MAZHAI ORU THUDARKATHAI

I am one of those hapless fellows who weathered heavy rains on a Sunday afternoon to catch a glimpse of the Ilampuyal in action in his latest flick Mazhai.
Mazhai well the title justifies the common theme where the rains plays a backdrop for the meeting of titular characters played by Ravi and Shriya over the narration of the story.
The entire movie is an exercise in senseless melodrama and clichéd action sequences. Our hero is in a dilemma in projecting a screen persona. He is yet to be decided on which angle he wants his career to grow. Whether as an action hero or as a chocolate hero comfortably running around trees and wooing girls.

Take all the movies so far released till now featuring Ravi as hero, Two were hits and third one is miserable flop and fourth one is still running. The first two were family oriented subjects and did well. Third one is from outside family a welcome and got a Luke warm response from the audience even his die-hard fans have a hard time adjusting to his newfound attire and image. Anomaly continues the guy is consistent he wants to attain the status of action superhero next he-man on the making. In his latest outing you will have him bash up a bunch of goons numbering over 50 and escape without any major harm. Hail the new super hero He is here to bored you to death.

NOW THE STORY

The Telugu original Varsham was a huge hit, which was noticed for mainly for its freshness in cast and the rain backdrop. But sadly Mazhai fails to impress on the whole.
Director Rajkumar and his hero Jayam Ravi has gone overboard by creating scenes that are illogical and unbelievable which ends up as a mess. And projecting Ravi as an action hero beating up hundred people single-handedly a ëla Rambo is a bit difficult to digest.
The story in a nutshell- Arjun,a happy-go-lucky young unemployed youth and Shylaja (Shriya) falls in love with each other at first sight in a train. She loves rain and the lovers meet each other whenever it rains. A local feudal landlord Deva (Rahul Dev) also takes a fascination for Shylaja and wants to marry her.
Meanwhile the girl’s father Sundaramoorty (Kalabhavan Mani) is an unscrupulous, greedy, good-for-nothing man who uses Deva to create problems among the love birds and separates them. Sundaramoorthy then flees with his daughter to the city and makes her a heroine!!!
Now Deva’s men kidnap Shailaja and he gets ready to tie the knot with her when our hero comes to save her and after long drawn out fights inside Deva’s fort, jungle, train and finally the ëRamleela groundí for a gory climax!
Matinee magic? Not quite. The fatal flaw of Mazhai is that the film which starts off promisingly ends up as a heartless love story with action taking the front seat.
The songs tuned by Devi Sri Prasad are all hummable but the director could have avoided shooting most of them inside studio sets unimpressively. All songs are retained from original and the one which is new KuchikarivaduÖî has the Mayaavi hangover.
Almost all characters in the film screech (re-recording & mixing goes awry?) like a pack of hyenas. Ravi has no scope for performance but flexes his muscles and fight thugs throughout like a comic book hero.
Shriya with her hour-glass figure has flaunted it well but the girl somehow lacks screen presence. Kalabhavan Mani as Sundaramoorty for a change does not overdo his role. Rahul Dev gives a restraint performance as Deva and is ok.

Recommendations

If you enjoy a fare without any sense and and sensibility and likes to watch movies that requires you to leave your brains outside the movie hall before you enter to encounter three hours of torture, go for it and enjoy otherwise catch the songs on television and enjoy.