarding his jarring style which he learned from the Shaji Kailas films he has worked on in Malayalam. His work in the 'Hasili Fisili' song was very impressive. When Kanal Kannan is the action choreographer, you can expect some good stunts. He is one of the few people who manages to create good stunts without people flying around and all those stupid gimmicks. He concentrates more on man-to-man combats, and thats what make these stunts interesting. Though his work in this movie does not reach the level of his work in Ghajini, Bheema and Ayan, it is good nevertheless. The graphics work was consistently bad, except for the part of the 10 year old Suriya.

KS Ravikumar has tried to be hep and cool with this movie and has tried to cater to the young audience too. We expect either some firebrand material like Padaiyappa or an out and out comedy like Panchathanthiram from him usually. But the usual masala magic is missing in this movie. The movie goes at a great speed, but still there is something missing. Even though every ingredient of a mass masala movie is present, you dont feel that the movie is gripping at any point. The twist and the family sentiment in the second half are not very effective and are easily predictable. The climax was total let-down. A director with much lesser experience, KV Anand, was able to give a very engaging masala entertainer with the same hero Suriya through Ayan, earlier this year and turned it into a blockbuster. The producer of the movie Udhayanidhi and KS Ravikumar make an appearance at the end of the movie also and try to do a comic scene, which falls flat. The idea of using Suriya's own face as a 10 year old was good, but it takes some time for the audience to get used to it. 

On the whole, the movie is pretty mediocre and maybe, watchable, just for Suriya's charming screen presence. The comedy is also pretty decent. If you can ignore the huge plot-holes and have lots of time to kill, you can try watching this movie. 

Rating - 2.5/5