Movie review : Uttama Villain

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First, let me make things clear. This film is not an instant classic. I don’t think it will be one. I am not even sure it will be an archetypal “commercial success”. But I felt it had the central theme and plot to be a great flick if not for (in parts) some loose screenplay, amateurish direction, poor acting by some of the cast, bad camera angles and CG.

Uttama Villain, is a film about an established actor Manoranjan’s (Kamal Haasan) endeavor to set things right in his professional and personal life before the eventual fate befalls him. Leaving apart the fictional layer in which the story takes place, Manoranjan is Kamal Hassan. I don’t know the film equivalent of literary auto-fiction (fictional autobiography). The closest film you could think of is Fredrico Fellaini’s 81/2 (a tale about a struggling director), which is a similar comedy-drama but the similarity ends there.

The film opens with archaic elements of tamil cinema - foreign song with hero romancing a girl half his age, frenzied hero-worshipping audience - except that this is a film within a film. Yes, this is not the everyday, run-of-the-mill film, it’s Kamal Hassan’s, layered with subtle implications, word plays and plausibility. This is the best aspect about the plot, it’s meta, through out Manoranjan’s segment you can’t stop correlating the facets of real-life Kamal (see detailed paragraph below). Kudos to his audacity as it can quite easily slip into scrutinizing mode especially in material concerning dilemma of choosing films (commercial vs artistic), illicit love-affair, alcoholism and biological off-spring. Manoranjan decides to work for one last time with his mentor Marghadarsi, played by K. Balachander, real-life mentor, it can’t get more felicitous and fitting than this.They decide on a comedy-drama named “Uttama Villain”, the protagonist is Uttaman, who once again is an actor with a gift of immortality. The frame of activity is now three layered, Uttaman, who is immortal, Manoranjan, struggling against fatality, and Kamal, the artiste. Even the title “Uttama Villain” can’t get more appropriate, in the context of Uttaman it’s the villain(of villupattu) and Manoranjan in the premise of his biological daughter.

You can’t stop noticing the real-life aspects spread throughout the film, in the portraits in Marghadarsi’s office, even the name Marghadarsi (allegorical ?), RKFIisque ashtray, the Audi car and the driver (probably ?), multiple women in Manoranjan’s life, even his children carry half of his name Mano, the production company is called Manomargha (tribute to K.B?), 100 crore fetching commercial flick called Veera Vilaiyatu (Kamal’s tryst with commercial films?), theyyam make up after the shot (reminder of Aalavandhan?). In the 8th century Uttaman sequence, its all word play, the ‘idai’, ‘edai’, ‘udai’ one, Uttaman on tiger screaming ayyo appa (Ayyappa ?). Even a character is named Yamini to bring about the rhyme yaam ini when a letter is read. You can’t stop praising Kamal for these writings. There are some brilliant parts in the screenplay like there is a tender moment between Kamal and Andrea (Arpana) and the scene switches to a love song to the film with the film, Manoranjan collapses and the scene switches to ‘Saagavaram’ song, Kamal talks with his son and the scene switches to conversation between Prahaladhan and Hiranyakashipu. The experienced cast of Urvashi, Jayaram, Nassar, M.S.Bhaskar did their part to perfection.

Andrea (as doctor) and Pooja Kumar (as 8th century princess) feels little out of sync. Even the whole 8th century portion, despite some clever dialogues, fails to evoke instant laughs and always falls short. The theatrical acting in these parts, a bit overplayed, doesn’t help on this count as well. Even the theyyam sequence seems like another cool gig that Kamal can do and is not organic with the 8th century tamil kingdom. You can’t choose a better play, in the context of the story, to enact than Hiranyakashipu’s but the way it played out leaves much to be desired. Background score seems lost between present day and 8th century. The good sequences appear in parts and as a whole the film is not organic. All of this boils down some amateurish direction and in parts, loose screenplay - thus making the film fall way short of being an instant classic.

Rating : 3.5/5

 
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