Director Vasanth has always delivered some offbeat movies that stays with you for a while for some reason or the other. His style of dialog writing is profound in the sense that it drifts away from the realms of cinema (read it as Tamil cinema). I am not a great fan of his screenplay but I usually find it strangely amusing as that of a kid who is constantly fighting a losing battle. His latest offering, MPMK had all the trademarks of ‘a vasanth movie’ that is stale and it was outdated in every sense.
MPMK is a multi-threaded movie where 3 love stories are woven together and attempts to bring out the purity of love, thus adding a new dimension to it wherein he has made one of the leads mention the notion behind the million dollar question ‘What is Love?’. His answer is ‘Love should not take away anything, but it should give something’ which was a new perspective. But the pain that we undergo to understand this message at the climax is 2 hours and 25 minutes of melodrama and boring dialogs. The story just doesn't have any twist and if at all it seems to have a few, it would be riddled with some stupid sentiments.
To be honest the last time I have seen so many ‘good’ characters in a movie was in Vikraman’s ‘Vaanathai Pola’. Similarly in MPMK, all the characters shown were idealists who were prisoners of their morality and conscience. Its like tasting the ‘manna dew’!
The first pair - Varun (Vimal) and Anjana (Lasini): Their love story was shot in typical Vasanth style with long dialogs which were unwanted and unimpressive. Vimal was once again attempted to be cast as a refined youth and his natural profile just doesn’t gel with it and constantly puts him in embarrassment, especially during the dialog delivery when he attempts to mouth some English words. Lasini is a decent find for an ebony girl, who has that urban looks and is a model material.
The second pair - Gunasekar (Cheran) and Mallika (Bhanu): Set in a sea shore, their love story is the matured of all. A social message has been spun into this love story that can be applauded, but again having a song repeated twice in the same love episode made room for many a yawn. Cheran was his usual, while Bhanu’s role was more solid and she was the only one who stuck to the slang of the region (Muttam).
The third pair - Harris (Arjun) and Divya (Surveen Chawla): They can be called as a flashy and contemporary pair and also their episode aims to hold water for the movie’s commercial compromises as it starts with a song. Arjun had his role cut to shape as that of a swimming coach and Surveen had the luxury to flaunt her glamorous body in a swimsuit more often than not.
I think age is catching up with Vasanth and that is getting reflected in his stories; his last ‘Satham Podathe’ also carried some info about alcohol rehabilitation and herein he depicts that there is hope for prisoners once they get released from prison. These are undoubtedly some noble things, but treating the audiences like a bunch of students in a moral science class proves to be a risk always. Also he has become a responsible ‘Kollywood father’ who wants to badly give his son a launch pad. ‘Ritwik Varun’, Vasanth’s son was launched with an unwanted song at the fag end when the audiences were almost crying for help to relieve them from this painful narrative. He was unimpressive and had every sign of an amateur star kid who wants a free ride on his dad’s back.
Music by Yuvan was the saving grace, though the songs were packed close together.
Editing was by Fazil and Vasanth himself. Phewww.... what a nightmare the audience had, especially when a song got repeated thrice including the title number. Worst job!
Cinematography by Bhojan was the silver lining as he captured the 3 landscapes (land, water, hills) with perfect frames and vivid colors.
I am still trying to make sense for Vasanth’s attempt to set his 3 love stories in 3 different landscapes - well, as an afterthought I found it meaningless to introspect, as the movie by itself is totally meaningless!
Verdict: Avoidable!
Rating: 1.5/5
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