Rage sans reason
Thanks to the Sai Pallavi fan in me and the status message of her dancing in red saree, I was intrigued to watch the movie. Also heard reasonably good reviews from few. If it had been overwhelmingly good reviews, I wouldn’t have had expectations. I’d have thought it to be just another commercial pot boiler. But because not everyone was in favor of the movie but none hated it too, I gave this a serious thought. I guess that’s where the mistake was made.
The movie begins with an action piece where a food joint is being ransacked by goons and the title appears. Post that the story of DQ and Sai Pallavi begins. By this time, we totally forget about the first incident. Their track begins with Sai Pallavi walking out in tears. No marks for surprise, it’s due to DQs rage. Now this too cuts and we go back to see his story.
We see Siddhu (Dulquer Salman) growing up to be a kid who is ferocious and short tempered. The growing up sequences are highly illogical heroic scenes. Especially in the college fight, there is no lead as to why it happens, what happens next. There is one guy coming up running to him, he fights and a big group circles them and the guy who approaches him for fight finally gets to beat who chases him, thanks to Siddhu. We don’t know who they are, what problem, in which college it happens, whether they’re outsiders in Siddhu’s college or vice Versa. Then appears Anjali (Sai Pallavi), again out of the blue. We don’t know whether she’s a student, lecturer or anything. The cuts are blind with no information whatsoever.
They get married without their parents’ consent. I thought that’s where the movie would get interesting. They’ll show the turmoil between the couple. What anger does to relationship. A story on the lines of ‘Separation’. Of course, I was not mad to think that ‘Kali’ would be of ‘Separation’ level but I’d have been happy if the film had focused on their relationship. But instead of that, there was a guy hitting him, his superior hitting on him, insurance agent smiling at him and a kid increasing volume. All these seemed petty. In fact, I felt the anger justified for most of it. There was no tension for any scene or hatred towards Siddhu for behaving so. Even the car driving scene was fun, I couldn’t feel bad for Anjali.
Post those little antics and some ‘aunty’ques, we get back to scene one where Anjali walks away crying from house. The single best scene of the movie is when the smoker gets up shocked when Anjali gives a scary reaction. Post that its only one incident which takes place entirely in the second half.
Siddhu drives and tells he’d drop Anjali to airport or something but rather drives a looooong way. After a good chase sequence, they end up in a road side motel (the same where the first fight happened). That was a horrible little twist. I thought it’d get over in few minutes but unluckily for me, it happened in the entire second half. The tension was nice but the intention was cheap. It would have been a good short film but making a full-length feature film with just this one meek concept was not something to be proud of.
Few cat and mouse game happen between the couple and the people in motel, I saw a lot of inspiration from ‘Duel’. Guess the director is a fan of that movie. Because the whole thought process was focused on those scenes. Post that it was again bland, Siddhu gets few advices on how to behave and then there is Dulquer in ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ (Tamil dubbing) fashion jumping in the air.
As soon as the Dulquer lowers the car window, I was humming ‘Kannu chuvakkanu pallu kadikkanu’. That’s the impact that small little scene from ‘Premam’ gave during the climax.
constantscribbles 