Aalwar

rafe · Joined: 09 Jul 2007 Posts: 399

Aalwar:

Since Ajith's career graph has always oscillated wildly between periods of success and failure, Varalaaru's big success after a series of flops pointed to the beginning of another successful phase in the actor's career. But Aazhwar spoils those hopes and indicates that it was a very brief stop at the top for Ajith. It is a cliched revenge tale that, for the most part, is silly and amateurish. Shiva(Ajith), who lives in a mansion, works at the Government mortuary. Asin, the granddaughter of the woman who runs the mansion, is intrigued by Shiva's serious nature and tries to woo him. Actually, Shiva is a vigilante who, disguised as various Gods, kills dreaded rowdies. Both the police and the rowdies try to find out who is eliminating the rowdies.

The romance between Ajith and Asin is developed with the seriousness that Ajith's story deserves. Considering the emotional baggage he carries, romancing and joking around with Asin would have seriously damaged his character and the director wisely avoids this. Ajith here is a man of few words and fewer smiles and this earns him our respect. No such luck for Asin though. Hers is a half-baked character whose love for Ajith has little basis and her lying doesn't help either. Eventually, her job is limited to indulging in some artificial conversations that serve as take-off points for the songs.

We've had more than a few revenge movies where the hero eliminates the bad guys while wearing some kind of disguises. But Ajith's godly getups here have to figure among the silliest disguises ever thought up. The sheer logistics involved in him wearing the costume and other accessories, putting on the makeup and moving around unnoticed are difficult to overlook. The line he utters "Kadavul... Naan Kadavul" lacks punch and comes off more like a cheap shot for losing the role in Bala's Naan Kadavul. So the murders, intended to be thrilling affairs, end up being sequences of unintended comedy. Worse, the silliness isn't even consistent. The elimination of one of the most important bad guys is done with him out of disguise only so Keerthi Chawla can spot him walking out of the house.

When the hero is on a mission, his alter-ego is usually shown as timid or cowardly in order to differentiate his two personas and divert suspicion away from him. But Ajith here in his daily role is not much different either since he goes around bashing goons and saving interns from lecherous doctors. These sequences proceed without any real purpose and the happenings are actually confusing. The policemen on his traack are thankfully not turned into comedians but their chase itself smacks of amateurishness.

Ajith's flashback manages to overcome the cliched and predictable nature of the proceedings to be quite touching. It presents a loving family with likeable characters but doesn't overdo it. Since the number of characters is limited, they do not become cardboard characters present solely to increase the body count. We come to know and like them and so their fates have an effect on us. More importantly, the flashback manages to minimize the silliness of Ajith's earlier acts since it provides quite a few valid reasons for Ajith's choice of disguises (and even his ineffective punch dialog).

Ajith finally looks handsome and healthy with neither the flabby look he had in movies like Ji nor the too-thin, haggard physique he sported in Paramasivan and Tirupathi. He is his regular self mostly and is likeably naieve and simple in the flashback. Asin looks great and shows her comic aptitude in a couple of places. None of the villains are around long enough to make a mark, with the main villain showing up only towards the end. Its nice to see Vivek after a long gap but he isn't given any standout material. A few funny one-liners and wordplays are all he manages. The duets fail to impress mainly because they are inserted so awkwardly and actually interrupt the film's flow. Pallaandu Pallaandu... is the only melodious song and is picturized in a deservedly soft, mellow manner.