Manjapai

My Review: Manjapai

"Manjapai" is throwback to the era of Vikraman and his proteges who regularly used to churn out movies based on familial relationships that used to be crude, brash and on your face. Debutant writer-director N.Ragavan studiously follow the template set by them in the late 80's and 90's without even wondering a bit whether that would have any impact in the current scheme of things. Unabashedly preachy and ostentatious, the makers have literally tried to throttle the viewers begging them to laugh and cry when want them to. 

The characters are cardboard sheet caricatures cut out of unidimensional emotions. The lower class and rural people in the film are angelic and exude crude levels of goodness while the rich and urban characters are nauseatingly bad and selfish demons. The good ones are put through heights of insults by the insensitive bad ones which after a point becomes pointless. The end is most comical of them all, which brings in lots of unintended laughter. It is really astonishing that people are ready to finance movies of such inane writing and pathetic making.

Even Rajkiran's mature performance can't reel out the film from the misery it induces it's viewers to. Though restrained in most parts the veteran do gets unnerving in those scenes where he ought to look naive but ends up looking silly. Vimal, as usual does his part with unnerving casualness. Lakshmi Menon don't have much to do in this movie which is primarily an ode to grandfather-grandson relationship. 

N.R.Raghunathan deserves praise mainly for not indulging himself with the S.A.Rajkumar type of "la la la" chorus in the emotional scenes despite having enough temptations for the same. His songs are however average ones. Movie is shoddily shot, technically tacky. Masani is the cinematographer. 

On the whole, "Manjapai" belongs totally to altogether a different era where overt theatrics, crude melodrama and cartoonish unidimensional characterization ruled the roost. 

Bottomline: Poorer than contemporary television serials.  

2/5