Kutty: Big heart, small movie...

Coming home for a festival is partly driven by the lure of the movies. And going to the movies is partly driven by the as-yet unfulfilled desire to see a mature, intelligent and engrossing mainstream Tamil movie. So it was, that after watching Kutty, the feeling was not so-near-yet-so-far as we're-getting-there.

"Kutty" stars Dhanush and Shriya. To be perfectly fair, it also stars a Telugu-film script. However, unequivocally, the star of the show is Dhanush. A rousing performance - in right parts lively, loquacious, childish and, particularly in the climax, tear-jerking. Where he is let down, though, is everywhere else - the co-stars are undoubtedly terrible, the BGM makes a mockery of things and the editing people clearly went on leave. The movie is at least half an hour too long, and not a single song was required (nor appreciated). In a nutshell, this is a Dhanush show -a feel-good movie that, like his previous, Yaaradi Nee Mohini, weans him away from the street-urchin type roles and establishes him as an entertaining, talented and more importantly today, tolerable actor.

The story is heart wrenching or absurd, depending on if you're a romantic or not. The pampered, buff, athletic and cigarette sporting blockhead-with-a-stubble Arjun (some model who strayed onto the sets, clearly) decides he 'wants' Gita (Shriya) to love him. When she, in an act of Tamil cinema blasphemy, refuses, he is incensed and threatens to jump off a very tall clock tower (His 'fakes' in this scene are priceless). An intelligent choice to draw a crowd, as the time is perhaps something most college students do diligently strive to know. Anyway, a crowd of students (mostly female) implore Gita to oblige him, "It's just one I love you!" which she does. There enters Kutty - a happy-go-lucky, well meaning and charming. The rest of the movie deals with Kutty doing everything to express his love for Gita, getting on Arjun's nerves, being the selfless dude who lets everything pass for his 'lovers' sake etc etc etc.

The character sketching is terrible. The portrayal is worse. While Dhanush, as mentioned before, does a splendid job, even Kutty suffers from neglection - Who is he, where are his parents, who's that old man (who gets to hand-feed Shriya medicine)? Gita is shown initially to be sensitive and sensible, yet increasingly becomes a raving, stereotypical filmi girl who changes character over the course of a song. Shriya's acting has not changed much, meaning she still looks gorgeously constipated when trying to cry. Arjun was, clearly, abandoned as a gone-case and hence no scriptwriting time was wasted on him. The character of Shruthi was woefully under-developed, as 'best friend of the girl', she does nothing except be the butt of Kutty's jokes (until the climax, at least)

A special mention about Shriya's costumes in the movie - while probably the most (and best) clothed she has been since her movie debut, one wonders how she packed so many clothes, and matching earrings, into a bag that small. Ideas are welcome - I struggle with my luggage every few weeks and am always receptive to novel ways of packing. Further, her night-attire was frankly ridiculous. Nobody in the world would wear that much make up to bed, and, ahem.. welll... to be subtle, sleeping was never such an uplifting experience.

A small kostin. With her hairstyle and costume, and frequent references as 'machi', most moviegoers were stumped - was it a he-friend, or a she-friend? Either way, no laughs were wasted at her (the Lollu Sabha heroine's) expense.

The music was horrible through the movie. Every song reminded me of Santosh Subramaniam, the last Devi Sri Prasad movie I cared to hear. The BGM was *TERRIBLE* and many a touching scene were spoiled by a long, lazy, high-strung, mundane violin solo.

The accent of the actors (or should I say, of the dubbing artists) were unbearable. Coupled with inane dialogues and plastic faces, things got pretty irritating round the middle. Arjun probably looks good, though his standard expression would burn quite a few calories, with him flexing muscles and squinting when delivering every dialogue. His gesticulations and screaming was frankly irritating, and can't filmmakers see that even Prakash Raj has killed off his Ghilli routine? ("Dei... Neee...Enna sonna? Enna Sonna? Nee enna sonna? *snore*) The only other notable performer was Arjun's friend, the same person who was in Vaettaikaaran, if I'm not wrong.

The camera work was amazing... rich and colorful. Editing was good when it was done, but towards the end one got the feeling the editing team went on leave - the second half was just too long-drawn.

Kutty is small movie with a big heart. With better casting, better acting, better music and stricter editing, this could have been one of the great candyfloss movies. As such, the movie is passable, and after his amazing (though slightly overboard) performance in the climax, which, for the first time for a long time gave me a throat-lump in a Tamil movie, one comes away feeling that the movie is a must watch, just for Dhanush.