2018, Tamil, Amazon Prime, 6.4/10 IMDB, Directed By Anand Shankar
A macho movie OF the masses, FOR the masses and BY the masses but sans the masses. Miserly budget and mediocre direction to blame.
What’s NOTA about? Is it political satire? Is it comedy? Is it drama? Is it social reforming? Is it an awakening call?
It’s None Of The Above.
A bold and audacious script no Tamil hero would have dared to attempt with the current political scenario of the state, bravo to the Telugu heart-throb Vijay Devaragonda for choosing the story line with no love interest whatsoever, especially after his recent romcom, Geetha Govindham.
Director Anand shankar of ‘Arima Nambi’ and ‘Irumugan’ fame, strays and misses the Golden Egg opportunity with studio green production to launch VijayD into Tamil industry.
The bilingual movie is not as regional as we would have celebrated it to be except for the Actor Nassar, Sathyaraj and a phenomenal voice dub with flawless tamil accent from VijayD. One is alienated with the casting of every single character or is it the soapy direction that wanders you from connecting with the movie as our own.
The disjoint and mismatch in the first half might be because you are trying to choose between the political affair of Andra Pradesh and Tamilnadu both current and the past.
Movie opens with a partying hunk VijayD, mouthing a Tamil song (sounding as purely as Telugu), in a theme park back drop with girls around. When the song ends, you are evoked with the information that he is to be sworn in as CM of TN the next morning and is escorted home.
Just when Shankar’s ‘Mudhalvan’ plays on your memory and you end up expecting a power play, you are loaded with unimpressive sequences that does away the magic that ought to have been created with an actor like vijayD in hand.
The tragedy of an accident in which a child is burnt alive in a government bus by the ruling party caders in protest to the news of their leader’s conviction, if that’s not where a director could strike gold, don’t know where else he could. A sheer let down with very few extras to play crowd, even less than that of a TV soap with poorly staged series of actions to follow.
The second half is a mere life saver, as one evades time with quizzes like who is playing which real-life character? If Nassar is playing Jayalalitha in the hospital, then who is playing sashikala? Is VijayD playing TTV Dinakaran, unlocking the hidden treasure in Panama banks? Is the opposition party’s kayal character, Kanimozhi or Stalin? Is MS Bhaskar playing EPS? Koovatthur recreation and PK Nagar election does tickle you.
The airing of a tricked kissing clip of VijayD in political vengeance, was hilariously disproved and substantiated with MGR’s, Vijaykanth’s and NTR’s on-screen kissing scenes. Wonder when VijayD and the producer are going to be summoned for being disrespectful towards the leaders.
Sathyaraj and Nassar try very hard in holding the plot and they succeed a fair bit. Sanjana’s opposition leader’s daughter character brings back fond memories of invincible Trisha’s negative character from ‘Kodi’.
The flood management scene was staged beautifully and you only wish in real life we learn from our mistakes and learn to value human lives better. The dream to clean the Koovam river and go boating the day before the election instead of campening for votes was a dream of millions of us. Kudos to the director for reiterating the same.
There is some serious trouble in the editing of the movie as it is denying the audience the flow that might help us indulge in the movie better.
Sam C’s music not worth mentioning.
The script paves plenty of scope for the director to score a good number of goosebump moments but ends sloppy.
The movie is not a must watch but anything for VijayD’s charm, his wide eyed reactions, his tight faced concern look, his angry body language and his commitment to the project through all the interviews he had given.
The climax voice over of VijayD, about the official buildings being huge in size for a reason, to make the masses believe that its a Santorum of God, and a politician better be a God protecting the people, was alright, but without enough substantiations in the screenplay the metaphor fails to add up.
It’s ironically saved by the fanfare of TN’s preposterous state of affairs.