Movie Review: Aadhavan — The Sun Never Rose
For the last few years, I have never ended a Deepavali without watching a new release and it’s part and parcel of Deepavali celebrations in Tamil Nadu. This year with all the biggies except Surya opting out, we were left with Aadhavan for our Deepavali movie.
We were left with Mayajaal (Home Theatre, that’s the nickname for the multiplex) as Sathyam opened with red boxes in online booking and Sangam went to the Fans association (!).
When you go to a KS Ravikumar movie, you can be sure of two things — the movie will have pucca masala of songs, dance, comedy, sentiment, action etc and you will not get bored watching the movie. As a producer’s director, he has a success rate of almost 80% of his movies becoming box-office hits. (the one which failed initially was his best)
Aadhavan will not bore you, nor will it interest you. It will be just another Tamil movie with just another big hero with just another borrowed storyline with just another predictable ending. Will it be a just another hit? May be ( That’s for you to decide)
Aadhavan ( Surya), a hitman working under his foster father (Sayaji Shinde) is hired to kill a judge (Murali) who is investigating an organ trade scam, by Reddy (Rahul Dev). He misses the shot and vouches, that he will kill the judge at any cost. He joins as a household servant through Vadivelu in Judge’s huge family headed by Grand Mother (Saroja Devi).
Aadhavan slowly enters in to the hearts of the family members (yawn $&@?) as he says he is the long lost son (Madhavan) of the Judge, who ran away because of a murder. Thara (Nayanthara), Madhavan’s aunt’s daughter falls in love with Surya. After mix-ups and mash ups, with a predictable Tamil movie climax, all ends well.
Aadhavan is produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin with KS Ravikumar as the Director. The music composed by Harris Jayaraj, cinematography by Ra.Ganesh and edited by Don Max.
Pluses
1. The comedy in the first half. You have guaranteed laugh riot with Vadivelu and Surya. I think only KS Ravikumar can infuse such comic situations in to such movie plots.
2. Surya — he fights, he romances, imitates MGR, Sivaji, Kamal and Rajini, takes daredevil risks, excels excellently in comedy and even emotes well in Senti Scenes.
3. The cinematography — is awesome in songs and fantastic in fight sequences. A visual treat indeed.
4. It was wonderful to see Anand Babu back in screen, dancing as he is used to ( leaving away his funny hairdo)
Minuses
1. The sagging second half and the big pot holes in the screenplay. The time lines are extremely compensated and at one point you don’t understand where the story is happening (Kolkata or Darjeeling)
2. The music is not even average. I think Harris Jayaraj is running out of commercial loops. Except Hasili Fisliye, others are not interesting and provide bumper speed breakers for the movie. (Does that tribal song “Maasi Maasi” resemble Mayya Mayya from Guru?)
3. The CG in the flash back is a shame to the improving quality of CG in Tamil Movies. If the implementation is bad, any concept goes for a toss. Pathetically implemented and I felt Ramanarayanan’s Amman movies were better
4. Some of the fight sequences could have been made better. I dunno when will they stop using Surya in parkour sequences and this one is a straight lift from Casino Royale ( Dont worry. It’s only for few minutes !!!)
5. You can’t count the number of people in that family. I don’t understand the point. Were the whole bunch cast for “Varayo” Song or vice versa?
6. Did I see a Tata Docomo ad in the paper read by Saroja Devi in the flashback sequence? Wake up Guys, you are in a movie industry where a guy acquired 1940s Anandha Vikatan to authenticate a time line.
In short a movie which was produced by Udhayanidhi, directed by Ravikumar, acted by Surya with the name Aadhavan, it never rose to the expectations.*
A 2 Stars/ 5 just for first half comedy and Surya.
*PS: All have names either of the Sun God or names derived from the Sun God.
