MOVIE REVIEWS

Mankatha Review.

Ajith's 50th movie Mankatha has hit the screens today, August 31st. This Venkat Prabhu movie has given Ajith the biggest opening in his career. Also starring Trisha, Arjun, Lakshmi Rai,Andrea, Anjali, Vaibhav, Premji and Ashwin, the movie has music by Yuvanshankar Raja.
Mankatha ,A complete masala entertainer with doses of slickness, comedy and riveting dishoom-dishoom. The unabashed portrayal of negative shades of characters and lack of forced moral correctness. In this movie, it's not always that the good guys defeating the bad guys; just as the bad guys are fun enough that you'd want them to win.
The entertainment in the movie is not so much the storyline itself - which is a dirty-cops-and-heist-gone-wrong thriller - but the zippy screenplay, big doses of humour and Ajith's getup and mannerism.
The beginning is worthy of any mass hero: a terrified Faizal (Aravind Akash) is tied down in a desert by the police, who are going to kill him any second, when a four-wheeler practically flies through the air, lands on the ground, scattering sand, and Vinayak Mahadevan (Ajith) emerges, salt-and-pepper hairdo, lazy contempt in his eyes and a stylish swagger, all perfectly in place. Bullets and guns are in plenty, but somehow no one uses them. Instead, they fall like dominos as Vinayak smashes through them. Cut to the setting of the story: Mumbai , bookies, betting in crores with the IPL as the background (except that cricket is not a part of the story), a local bigwig, Arumugam Chettiar (Jayaprakash), the owner of a ragged-looking theatre who is part of the bookies-racket, and many, many thugs. Vinayak's henchman Sumanth (Vaibhav) greedily eyes the cash that's heaped under his master's aegis. Together with his friend Mahath (Mahath), owner of a bar, Vinayak decides on a daring but rather bland heist. Roped in are cop Ganesh (Ashwin) and Prem (Premgi Amaren), a curly-haired, bumbling IT expert who seems to hack into any system within seconds. In the midst of all this, having romanced the pretty Sanjana (Trisha ), Vinayak gate-crashes the party, practically elbowing himself into the proceedings. He doesn't really bring in fantastic plot-twists, wonderful techniques or novel ideas to do away with 500 crores of money -- but who cares when he flips cigarettes like a pro, drinks like a fish and fights like Terminator? And so goes the story -- Vinayak pits himself against the Special Force tasked to rout out the villains, and against its head, ACP Prithviraj (Arjun). And a series of extremely predictable, sequences follow, infused with dashes of humour that work only sporadically.
Venkat Prabhu chose to thumb his nose at fake morals-upholding business one sees in Tamil films. So what if the bad guys are good to look at or fun enough that we as the audience would cheer for them.
This is an out-and-out 'Thala' film. He does the whole thing in a different style that is appealing to a great extent. His action in stunt scenes stands out. remgi, Vaibhav, Arvind Akash, Ashwin and Mahat have done a superb job. Ashwin is especially impressive - tall, good-looking and a promising actor. Vaibhav is superb. Premgi is adorable. Mahat is one of those cute guys with a mean streak - perfect. Arvind is a perfect loyal goonda for the baddie. Arjun is on par with Ajith in heroism, the yin to Ajith's yang. Subbu is impressive as the upright police officer. Trisha is very pretty and has a unique fashion sense that's bound to become a college-girl fad and she's done the best she can within her character's framework, but Lakshmi Rai perhaps has the most colourful role.
Sakthi Saravanan's camera-work isn't scintillating, but it manages to keep you interested. Praveen K L and N B Srikanth's editing is apt for a racy flick. Yuvan Shankar Raja's Vilaiyadu Mankatha is mesmerising; he also plays around with some of his father's tunes for the background score, appropriately placed. The rest of the songs, while passing muster, suffer because of their silly placement.
Overall " Mankatha", Thala Ajith's 50th movie, scores 100 in audience heart !!
Verdict: Racy Mass Entertainer !!