Director Suraaj played lucky with few of his previous outings like ‘Thalainagaram’ and ‘Padikaathavan’ which were runaway hits, thanks to the comedians who acted in those flicks as they were the binding force for the entire movie. His latest flick, Alex Pandian starring Karthi stands testimony to the fact that he hasn’t changed his formulaic appeal.
The movie opened with a chase sequence thats typical to a masala movie wherein the lead pair were being chased by hooligans of varying sizes with long hair and unbuttoned shirts that has been seen so many times at least in the past decade. Following a long drawn out train fight, they jump into the water and escape.
After the initial mockery, the story cuts to a small town where Karthi lands up at Santhaanam’s house as a ‘distant relative’. In the ensuing laugh riot, Karthi happily played second fiddle to Santhaanam and kept us calm without much worries. But it did not last long before the interval, the bad men caught up fast and Karthi once again had to take up the axe to grind the baddies in equal installments, narrated a stale flashback and ended up winning hands down with Anushka obviously by his side.
Director Suraaj might not have believed in logic but at least he should have acknowledged the fact that audiences have some brains. Liberally using the script to his advantage and employing so many villains in a single movie (around 5 to be precise) have been an age old formula used by directors like ‘Perarasu’ who himself has taken a sabbatical owing to the tiresomeness experienced after watching his own films.
A handsome actor like Milind Soman who has a suave baddie in him has been trivialized among the group of caricatural villains. Also, in the scorching hot sun, Milind and his men walking through the streets with a blazer evoked laughter more than anything.
This is yet another sorry tale for Karthi as an action hero after his previous colossal flop, ‘Saguni’. One can sense the desperation within him to establish himself as a salable action star. Its sad to see that the competition is getting the better of him. For him the road is still wide open but his attitude towards audiences’ taste has to change if he is going to taste success once again.
Anushka had no dialog in the first half and appeared in just 2 or 3 scenes. In the second half she appeared for quite sometime and throughout the time she was on screen, she kept running along with Karthi. A very weak role in terms of characterization.
Santhaanam, as I said before was the only saving grace. One can only watch his string of comedy scenes as a separate DVD or when aired on satellite televisions.
Music by Devi Sri Prasad was a lift off from so many of his previous albums and the beats were hackneyed.
Editing and camera did their best to provide the jerks and swing from low and wide angles which is a critical feature of such flicks.
The movie can definitely be ignored and watched on satellite televisions for any one of the forthcoming festival days!
Verdict: Boring!
Rating: 1/5
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