Mugamoodi

My review : Mugamoodi

One can’t help but come out with a mixed feeling after watching Mysskin’s “Mugamoodi”. Mysskin has tried to present a super-hero movie in his style. Nothing wrong about it. The thing is he could have concentrated on the screenplay of the second half. Lacklustre second half ends up spoiling the movie after a promising & interesting first half.

10 minutes into the movie only one is dished out all the Mysskinisms including the low-angle shots, slow-motions , bar song , Mysskin movie specific character’s mannerisms & what not. Slowly movie builds up interest in the viewers with a fairly engrossing screenplay supported to a great deal by very good background score by K. There are couple of heart-thumping moments too in the first half. By the time movie breaks for intermission air is filled with anticipation for a rocking second half which should have belonged to the “super-hero”.

This time around Mysskin is not able to sustain the intensity in the second half. The pace is painfully slow with pretty much nothing happening in the story. Second half is actually nothing but a very prolonged build-up for the climax. After such a fairly long & tedious build-up the viewers would surely expect the movie to end with a bang with scenes that must have generated goose-flesh. But the ending is damp squib. And to make the matters worse the background score in the second half is pathetic & almost puts one to sleep. A good background score might have actually helped in creating “The” impact that a super-hero ought to have made but sadly here he turns up on screen every time with a whimper.

Inspite of a very poor second half what works in the movie is the action sequences. The movie is almost an ode to kung-fu. Jiiva has done the fights very well & authentic body language.

Jiiva has put in a lot of hard work into his character which shows on screen. He is almost flawless in his rendition of the kung-fu action sequences. If only he could have got some more help from his scriptwriter , this movie would have done wonders to his career. Narein is miscast in the role of the lead antagonist. He neither has the body language nor the demeanour to do a character of that sort. His performance is further confounded by his meek dialogue delivery. One could hear peels of laughter in the climax scene when Narein tries to play a sinister villain.   Pooja Hegde is pretty but her acting is plastic. Thankfully she doesn’t have much screen space. Nasser & Girish Karnad are good in their roles.

As mentioned earlier K’s background score is mixed bag. First half he is brilliant but in the second half he is pathetic. Sadly the best song in the album “Mayavi mayavi” is not there in the movie. Bar anthem & “Vaya moodi summa iruda” are hummable.

Sathya is the cinematographer & he has done a brilliant job. As usual vintage Misskin angles & shots do find their place in the narration. There are lots of camera movements & Satya has accomplished it without causing strain to the eyes of the viewers.

Gaugin is the editor who seems to have dozed off while editing the second half.

On the whole, “Mugamoodi” is yet another failed shot at a super-hero movie in Tamil mainly due the lack of imagination on the part of the writer Mysskin.

Personally this is the first Mysskin movie that is going to get a score of less than 4/5.

Bottomline : Sedative 

2.5/5