Blasphemy!
If there was an award for choosing disastrous script, then Vikram would win it every single year. If there was an award for honesty in acting even in that disastrous script, Vikram would win even that. This film was again an example of such ridiculousness. Guess directors who want to take rest, earn big bucks and travel onsite for the film would have to do just one thing, imagine few getups and narrate the script to Vikram, rest all he’d take care. Even the directors who had fool proof record would do something like that to him. Every movie other than ‘Rajapattai’ was a hit by Suseenthiran. Same for Shankar and same here for Ajay Gnanamuthu. If a biopic would be made of an actor, of how great he could’ve been but couldn’t be, Vikram would fit right in. Something he himself can act.
The first half of ‘Cobra’ was utter rubbish. It’s a disgrace to even discuss it. Of his entire career, this was the only part of film where he doesn’t get to “act”. Even in a highly ridiculous ‘Kanthaswamy’ he’d have acted well in those horrible scenes. But here it was impossible to even sit through the movie. It was the first movie which totally didn’t work. Even ‘Rajapattai’ had few comic scenes, few which looked like comedy and certain massy scenes which would have got great applause if it had appeared in a Vijay or Ajith movie. Fights, needless to say were impressive. But in the first half of ‘Cobra’ even that was not good.
The director looked like he was badly inspired by Nolan, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to make a movie this bad. Sci-fi or to be specific, a Nolan genre is not an easy nut to crack. Yes, the geeks love Nolan for the intricacies but as laymen, it’d work even without knowing anything. That’s how good he’s at his craft. That shows his sincerity. Not like here where a man is showed a genius just through few muted dialogues. Judith Samson (Meenakshi Govindarajan) was Ariadne (Ellet Page) whose role was to admire the killer for his math skill. But if you would point to the audience, why even to the director to tell about one complex math he did to do the killing, they couldn’t, and that’s how shallow the script was. The titular explanation of ‘Cobra’ by her was the second worst in Vikram’s career, the first being ‘Bheemaa’. Of the three actress, Meenakshi Govindarajan was the one who looked pretty and looked like someone who had the potential to actually nail a character like Ariadne but with such a horrible story, even Manorama during her peak days couldn’t have evoked any interest in the character.
After a numbing experience, around the interval there was a twist that at least evoked some curiosity. The second half had a solid story about twins. We don’t really know why their mother was in jail, but that’s okay, the meet up of the characters was well made and the action sequence in rain was shot well. The umbrella scene where Vikram stands on top and before the fight where he ties his hair were the scenes which worked but the audience were too tired before those scenes because the entire first half was buffoonery.
The story was about twin brothers, rivalry and chivalry between them. When the movie ended it was still not clear as to who was who, which was actually nice, audience were mumbling with each other. If it had happened for an English movie, it would have been appreciated but it’s not the mistake of audience. You got to have a solid plot to make such a movie, not just fool around with makeup.
The investigation scene should have worked like the ‘Anniyan’ scene but again it didn’t due to shoddy screenplay of first half. Climax was really good, the thinking of killing all Vikram’s imaginary characters along with him in such a serious way had to be appreciated. If someone like Vignesh Shivan had done that scene it’d have come out terrific. But here, audience were already exhausted to appreciate anything.
The flashback sequence, fight between brothers were all lame and as my friend pointed out, thankfully he didn’t reduce weight to act as a college student. But how well had he dubbed! Srinidhi Shetty actually looked hot than her previous outings, especially in “Thumbi Thullal” song. Only place in the entire movie where Vikram looked happy. Mirnalini Ravi was such a waste. Rahman’s music too was wasted here. Few of the BGMs were terrific which could’ve done a world of good to other normal masala flicks. Overall, yet another disaster.
constantscribbles 