Massu Engira Masilamani (Massu alias Masilamani) - ‘Spirited’ effort, wasted!

From now on I feel coerced to say that films directed by Venkat Prabhu is from Venkat Prabhu Inc. The reason largely being that he dexterously manages to rope in his regulars on and off the screen even when it comes to supporting actors like Shanmugasundaram. Thus there seem to be some rules for a Venkat Prabhu movie and MEM is not an exception either - all the checkboxes for a Venkat Prabhu movie have been ticked. But the problem is that there is a desperate mass hero in the picture, Suriya, who in turn brings a new set of checkboxes to be ticked to the table. Venkat, so far came across as a guy who is pretty good at mashing stuff or so I feel from all his previous films. This time it seems the demand was too much and so the pressure to deliver a hit from the director and the star has largely played spoil sport for this movie and thus the narrative was forgotten altogether (for a large part).

Massu alias Masilamani is a con guy who by chance gets a power to “see ghosts” (can’t think of a nastier dig at ‘The Sixth Sense’). He leverages that to his advantage and further develops his con job. In the process he comes across his look-alike, who also happens to be a ghost. The ghost wants to have its revenge through Massu. The reason for the same lies in a predictable flashback which came as a mild little twist at the end. But the road to the destination leaves us with even more boggling questions where logic is no where to be found.

Firstly, it’s hard to find any justification for the casting coupe - it's good to have some known faces to do some run-of-the-mill stuff, but there needs to be a reason behind a character. Almost a dozen people were simply cast because of who they are off screen rather than their respective roles in this movie. That would include Premji, Shanmugasundaram, Karunas, a handful of villains (except Samudrakani), Rajendran and so on. Thereby the inherent heaviness of the movie increased, whereas the script hardly demanded justice from these many characters. I was trying to re-imagine the movie without all these characters and it seemed that I would have by-passed quite a lot of hiccups barring a few smirks (courtesy Premji and company). Also Premji’s sheen has been lost in the midst of justifying Suriya’s stardom! Even otherwise Premji has to badly reinvent himself.

Like the movie’s title, which was initially known as ‘Masss’ and then by the current name (due to taxation issues), I’m smelling a rat that Venkat’s script too would have undergone some substantial mutations to suit the virtual aura that Suriya believes that he is currently entangled in. I was somehow able to feel the genuinity in the core of the film that strived to be different with the supernatural element being portrayed in a very comical way (in fact it was taken for granted after a point of time), but Suriya’s stardom pops up and the core took a backseat, although it manages to wander at the backdrop like so many of the silent spirits in the movie. There was an introduction fight, an introduction song, a stale romance with Nayantara and so many other goof-ups just to satiate Suriya’s image.

When the golden dust of the stardom managed to settle down, the core of the script once again came to the fore to steward the already wrecked ship. It was too little too late. Also why do we need such a violent bout of scenes towards the end for a movie with a ‘family entertainer’ tag? Even the behind the scenes footage, which is one of the highlights in a Venkat Prabhu film, was not upto the mark without a punch. Though the effort in carving out the script seemed to be spirited, it was wasted down the gutter solely by Suriya’s shenanigans of stardom! I’m afraid whether it’s a sixer as it is claimed to be, the batsman seems to have stumbled onto the stumps while trying to go for that giant heave!!

Verdict: Disappointing!

Rating: 1.5 / 5