It is quite distressing to see directors who, purely because of their own ineptitude, waste the enormous talent they have at their disposal. Time stars Prabhu Deva and Simran, who have appeared in some good movies in this year, has Ilaiyaraja's music and good photography. But inept direction and a muddled screenplay make a mess of the already flimsy story, resulting in one of the worst movies of the year.

Srinivasa Murthy(Prabhu) is a painter (though he walks around with a guitar and doesn't seem to have an actual job). He lives with his widowed mother(Ambika) and has a rich friend Dilip (Bablu). Dilip's father(Devan) supports them though his wife disapproves of Srinivas and his mother. Srinivas places a matrimonial advertisement in the paper, revealing his inclination towards painting and poetry. Impressed by it, Thulasi(Simran) responds and the engagement date is fixed. But Dilip's father, who goes to fix up the wedding, has a past history with Thulasi's father(Nasser) and the wedding is cancelled. Thulasi goes to Singapore to forget her troubles and by a strange turn of events, saves Dilip's life. Dilip falls in love with her (shades of the Hollywood movie While You Were Sleeping here) and when Srinivas realises this, he decides to sacrifice his love for his friend.

The whole film is characterised by some of the most inept filmmaking this side of Monisha En Monalisa. The direction is amateurish and the screenplay is shoddy and frequently confusing. One example is the flashback involving Devan, Nasser and their sisters. This important sequence, which lays the base for several incidents, seems hurried and is handled so quickly that for a while, I had trouble understanding the exact relationships between the main people involved. Things get worse in the second half when the movie begins shifting so frequently between Vishakapatnam and Alleppey that it is impossible to realise where the movie is at any time.

Logic is completely absent and things keep happening for which there could be no reasonable explanations. For example, there is a guy who keeps taking pictures of Simran and she is understandably annoyed. But later, she suddenly trusts him enough to travel to a foreign land with him. Incongruities like this keep popping up throughout the movie with people showing up at places conveniently with no thought of how they could be there in the first place (For example, Mouli and his family showing up unnannounced at Charlie's house). The script is lame and does nothing to help the proceedings. A longwinded speech by a priest near the end was particularly painful.

The initial phone communication between Prabhu Deva and Simran offers the few bright spots in the movie. With his friends invading his privacy at one end and Simran struggling to keep his phone calls secret at the other, the sequence manages to bring a smile to the lips. So also the meeting between them in Singapore when he tries to become her friend. Prabhu Deva's antics while he tries to worm his way into her heart as a friend before revealing his true identity, are cute.

Reminding one of En Swaasa Kaatre, here too, the moronic story unwinds against the backdrop of some gorgeous locales. The fields and streams of Kerala are lovingly captured by the camera, especially during the song sequences. Ilaiyaraja has tuned some melodious numbers with Niram Pirithu... being tops (though its effect is somewhat dimmed by its occurring at a time when the movie was dragging and one couldn't wait for it to end). Inexplicably, Naan Thanga Roja..., my favorite song in the album, was absent from the movie.

Prabhu Deva once again opts to mask his dancing talents during the song sequences. While that worked in movies like Minsaara Kanavu and Ninaivirukkum Varai, which were much better movies, here it is just one more reason not to see the movie. Simran who seemed be showing good improvment in her acting talents in Thullaadha Manamum Thullum and Vaali seems lost here. The scene where reacts to her father's death exposes her limitations. As in Kannu Padappogudhaiyaa, Radhika Choudhary is once again pushed to the background by Simran and doesn't make any kind of an impression. Manivannan has one of his least funny comedy tracks. Bablu irritates, especially during his over-acting at his engagement.

An unbearably bad time at the theater.