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Monday, March 24, 2025
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TAMIL KATHTHI
EDITOR'S PICK
If you've seen A.R. Murugadoss's 'Ramana', you are likely to agree that his 'Kaththi'
is just a stylish version of the former made on a lavish budget, bigger star,
bigger issue, prettier heroine (with no scope for performance) and a lot of
melodrama (plight of farmers).
If Vijayakanth was the messiah of 'Ramana', he's replaced by Vijay in this film.
It's evident in the scene where Jeeva (Vijay) tells his villagers not to give up
farming even if he has to lose his life, after being bruised up by corrupt cops.
He's taken back inside for another round of beating and we see hundreds of
farmers weep. Doesn't it remind us of crucifixion?
'Kaththi' is a commercial film and naturally audiences except some heroism,
action and romance in it. But here Murugadoss has portrayed his hero as a
messiah, a man of the masses willing to even sacrifice his life. What would he
do to make it a masala film? He smartly uses the dual hero concept by
introducing us to a crook Kathiresan (Vijay), doing time in a Kolkata prison. As
a rule in any film with two heroes, Kathiresan finds himself in the shoes of
Jeeva.
Kathiresan as Jeeva is too cool to care about a bunch of senior citizens. But
eventually when he comes to learn about Jeeva, he's ashamed and guilty. He plans
on running away, but a scene requires him to show his heroic side. A
pre-interval fight sequence where Kathiresan happily announces that he will
henceforth be called Jeeva.
Post interval, we see Kathiresan gradually turning into another messiah of
sorts. But his transformation from Kathiresan to Jeeva is not handled as
convincingly as it ought to be. Murugadoss uses this section of the film to
indict multinational corporations (MNC) who steal the livelihood of farmers and
media for not willing to give villagers a voice.
Towards the end, Murugadoss goes all guns blazing to bore us with startling
statistics about the takeover of MNCs. He talks about MNCs manufacturing
strawberry-flavoured condoms when most children in villages don't even get to
eat the fruit. Who even eats strawberries on a daily basis? Farmers would any
day prefer some rice over fruits. It makes sense if you talk about other fruits
such as apple being used in beauty products, but strawberry is a bad example.
All this is extremely preachy and unrealistic to believe or even commend.
'Kaththi' does feature a few good moments. A fight sequence involving a bunch of
coins is extremely well choreographed. The coins were donated for Jeeva's cause
by a group of farmers now employed in low-life jobs. When he uses these coins to
beat the henchmen sent by MNC stooges, there's a strong emotional reverberation
to the scene. But it's also a flawed scene because the fight takes place in the
dark, but for some reason audiences can very clearly see Vijay.
When this action sequence is repeated in the climax, it loses its charm because
we appreciate something creative only the first time. It becomes monotonous when
it's done the second time. But it's these masala moments that leave Vijay's fans
into a frenzy.
Vijay shines in both the roles. As Jeeva, he does touch your heart with an
honest performance. But Murugadoss's others characters are extremely weak. The
film features the most uninspiring romantic track that makes us feel extremely
sorry for Samantha.
The film would've still worked even without a heroine and a love portion. Neil
Nitin Mukesh looked terrific in the initial moments, but once again suffers due
to poorly developed character.
'Kaththi', which translates to sword in English, is largely blunt at the
important edges. It reeks of overdose of melodrama and the need to preach.
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