Kabali: Magizhchi?
This is not going to be an ordinary review. This one, for sure, will be different from the countless other reviews written for Kabali over the week. Since I’m writing this so late doesn’t mean it lacks insights that other reviewers failed to jot down. I can either exaggerate the stance of the movie or I can just state what was going on the screen but I’m more certain that I’ve done the latter. But just for monetary sake, I will magnify the movie in the last two paragraphs so some of my readers who weren’t happy with my writing until that point feel a little bit satisfied when they finish reading and close the tab.
That’s how Kabali runs for 152 minutes.
The film didn’t have any grandeur apart from (the swag of) Rajinikanth which is explained by the budget (compared to what Shankar might quote) and the way the Malaysian background plays out in most of the scenes. But the promotion and the innumerable interviews the director, editor and other actors involved in the movie gave, resulted in Kabali being hyped much more than it should’ve been.
Kabali is an over-hyped movie. Or it was good enough but the hype killed it. Either way, it was a joy watching Thalaivar on the screen after a miserable failure 19 months ago and an average outing as a cartoon character a few more months before that.
Ranjith has boosted Rajinikanth’s screen presence like no other movie maker has done in the recent past. If you backtrack, you have to go all the way to Mani Ratnam to see who better utilized Rajinikanth as an actor. Barring the first fifteen minutes, the theater fell flat which is unusual when Thalaivar is on screen. I wanted to believe that was because of the script. The sequence where Kabali hallucinates and the scenes where he learns the fate of his lost wife and child were some instances where the actor in Rajinikanth popped up. I wanted to see more of that.
Ranjith is at fault in some places of the movie. They seemed more irresponsible not because he is a rookie of sorts but because he didn’t make us feel so with his previous ventures. The inconsistencies were more careless than irresponsible. Tony Lee was Ang Lee’s son when Veerasekaran convinces Tamilmaaran to switch sides and during the birthday celebration Tony refers to Ang Lee (his own father) as being a mentor to him and his family. Those are not allowed in a movie that attempts to etch its name in history!
This director is known for social messages. He is also known for handling it with subtlety. It is not so in the case of Kabali. Ranjith’s signature film-making is apparent in spite of Rajinikanth — the portraits of Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara hanging in all its glory in the lobby of Life Line Foundation being one. The effort put in to study the gang mannerisms, their mechanics and how Tamils were treated in the past in Malaysia should at least be appreciated if not filmed as a documentary.
The way Kabaleeswaran’s character was written by Ranjith is worth appreciating. He’s an oppressed laborer turned social activist. He’s a husband who misses his wife. He’s a father who misses his child — he would take on a drug lord first because a girl of his daughter’s age is affected by the business. He apologizes with sincerity to the son of a friend he murdered (an answer to Nayagan’s climax?). He also loves his Mercedes so much that he orders one of his henchmen Sampath to borrow a SUV to crash the pet shop to announce his return, but doesn’t care to crash the Mercedes into someone who spoke ill of his wife’s fate.
Loganathan doesn’t talk about Valli but only about her fate and that’s enough to get Kabali’s blood boiling. In short, he’s ruthless. Combine that with Rajinikanth’s Eastwood-esque swag and you get a protagonist only some directors can dream of. Please give us more of such characters in your future projects, Ranjith.
It’s not Ranjith’s style to maintain a separate comedy track and he is not going to change that anytime soon. We’ve also evolved as an audience who appreciate subtle comedy and frown upon dedicated comic tracks. Attakathi Dinesh takes care of it very well. Dinesh’s mannerisms as Jeeva were well done to portray the exuberance of a young gangster who’s in awe of a proven one beside him.
I’m not going to talk about Radhika Apte. She has spoken for herself. Magizhchi.
Riythvika has done her job well. I would never forget the three seconds after her introduction. She has the potential but unfortunately Meena’s scope was not more than that.
Dhansika might have finally launched her career with Kabali but we should wait to see if that really happens. Her role as a hitwoman had substance and she had it in her to accomodate herself in Yogi’s shoes. Kalaiarasan could’ve had a better role but that happens to any actor who has proved themselves already. Nassar comes, does what he does best and leaves. Kishore, John Vijay and Mime Gopi were good but not phenomenal.
If you are casting a villain opposite a powerful character like Kabaleeswaran, you have to be sure that no one will laugh at him at any point in the movie. It’s 2016 and still we feel the need to make a Chinese villain talk in Tamizh. Magizhchi.
Santhosh Narayanan has pushed himself out of his comfort zone as far as track composition is concerned but he is always at ease when it comes to background scores and he has done just that in Kabali. The treatment of Vaanam Paarthen throughout the first half of the movie made the audience share the burden of Kabali whenever he thought of Valli. The background score was solely responsible for the audience fighting it one tear at a time when Kabali goes searching and then shedding it all along with Valli.
If not for Santhosh Narayanan’s music, Kabali would’ve lost its place in the list of movies I would watch again.
Kabali is not a movie that you need to watch more than once because it’s good or because you might miss important details the first time. You need to watch it twice to recover from the disappointment of the movie not meeting your expectations. I watched the second time and I was less disappointed which is good enough for me.
Magizhchi.
