Dasavatharam

It is only fair that one of my first posts is about one of my idols of all time the great actor Kamal Hassan.

After eagerly awaiting his magnum opus, Dasavatharam for a few months, I and my wife, finally got the chance to see the movie. The movie was playing in a remote (to us) location and it was a good 1.5 hour drive away. We had to leave our baby back with the grannies. And armed with some delicious butter roasted sandwiches and juice (courtesy once again of the grannies), we set off with bated breath and expectant moods. The only dampener to our spirits was worry about the rising gas prices which was hovering around $4.50 a gallon, prompting us to take our beloved (and fuel economic) Toyota for what would be around a 130 mile journey. The $15 bucks we saved on gas by doing this probably paid for one of our tickets (can you believe it....$16 for one ticket....now thats what we call "pagal kollai" or "daylight robbery").

We reached the theater well ahead of time and had to wait outside for quite a while. The crowd size was rather disappointing. Even more disappointing was when the movie started. For, when Kamal appeared I went "woooooo hooooooo" (with a capital W and capital H) and people looked at me as if I were crazy....hahaha. It was a stark contrast to when we watched Superstar's Sivaji when the whole theater was going ballistic (including me and the wifey, of course).

The movie starts off brilliantly with Kamal stunning one and all with his role as Rangarajan Nambi, the Iyengar priest who tries to prevent the king Kulothunga Chozhan from destroying the idol of Vishnu. The art direction, the gloomy surroundings, camera work, the song, Kamal, Napolean, even Asin....everything is just superb.



Just when we start smacking our lips and preparing ourselves to another epic stunner from Kamal, he disappoints and does a Sachin Tendulkar......as it turns out, the rest of the movie ends up trying to play catch up (and failing) to this stupendous opening.



Asin looks cute and does well but at times it seemed as though her only lines for the movie were "En Perumal En Perumal"....her role could have been scripted a bit better. Mallika Sherawat is wasted and one fails to understand why she agreed to act in this movie.



Kamal excels in all his roles as usual. To me his standout performance was his portrayal of Krishnaveni Paati. It was, simply put, hilarious! He also does very well as the villain, as the Telugu inspector, Balram Naidu and even as Geroge Bush. His use of the word "nucelar" had the whole audience in splits. He has shown his entire range of acting skills and the movie serves as a Ph.D. course in acting.



That said, I would say, the movie fails as an entertainment package. In the second half, the jokes get a bit repetitive and long drawn out. Crazy Mohan's dialogues are sorely missed (even though the last few movies of Crazy have not been anything to wrote home about either). Characters appear and disappear for no apparent reason other than to give Kamal an additional character to act out. The much hyped up tsunami scene is, at best, "just okay".



In summary, this movie is a must watch - for the artistic values. If you are looking for pure entertainment, you may be better off watching re-runs of Michael Madana Kama Rajan....I dont mean to be mean....but I am sure you know what I mean....!!!