Dasavatharam: Papa Don't Preach!

Finally, watched the latest offering from Kamal - probably the 17000th show of the movie post release! And to think that the movie is hardly three days old; shows the excessive dependence of openings by all and sundry in the industry. The wag inside says "அப்பதானே ஒண்ணும் தெரியாத அப்பாவி மக்கள அமுக்கிப் போட முடியும்!"... (only then, you can catch the innocent people unawares!)

Coming to D'ram... as the late great Sujatha used to say, can write the storyline at the back of a postage stamp.

Dangerous virus nullified by Tsunami and not God.

If the story had stayed with the first five words then it would have won the hearts of people. But the addition of last three words has caused the potential loss of a blockbuster status for the movie.

[But please don't confuse this with the 5 vs 8 discussion that takes place in the movie; the numbers mentioned above are purely coincidental!]

As usual, Kamal Rocks - not once, but ten times...as

- Rangarajan Nambi - fights for the Vaishnavism;
- Govindarajan (son of Ramasamy Naicker - an artist; not Periyar, not Kalaignar we are clearly told) tries to keep monkeys away from virii which are more potent than Ebola times thousand;
- George Bush - decides that the virus is better off being sent to India than returning back to USA;
- Chris Fletcher - shows us why ex-CIA agents are better than anybody else except...
- Nikkumo Nikkado (I made that name up:)) - perhaps the odd Japanese Karate Master who is out to avenge his sister's death;
- Avtaar Singh - loves his wife so much to give up singing, only to be cured by a bullet;
- Baby @ Khalifulla - overlords everybody as a graphics-induced-lighthouse
- Balram Naidu - tickles you pink as the aravam-spewing, telugu-loving bumbling cop
- Poovarahan Vincent - talks green-Dalitism in that fabulous Thirunelveli-Kerala tamil
- Krishnaveni - a senile 95-year old woman - drags Perumaal (yes, the Lord Himself) into the story!

If these lady and gentlemen are not enough, there is Asin to represent the I-shall-stick-to-the-Lord-like-Fevicol generation, PVasu-SanthanaBharati-Sundararajan sand-baggers, the delightful Jayaprada as Ranjeet Singh (Kaur?), Nagesh-KRVijaya Koran-and-People loving parents...oh! I forgot, the professional translator-cum-killer Mallika Sheravat (I think Gowthami Todimalla ran out of budget while designing her costumes and therefore...) the list goes on. But nobody gets etched in your memory as Kamal easily overshadows anybody and everybody in sight.

This is a movie that tries to show its intelligence in each and every frame, not to mention the intellectual inclination of Kamal!

Examples abound including...
- Ebola virus
- NaCl (until a very passing mention in the end, non-chemistry students will not be wiser that NaCl is actually common salt and that sea water has that in abundance; duh!)
- Puns between Nambi and Cholan (Napoleon)
- Blatant and not-so-blatant religious situations - way too many, starting from Kamal getting knocked on his forehead similar to Sri-Choornam only to be plastered immediately resembling a cross, the 'Amman Thunai' boat thrown on top of CSI along with the Perumal idol, how the Tsunami spares the people inside a mosque... it became tiresome after sometime.
- Too many 'விதண்டாவாதம்' dialogues - even the movie ends with one... 'கடவுள் இல்லைன்னு சொல்லலை! கடவுள் இருந்திருந்தா நல்லா இருக்கும்னு தான் சொல்றேன்!' (I am not saying that there is no God! It would have been great if He had been there!) but this has the potential to become as powerful as 'நீங்க நல்லவரா? கெட்டவரா? தெரியலேயேப்பா!' (Are you a good man or a bad man? But I don't know my dear!)

It is precisely this intelligence that has moved the movie to be more preachy than out-and-out entertaining.

Nambi preaches Vaishnavism, Govindarajan spews anything that could be atheistic to agnostic, Chris Fletcher vows by Capitalism, George Bush: escapism, Krishnaveni: sentiment; Poovarahan: Environment - you get the drift, I suppose.

What Kamal has tried to do is to give an 'Anbe Sivam' in a commercial container - being more explicit; being grander but ending being more confused.

Technically, the movie is a marvel, except a few frames, where the graphics were very clearly just that...graphics.

In the incessant chase between New York to Chennai to Chengalput to Chidambaram to Dindivanam to somewhere on the east coast to Nehru Stadium, one easily forgot that there are ten Kamals in the movie. As a result, the effort put in by Kamal and his crew to manage some very nifty multi-shots might get poo-pooed by people. But believe me, those are out there and they are fantastic. In a way, the hectic - albeit contrived - movement of the story can be attributed to the same.

Overall, full paisa-vasool because of the efforts that Kamal has put in - a good tail-piece in the end shows how much of prosthetic material has been used to get all the avataars...

But due to the inherent preachiness and confusion on the message to be conveyed, one should therefore pray for this movie to be a blockbuster (as against a normal hit), so that Kamal can continue his experiments in cinema.

To pray, i.e. தசாவதாரம் புஸ்ஸாவதாரம் ஆகாமல் இருக்க ... you can pick your choice - given purely based on alphabetical order)

(1) Allah
(2) Buddha
(3) Guru Govind
(4) Dollars
(5) Jehova (some reference to Jews, while the story was in Washington DC)
(6) Jesus
(7) Vishnu
(8) All of the above
(9) Some of the above
(10) None of the above

Confused? So am I.

P.S: Guys had panned the music; it is actually good; three of the songs were pretty hummable considering that I heard them for the first time in the theatre.

Lightest moment of the movie: The huge applause that greeted the shot that showed Chennai Airport after the story moved to India from US of A!!!! So much for America craze!