Baana Kaathadi
Cast: Atharva, Samantha, Prasanna and Karunas
Director: Badri Venkatesh
Rating: **
Director Badri Venkatesh’s Baana Kaathadi , much like its meaning, Kites, tries flying high only to come crashing down. Using the sport as a background (though it often seems like an excuse to get some colour into the frames), the film interweaves a romance between a rich girl and a poor boy from the Chennai slums. What a yawn, for how often have we seen this unfold on screen. The only new angle here appears to be the kite that plays cupid – and literally.
Chasing a kati patang (or a kite whose string has snapped) on the maddeningly crowded streets of the metropolis, debutant Atharva, playing senior school student Ramesh, bumps into Priya (Samantha), and in this collision she loses her pen drive containing a six-month project, her ticket to her final examination in fashion technology. Her search for the kite chaser, as you would have guessed, leads to the start of a beautiful relationship. Though, one must give fairly high scores for performances, with both Ramesh and Samantha in their natural best, the story and the script falter beyond redemption. In this day and age, why would any rich girl with NRI parents living in the U.S.A, feel a romantic attraction for a slum boy, who believes that his slow and steady saunter (read failing several times
in a class) through school is the best thing that could have happened, and who between his bad-mouthing friends and kite stealing adventures is so clumsy and unkempt that anybody in her right senses would ponder a million times before taking the plunge. Come one, no modern girl would walk into such a mess. And, why would Priya who has no qualms about hobnobbing with Ramesh and his cronies take such a massive offence on seeing a packet of condom slip out of his pocket that she disowns him in the presence of a cop! The answers are not coming, because writers could not care as long as they get a story moving from one situation to another, however absurd the route be. What I find even more objectionable is the message of the movie: crime can go unpunished! The climax is terribly contrived, and appears like a darned easy way out of a convoluted confusion.
{{/usCountry}}in a class) through school is the best thing that could have happened, and who between his bad-mouthing friends and kite stealing adventures is so clumsy and unkempt that anybody in her right senses would ponder a million times before taking the plunge. Come one, no modern girl would walk into such a mess. And, why would Priya who has no qualms about hobnobbing with Ramesh and his cronies take such a massive offence on seeing a packet of condom slip out of his pocket that she disowns him in the presence of a cop! The answers are not coming, because writers could not care as long as they get a story moving from one situation to another, however absurd the route be. What I find even more objectionable is the message of the movie: crime can go unpunished! The climax is terribly contrived, and appears like a darned easy way out of a convoluted confusion.
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