Jilla
Must have been a treat for Vijay's fans. But this is exactly the kind of film which I dont want Vijay or anyone else to do in future.
There are two common ways to elevate one's star status successfully. These are required to transform an 'action' movie to a 'Mass' movie - one - have 10 allakkais around you, make them shower praises on you right from the beginning till the end of the movie in regular intervals, like what MGR and Rajini did in the past. This was last seen in Ajith's Veeram.
And the other way is to include a big star and make him look like an oppukku chappaan - A tried and tested formula which still holds good. If someone who hasn't seen Mohanlal's Malayalam movies before gets a chance to watch Jilla, he would probably ask, "Ivarayaa periya nadigarnu sonneenga?". If an ML fan watches it, azhudhuduvaan. The 'complete actor' is reduced nothing, but a weak supporting actor in this very violent movie. Even the few punch dialogues written for ML fall so flat that, not Vijay, but even a Simbu, Soori or a Vimal can counter them and get an applause from the audience. Each time, he starts, "Indha Sivan...", you would know its going to be answered with a much stronger punch by Vijay. His Malayalam accent makes things worse. When the movie ends, the score is like Vijay vs Mohanlal 20-0.
Vijay is there in every frame and every sequence is framed to suit him. I have never been a fan of Vijay's comedy and I have nothing positive to say about it. I just feel he overacts too much in comedy scenes. Whereas he does score high in serious sequences - especially when he repents for his mistakes & when he loses his brother. Soori is OK. But the most funny scenes are reserved for the climax. Sampath suddenly pops up, only to accept the blame for ML's crimes and make ML look like a Punidha Pasu (The thing to be noted here is, even Sampath has a tough fight against Vijay and scores few points here and there, unlike Mohanlal who is always in the receiving end).
In the climax, after losing his son, after losing all properties especially that 500crores, after losing two dozen fights against Vijay, and after surrendering to the cops, we still see a cheerful Mohanlal dancing his way to the jail. Aahaa..enna oru sandhosham! That is the only place where we see him emoting. In every other scene, he looks either expressionless or confused, much to the advantage of Vijay and fans.
The 'unbelievability' factor in Tamil Cinema starring mass actors has grown to an unprecedented level. We are so used to these illogical scripts that we dont even complain if the hero keeps bashing every goon who comes by his way, throws some of them over the cieling, shows total disrespect to his superiors, etc etc....neraya etc..Not just the hero, but even the younger version of the hero gets a mass intro scene with his face zoomed and shown in show motion for ten seconds.
Hands getting chopped, bloodshed and gunshots seen once every five minutes, severed limbs, bomb explosions, rowdyism all form a major part of this "kudumba padam". I sincerely hope Kaavalan and Thuppaaki were not exceptions.
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