What makes a good or even great action movie? There are websites to look this up, surely. But, what makes a good/great Tamil action movie? If we were to go by the popular Tamil movie reviewers and audiences (for 2012), Thuppakki (Gun) seems to the one, edging others out. I despair as prominent director A. R. Murugadoss dumbs down a that made me want to slit my wrists or moreover kill myself with a thuppakki that Vijay produces in the movie, as an option for the bad guys to take his own life.
There is a hero Jagdish (Vijay), a silly sidekick Balaji (Sathyan), a sillier heroine Nisha (Kajal Agarwal) and the villain/bad guy/terrorist (what else is new?) with a roundhouse kick that challenges that of Chuck Norris, Vidyut Jamwal (dude has no name; no, not akin to the Dollars trilogy, he's just a puppet terrorist, almost to the point of being cute) and some others who die and some who don't. Story? Hmmm, good guy defeats the bad guy, and in-between he manages to squeeze in a few duets and perform comedy because (SPOILERS!!!),
a. Terrorism is a light-hearted subject b. We all know that in the end, it's all going to be okay
Now, don't get me wrong, the film ain't half bad (no let me change the fraction; the film is 9.5/10 - bad), and it is not what people raved on and on and on about; sadly it is a tawdry affair that blocked up my sinus and other cavities. Hey Muslims, forget USA, it is India that shows that all Muslims are terrorists in their "philums". And, what's with censoring names of cities and ministers? Are the audience of India so stupid, that there'd have been riots if the names had not been censored? Well, the audience did make a hit out of this, so
Thuppakki has its moments and they are few (again, let me change the number to two; no more). But it was more a exploitative film which wanted us to jerk tears (is that a new term?) at the little Muslim kid, pointing to his dead father on the TV screen and had more plot holes than you can poke a stick at (intended). Vijay, at his nonchalant best, drags the movie (especially in the torture scenes, which by the way, are a hoot and a half), Kajal can't act if her life depended on it (there, someone had to say it) and the others are not so memorable with the exception of Vidyut Jamwal's roundhouse kick and Santosh Sivan's cinematography. Music is terrible (c'mon Harris Jeyaraj) and the rest, well, I can only say "meh". Here I would like to point out a prominent "Tamil phylum reviewer" who compared this garbage to Neethaane En Ponvasantham and favoured this mindless masala meandering of a movie over NEP. For me "Thuppakki" shot nothing but blanks. Oh, how I despair for you Tamil cinema
I'm waiting
