Puli (Tiger) - Rehashed fantasies, ironically manifested!

Before taking a stand, let me put this down clearly - director Simbudevan is a good script writer. Recently I happen to catch up a little bit of his movie, “Oru Kanniyum…” that aired on television a few weeks back. I thought I shouldn’t have missed it when it released a year ago. It was quite engaging for the little time I spent on watching it. He also comes across as a narrator who can subtlety spin a fable on current political happenings. That in my opinion is quite revolutionary. Also this aspect was evident in his first film, “Imsai Arasan” which went onto redefine his career. In his second movie, “Arai En…” he pitched in with a wonderful rationalist vision on who and what is God, but the movie failed to grab the mindshare among the audiences. That is understandable given the conservative ethos that we are subjected to. So I respect him as a good scriptwriter than a filmmaker at large. In Puli too I found glimpses of Simbu Devan's narrative elements like his trademark wits and some knots which could have been made on a much more engaging scale. More on that later… for now let’s get into business.

Puli is an all-out fictional fantasy that takes place in an unknown era. It portrays the tale between the mighty strong Vedhala Manithargal (vampire men) and humans. The vampires are obviously shown to possess super powers. They bully the humans and conquer their land. Obviously, Marudheeran (Vijay) who is being groomed among the humans is the savior who can fight the tyranny and restore the lost pride for the humans. He has a past, which was sort of predictable. His past urges him further to have his revenge and make it much more meaningful. He wins hands down and gets to lead the humans. The climax was nothing short of a political campaign from Vijay. No prizes for guessing a happy ending!

The aim would have obviously been to deliver a star studded family entertainer especially targeting kids under the age of 10. The plot was good and was adventure driven, the casting according to me is debatable, dialogs were ordinary and the overall filmmaking was bad. Fantasy is a genre that is proving to be too risky these days. Given the number of dubbed-in-Tamil Hollywood movies releasing every month, our audiences have unconsciously developed a taste for crisply designed graphics by maverick directors who spend a lot of time on pre-production and are blessed with producers with deep pockets. Adding to that, recently there was an Indian extravaganza, Baahubali, that got released a few months back, is still successfully having its run and one of its selling point was the lavishly made CG. So there exists an unconscious comparison between the two movies from a layman’s perspective even though their budgets are different.

The CG in this movie was an eyesore, but more than that the way in which the screenplay was written has made it even worse. Certain things were forced into the narrative just to bow down to Vijay’s star power. It was largely a star dispensing vehicle rather than a fantasy entertainer. Vijay’s dialog delivery was heavily skewed and lacked the punch. Shruti and Hansika were as usual there to fill the space as heroines. Each had a couple of songs and some weakly calibrated scenes. Shruti should really give it a thought of hiring a dubbing artist for her voice-over. Some dialogs were so awkwardly pronounced that it made some scenes extremely lifeless. Hansika in comparison was better. Sridevi’s comeback is quite special with respect to her extravagant costumes. She was covered with makeup and was allowed to just stare and do some hysterical acts most of the time. In my opinion she was wasted. Sudeep, the villain, was quite solid in his role. Thambi Ramaiya and company were there to take care of comedy. The comedy scenes were well thought out but awfully executed. For e.g. the miniature humans’ episode could have been extended with more dialogs than with a song. In essence it was a half-baked fare.

DSP’s music doesn’t hold anything special. The songs created a momentary push, but hardly lasted moments after it was over. The BGM was like any other Vijay movie, cacophonic. Certain stretches might be lapped up by kids, but given the amount of violence that was depicted, I would think twice before recommending it for kids too. Overall the movie was a vile mess of fantasies that got unleashed in a flurry. May be Simbudevan should only write scripts; he should then find a good director to execute the same!

Verdict: Damp squib!

Rating: 1.75 / 5