Gautaman Bhaskaran's review: Kavalan

Director Siddique'sTamil film Kavalan is ready to hit the theatres. The film has a little to offer and both the actors Vijay and Asin sleepwalk through the gaudily coloured frames. Here's the film's review.

Kavalan (Bodyguard)
Cast: Vijay, Asin, Vadivelu, Rajkiran and Mithra Kurian
Director: Siddique
Rating: *1/2

One has always felt that a rank bad Hollywood film is far better than a rank bad Bollywood feature. And a rank bad Bollywood movie is any day better than a rank bad Tamil work. Films from Tamil Nadu seem to be getting increasingly repetitive and idea stealers.

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With performances vulgarly dramatised – that resemble badly produced street theatre – Tamil movies, if allowed this free fall, will soon be overshadowed by Malayalam cinema, which despite modest budgets manages to get a good story and weave it into an engaging script. Malayalam works rely less on star power, concentrating instead on direction and acting ability to draw crowds. There is a disarming sense of realism in many of the pictures that emerge from Kerala.

Siddique’s Kavalan (in Tamil) -- which faced major hurdles before its release because of grievances that distributors/exhibitors had with its lead star, Vijay -- has an apology for a story.

Vijay plays Boominathan, a clever young man who does not need to pass academic examinations to master subjects like Shakespeare. When his guru, Muthuramalingam/Rajkiran (a once-upon-a-time thug who transforms himself into a messiah of the masses) needs a kavalan or bodyguard, Boominathan is only too willing to slip into a khaki uniform.

Never mind, he ends up guarding Muthuramalingam’s daughter, Meera (Asin), and goes with her and her friend, Madhu (Mithra Kurian), to college. An affair that begins between Meera and Boominathan is conducted over the mobile telephone.

While she knows who she is talking to, he is clueless, falling in love with the faceless voice in what seems like an endless blind date. The climax could not have been more incredulous.