Naan Mahaan Alla
Cast Karthi, Kajal Aggarwal and Jayaprakash
Director Suseenthiran
Rating U/A
Director Suseenthiran shifts his focus to city life with his latest Naan Mahaan Alla, after his tryst with village rivalries stemming from a game of Kabadi in Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu. Critically acclaimed and with modest success, the movie must have emboldened the director to focus his attention on more challenging environments of a big city like Chennai with its soaring crime rate and a venomous underbelly.
Karthi's Jeeva has a heart of gold that gets him fired from his bank job as he melts to the sob stories of debtors. His honesty gets him his Priya (Kajal Aggarwal) all right, but irks her lawyer father when he hears of Jeeva's unimpressive background. Son of a call-cab driver (portrayed admirably by Jayaprakash) and living in a rented house (in a country where owing a property has become a huge status symbol), Jeeva is not exactly husband material for any parent.
However, Suseenthiran's plot has a more serious issue to tackle. When Jeeva's father is murdered, the young man's beguiling innocence takes a mighty battering. Here the narrative begins to flounder with Suseenthiran impatiently resorting to shortcuts (read crowd pulling punches delivered by Karthi) and unrealistic coincidences presumably in an effort to give his hero an image makeover.
It is still too early to grade Karthi's acting ability, but if he has to develop as a performer, he needs to work on his mannerisms. However, he does manage to strike a warm chemistry with Kajal, who is interesting, given her freshness.
Be that as it may, Tamil cinema seriously needs to probe different subjects if it is to continue pulling audiences to the cinemas.
