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Wednesday, March 26, 2025
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TAMIL NAAIGAL JAKKIRATHAI
EDITOR'S PICK
'Naaigal
Jaakirathai'- Entertaining, but beware of cliches (IANS Tamil Movie Review)
Rating:
***
There are some genuinely good and bad moments in 'Naaigal Jaakirathai'. As
promised, the makers went on to credit the dog, Idoh, a Belgian Shepherd first
in the title card, which is a sweet gesture (good part), but only to later give
it a hero tag (bad part) and make it do everything a Tamil cinema's hero is
expected to do.
In Tamil films, the hero always has a best friend, and here our hero Karthika's
best friend turns out to be the dog named Subramani. Now, since you have a hero
and his best friend, there are certain things Tamil audiences expect or our
filmmakers are keen to show them - like a booze scene, a song about their
friendship and so on.
When was the last time you saw a Tamil film without a reference to drinking? 'Naaigal
Jaakirathai' suffers from all these cliches even though the intent was to
entertain the masses. Audiences may have enjoyed when they find the hero and the
dog drunk as a skunk in a scene, but that's not just now how you portray the
bond between the two.
The good part, however, is that the hero here doesn't break into a duet with his
heroine but instead spends all the time with his dog, which is a rare sight in
Tamil cinema where heroes want the cameras to stay on them as much as possible.
Sibiraj definitely didn't mind the dog stealing the show from him. Moments like
these are a treat to watch, especially one where the dog finds a bitch and they
mate in a car.
The story of how the dog meets the hero is interesting. Both have lost someone
very important and they fill in that vacant spot in each other's lives. But
what's surprising is how a trained police dog can be initially so disobedient to
Karthik. Also, for some reason the villains in the film seem to run faster than
Subramani, mostly, which is quite surprising considering they're being chased by
a trained police dog.
When Karthik and his dog partner up to solve crime, we wish the story had more
tension. We wish it didn't borrow from several crime thrillers and tried
something original.
When Karthik's wife gets abducted by the villains, who remind us of the ones in 'Kaakha
Kaakha', who like to kill women for pleasure, we can easily predict the end. The
twist in the tale may make you shed a tear or two but most would've seen it
coming.
More could've been achieved in this laudable attempt but the director's
willingness to not challenge the cliches is very much evident. Nevertheless, 'Naaigal
Jaakirathai' is entertaining but beware of the formulaic presentation.
Director Shakti Soundar Rajan, who is currently busy with the post-production work on Tamil cinema's first space film "Tik Tik Tik", says it was challenging for him to explore the genre within the commercial cinema format.Read More
Naaigal Jaakirathai Success Meet Photos