Katradhu Tamizh and a headache

I know I’ve been quiet for a little while. Very uncharacteristic. But moving on, I saw two films over the weekend. One of them was Katrathu Tamizh.

I wanted to like this film. I want to like any film that goes a bit beyond the usual formula. I suppose the story had some promise at some stage. But somewhere along the line, one cliché after another hits you, and after the first fifteen minutes you pretty much know where all this is leading. If you think about Tamil films, the categorization till a while back was very clean. A film was first of all a City film or Village film. Which meant that the storyline would be predominantly set in an urban or rural setting. Of late though, there’s been a lot of films that go the mid-way. Films that are typically set in cities other than Madras – usually Madurai. (Film makers love Madurai.)

Then there’s the second categorization – it’s either a Comedy, Tragedy, Love Story, Action or Family film. If you really want to break this mould – get a coherent storyline first.

The premise is interesting. A young boy sees one death after another – each time losing a loved one, symbolic of some sense of security and stability in his life. This simultaneously makes him sensitive to what others say to him, and insensitive to others’ right to rant or live. So he goes on a killing spree. In all this, there’s just one character – a girl who he befriended at the age of 7 who is symbolic of his innocence.

The funny thing is, if this film had been executed well – you’d have felt some sympathy for the protagonist. Instead you just find him irritating. For one thing, his understanding of economics and markets is so poor, that you first want to hand him a textbook. I mean if you really want a person to rant well on screen, you need to do your homework first.

So there’s this scene where he bashes up a BPO employee because he doesn’t like the fact that the call centre guy puts on an accent and a fake name at his workplace. And because he makes a lot of money. In an other cringe worthy scene he walks into someone’s office and starts rambling rather loudly about why the other guy is making so much money.

What makes this man so homicidal? Why is he so frustrated? He’s actually capable of getting a decent job given his language skills. What does he want? (Apart from a haircut, or a shave?)

At some point, he decides to kidnap a man with a camera, and tells all on the tape. How he killed, and why he killed. He then proceeds to submit the tapes to some news channel. He then tries to escape the police. Err..

You really want to portray the frustrations of people who find that studying Tamil doesn’t really land them with a decent job, or that there is a big mismatch between their idealism and the ways of the world – watch Varumayin Niram Sivappu. The worst thing in the world is to start watching a film, and then within half an hour, begin to wonder if it’ll ever end.

This film is so bad, you can’t even review it.

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