Monday, January 28, 2013

Visvaroopam - Definitely not Offending


The movie starts with Kamal as a Kathak dancer and Pooja kumar is his wife who suspects that he has an affair with one of his students which is Andrea Jermiah. In this course, Pooja hires a investigator who gets killed by some members of the AlQaeda living in New York. 


Yes, AlQaeda! So Kamal happens to be part of the terrorist group which tries to pay back for what USA was doing to Afghanis and how and why he wants to stop a big terrorist plot of detonating a nuclear device in New York City. 
After the first 40 minutes the story takes so many twists and turns and you will have to watch it. It is a bit predictable but its not as bad as Mission Impossible series. 

Visvaroopam is not that kind of movie where you expect to go in and find Kamal Hassan acting exceptionally well and out performing or over performing than rest of the characters. In this movie Kamal has given his best to his character and also the other characters with a few exceptions, Andrea and Nasser to name a couple. His character as a Kathak dancer is commendable.

Coming to the technicalities, story is not something you'd find in a typical INDIAN movie, but its quite unique and probably the first time a Indian/Tamil movie was made revolving a global issue terrorism. Screenplay was excellent, not to mention how some scenes go back and forth showing us what really happens and why. 

Cinematography was standing out, Visuals were mind blowing. You can actually see that there were scenes you can tell yourself  "Yes this is good camera work", even though there were plenty of action scenes the camera was not actually shaking violently like they used to in some Vijay/Ajith movies. Kamal has used many multi-angle shots and if my guess is right, he probably used at least 4 to 6 cameras in some action scenes. For people who are wondering whats the big deal with 6 cameras, its not easy to place 6 cameras in a scene and make it not visible on the other camera. And it doesn't stop with that, they've also employed Time-Slice technology in some action sequences. The steady-cam work on the Kathak dance is exceptionally good and like that way its smooth and blends with Kamals moves.

BGM plays an important role as it kind of propels some action scenes. The Kathak song is soothing to hear and kind of stays in your mind. The movie was big enough and Kamal probably decided not to shoot songs for a thriller, Smart Idea! The theater i watched in did not Auro 3D but I could sense how it could've been with the fighters and choppers flying and with bullets bouncing of walls. It was actually too noisy and we didn't have any breaks in-between so it was kind of giving me a headache. 

The director probably could have shortened or thought about cutting down certain scenes that probably could be said in 1 line. It would've saved about 15 to 20 minutes for the audience, I was just not easy and I asked my friend next to me on when Kamal would go back to reality. A little bit of slowness and too much detail in telling the history kind of slowed it. Also the last few scenes which were exactly like how we see in Hollywood films were choreographed well but a bit draggy. 

The characters were too many to keep count off. Except for the main 4 or 5 people others were scene only in a few scenes but did their job. I am still puzzled as of why Kamal wanted Andrea, not sure what her skill set was in the movie. Kamal still keeps his friends closer by making them act in his movies, Nassers character is probably the result of that friendship. I was anyways hoping to see Nasser and Santhana Barathi in the movie :) 
I will watch the movie one more time for the action scenes and the BGM.

 I would rate it 7.5/10.

COMING TO THE MUSLIM OFFENDING ISSUE AND BAN IN SOME COUNTRIES
  1. So far everyone knows , the terrorist group AlQaeda originated from Afghanistan and was headed by Osama Bin Laden.
  2. The movie happens in Afghanistan and people showed can ONLY be Muslims and not Catholics from The Vatican. 
  3. The movie portrays what the terrorist groups could have done and with a fictitious plot close to reality
  4. Alqaeda didn't conduct blood donation camps or do social service, so Kamal Hassan can only show what they did. Thats reality!!!

The movie portrays only what could've happened from inside a terrorist point of view and Kamal Hassan plays himself as a true Muslim who actually does some good and not bad. I seriously don't understand on how this film would offend people and cause communal disharmony only in Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, Middle East but not in the United States, Singapore and other parts of India. 

I request the lawmakers and the people to actually separate movies/entertainment from real life and just have a nice time.

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