KANNU PADAPPOGUDHAIYAA

A movie review by Balaji Balasubramaniam

Cast:	Vijayakanth, Simran, Karan, Sivakumar, Lakshmi, Radhika Choudhary, Anandraj, Radharavi
Music:	S.A.Rajkumar
Direction:	Bharathi Ganesh

There are some movies which waste a perfectly good story. On the other hand, some movies like Nee Varuvaai Ena take a perfectly ordinary story and with deft handling, elevate its quality. This movie falls somewhere in between those two, leaning more towards the latter. The story is simple and generic, the characters have been seen several times before and barring one surprising turn, events unfold as expected. But these things mesh together nicely and the result is, surprisingly, a product that is never boring or slow.

You could call this movie the polar opposite of Vaali. There the elder brother lays eyes on a woman and lusts after her even after she becomes his brother's wife. Here the older brother sacrifices his love after he learns that his brother loves the same woman and then gets heart-broken when his brother suspects him.

Vetrivel(Vijayakanth) is a do-gooder of the kind who even puts off a harvest to save the lives of some small birds who have nested in his farm. Spouting philosophies on everthing from love to life, he goes about solving problems, saving lives and conducting marriages in his village. His parents(Sivakumar and Lakshmi) think the world of him. Gauri (Simran), the daughter of a local teacher, returns after studying in the city and love blossoms between her and Vetrivel. Vetrivel's brother Subramani(Karan) too returns after studying in the city and falls for Simran. Vetrivel, who loves his brother, decides to give up Simran. By usual tamil cinema standards, Subramani should have learned about his brother's love and sacrificed his love since the hero always gets the girl. Surprisingly, its Vetrivel who makes the sacrifice and Subramani and Gauri get married. Then Subramani learns about the past relationship between his brother and his wife and this causes him to view further happenings with suspicion, casting doubts on his brother and his wife.

Inspite of a generic story, the director deserves credit for moving things along briskly, resulting in entertaining, even if not particulary engrossing, viewing. The movie is never stuck on any one event and things keep happening at a fairly fast pace. This prevents the movie from stagnating and being boring. What this results in though is poor character development. Till he sacrifices his love, we never get to see any instances of real brotherly love between Vijayakanth and Karan. Similarly, Karan's love for Simran is too fast to justify Vijayakanth's sacrifice. We wonder if his sacrifice, which hurts both himself and Simran, was necessary for what might just be an infatuation on the part of his brother.

The romance between Vijayakanth and Simran, with Simran wrongly assuming that Vijayakanth is a servant, has some nice moments. It is rather low-key and the lack of any kind of sparks between them definitely weakens the depiction of the romance. The scene where Vijayakanth changes his appearance according to her likes is nice. Radharavi and Anadraj are the father-son pair who hold a grudge against Vetrivel's family and the reasons are finally explained late in the movie with a flashback. The flashback introduces a senior Vijayakanth and though containing unmistakable similarities to similar sequences in movies like Naattaamai and Muthu, it is well-handled. Vijayakanth attempts to introduce some difference in his mannerisms, tone and delivery to match the role and mostly succeeds.

Vijayakanth plays the same role he has played in so many movies but finds the going tough in the few emotional scenes. His performance in the scene where his brother accuses him of carrying on a relationship with Simran is woefully lacking and diminishes the effectiveness of the scene. On the other hand, both Karan and Simran come up with good performances. Simran scores points both when talking to Vijayakanth after her engagement to Karan and when crying for Karan mistrusting her while Karan shines when he reveals, what he thinks are his brother's mistakes, to his parents. After a turn as Rajnikanth's mother in Padaiyappa, its Lakshmi's turn to play Vijayakanth's mother here. Both she and Sivakumar perform with dignity. Radhika Choudhary has an almost unnoticeable role.

There is almost no comedy in the movie, surprising since light-hearted comedies seem to be ruling the roost today. S.A.Rajkumar usually tunes songs that sound pleasant enough in the movie though they don't seem too good when heard on their own. He continues the practice here. Only one song Mookkuthi Muthazhagu..., where Vijayakanth sings about the kind of girl he would like to marry, stands out.