7 am Arivu – 6.5 Arivu
October 26, 2011 – 8:39 pm By Prakash
7 aum Arivu – apt title for the story line. This is a Surya movie, portraying the pride, power and intelligence of the early Tamils. Udhayanidhi Stalin needs to be appreciated for making this movie.
First 10 minutes of the movie establishes Bodhidharman (from several centuries earlier) as a Tamil monk who was instrumental in setting up Shaolin temple and is an expert medical practitioner. Ravichandran’s cinematography does wonders during this segment.
The first 10 minutes and post interval is enough to make you like the movie. Surya has lent his shoulders, legs, head and all to hold together the movie and the portrayal of the character from this wonderful story line.
Then we encounter the current day Surya, a circus artist; did the assistant director(s) sleep while the junior artists were blundering like the Gemini circus owner?
Murugadoss, in vain tries the love angle for the next 40 minutes. When Shruti shuns his love with a dialog “Throw your love in the dustbin”, save for Surya on the screen, none reacted in the audience. Even though some of the scenes like Surya handing over mobile are interesting, we scarcely feel the hurt when Shruti turns down his love. Shruti has done a reasonably good job of her role, but much more is awaited.
Why do we need 2 songs in the first half ? They stand out like sore thumb, and take up 10 minutes of time. When was the last time, I saw a hero singing a sad song alone, at least the one as big as Surya? cluck cluck cluck
Then comes the evil part of Chinese conspiracy against India, and the lead villain Johnny is introduced with his “Nokkuvarmam” (kind of hypnotism), initially practiced by Bodhidharman and learnt by Chinese for centuries. The villain simply abuses Nokkuvarmam with everyone on the screen, last heard of my friend who accompanied me was seeing his eyes back home!
Post interval the film races with how Surya saves India from the clutches of Chinese. Some of the dialogs were fire, taking a dig at the way Tamils live and let them being (mis)governed. Music at some places stood out, but predominantly, pleasant and slow. Harris Jeyaraj lost a wonderful chance to have made a “make-me-fight” kind of song in “Innum Enna Thozha”. In spite of the lyrics being good, the music was slow but did serve the purpose to build the spirit. One might remember the song “Tholvi Nilayaena Ninaithal” from Oomai Vizhigal movie.
As a whole, the movie is certainly a “don’t miss to” watch at least once for the sake of Surya, the team and the story line. I do wish that Director A.R.Murugadoss, spend even more time in screen play, narration and making full use of an actor like Surya in his next movie as expectations around his films have grown.
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