First, I must accept that I was doubtful how Siddharth would
fit into a gangster story and well the story paves the way for it. For anyone
who have watched the movie, it is obvious that it doesn’t ride on Siddharth’s
shoulders. The movie is carried off screen by Karthik, the director and on
screen by Simhaa, the so-called villain.
The movie starts with Karthik, an aspiring director wanting
to write a true story based on a current day criminal. He is pointed to Assault
Sethu in Madurai by his uncle’s friend and he lands in Madurai trying to get
the inside scoop of Sethu’s rise to his current status. As all his planned
attempts miserably fail, he gets a windfall by the means of Sounder who wants
to make a name for himself in Sethu’s gang. But when Sounder falls into the
trap set for him, Sethu learns that somebody has been spying on him through Sounder
and vows to find him in an hour and kill him.
Usually, movies with this premise would have taken
predictably two routes, one the villain taking literally the next one hour to
track down the hero and the hero miraculously killing the villain and the
entire gang. Or the hero would have joined an opposite gang to escape from the
villain. Neither of them happen here, the hero is welcomed into the gangster’s
life once Sethu learns that his life is going to be made into a movie, on the
lines of Nayagan and Thalapathi.
When Karthik completes learning everything about Sethu and starts
to get back to Chennai, the pond gets muddier as Sethu wants to play the lead
role himself. An enjoyable comical portion follows as the baddies learn how easier
it is to live than act as themselves. How Karthik manages to make a movie with
Sethu as lead and still manages to start his career on an upswing forms what
can be called literally a ‘cinematic climax’. The director throws us off track
with red herrings when the producer says ‘I want a blood soaked
gangster movie’
and the mock up scenes played out with Vijay Sethupathi as the lead.
The cinematography and the RR are the two front pillars on
which this has been built. The background music right before the intermission
block rocked. The short flashback scene in which Sethu fires the gun from
within his car to kill off his enemies vividly stayed in my mind. The idea of
gangster movie immediately makes us think it is going to be violent, with fights,
trickery, deception and so on. It could also mean peeking into the everyday
life of a gangster. We get to see this from ‘seekiram mudichu udanne, kaalaila
appa-va doctor kitta kootittu ponom’, ‘naduveetla ponatha vechukitta sirippoli’.
And at last, a baddie who comes in a sedan and not a fleet of SUVs. Lakshmi menon,
Ambika, Karunakaran and the goondas in Sethu’s gang appropriately fit in their
roles.
To use an analogy here, at the point of intermission, the
train from Chennai to Delhi is somewhere near Nagpur. When we resume after intermission,
the train starts to leave in the direction of Kolkata. And for people who love
Katta Meeta, the turn is desirably tasteful. Let us just say Karthik’s Pizza
was for the masses but Jigarthanda might be only for those who like not knowing
what they are in for. I enjoyed it, might even watch it again.
