Maari - A few gags and swags, period!

It’s only been a day since I watched this movie. Neither the screenplay nor the story sank in. If I were to recollect a few scenes from Maari then it would obviously be the ones with ‘Robo’ Shankar than Dhanush. The trailer was promising with punch lines tucked up the sleeves of Dhanush, but when it came to delivering the same, it was a failure. The build up was familiar, the acting was good, yet the punches failed to create that magic. That became worse when there were a slew of punches orchestrated against Anirudh’s cacophonic BGM.

Director Balaji Mohan has been quite inventive so far. But this script it seems has been written solely to leverage the charisma of a “star-in-the-making” or a “soon to be superstar” who has been crowned with a superhit in the name of VIP. So the screenplay naturally leans on Dhanush’s charisma than his character. Outline of the story is bad versus not so bad. Obviously the not so bad is our Maari who has a heart of gold. But he eludes that for reasons unknown. He is certainly an astute candidate for the famous ‘Nallavana Kettavana’ conundrum made popular by Mani Ratnam. Though he claims that he is bad in every way, the implication is obviously him being transparent about who he is and thus attempts to make us feel that he is good. Therefore Dhanush’s characterization was so apprehensively built that we don't empathize with him at all at any point.

Were the gags worth a laugh? Certainly. With Robo Shankar and Dhanush at the helm, the first half had a handful of them that had us in splits. There was a gyaan about pigeon rearing and racing,  which was sort of fine. And then came Kajal-Agarwal. The story took a romantic twist and then the romance turned sour only to get rekindled after the interval. A new villain in the form of Vijay Yesudas has entered the Kollywood scene. His characterization as that of a tough cop turning wicked was fresh and was indeed a great conception.

The second half was absolutely predictable and the screenplay was wavering without a specific direction. Overall it was a movie that believes one can sell a package with the hero’s charisma, a few decent gags and some ‘thara local’ kuthu numbers. I deeply sympathize with a potential talent like Balaji Mohan for starting to believe in charisma than characterization, punch dialogs than poignant lines and last but not the least superhero stuff than a solid screenplay. In the movie at least Maari had one of his cronies as a punching bag to vent out his frustration, but what about us, poor little souls at the multiplexes?

Verdict: 2 / 5

Rating: Below Average