Sarvamm, upset mayam

I've never been much of a movie goer. I'm more of a movie watcher. However, of late, I've dived headlong into the watching business thanks to a generous offer from Cineworld Cinemas that permits me to watch n number of movies a month, and in return for the privilege I transfer a set amount of funds from my bank account to Cineworld. It works for me and them, a win-win situation, one might say.

My policy for watching Tamil movies, until recently was to only watch something that the whole of Tamilnadu raved about for no less than 6 months. Those films are usually graced with my patronage at the movie theatres.

Now, in typical Indian isshtyle, I watch as many movies as my schedule accommodates, just to get some paisa vasool.

While in mood to confess, I might also add that I never review movies. I'm going to break that practice as well. This post is about Sarvamm.

The movie stars Arya and Trisha. The reason we zeroed in on this particular Tamil movie is because it was the only one running within a 5000 mile radius. Bad move.

The movie starts off with Arya beating someone black and blue, no explanations offered. I suppose the person getting beaten is a symbolic reference to the audience. Then there's a tacky song in which Arya entertains the audience with a performance in which he only has 2 left feet. Maybe someone should inform him of the fact that he can't dance. The song, I'm informed by the wife, has been sung by Illayaraja. He's clearly out of touch with singing, but I'm sure we can endure 5 minutes of cacophony in favour of the grander scheme of things.

This is followed by a go-karting nee, bumper car, race which sets up the introduction for Trisha. I'm not sure if its the screen at my local multiplex or if that's the real deal, Trisha doesn't even look all that pretty in this movie, she looks skinny and malnourished. The lack of looks further accentuates the absence of acting.

What follows is a grinding, nail pullingly irritating 45 minutes in which Arya tries to woo Trisha. In the middle of all this, the villain and his sidekick get introduced, resulting in the untimely death of an undertaker for no reason whatsoever. The villain is totally devoid of any expression (I have a sneaking suspicion that he tries to be that way). Bad guy stalks another bloke who has no relation at all to Trisha or Arya. How the stalkee manages to stay one step ahead of the stalker while maintaining the same standard of living, changing cars, houses, schools for his kid etc., etc., without once worrying about money or the means of earning it boggles the mind.

Somewhere around the interval, the two independent plots are loosely connected, setting up the pace for the second half, which, I admit is a half decent thriller.

Other mind boggling matters include Arya not getting affected even after getting struck by a poisonous knife, the presence of king cobras in the jungles of Munnar, not rare sightings, but a dime a dozen.

However, good prevails of stupid at the end of the day. What especially amazes me is, the director seems to have had the amazing sense to stall any progress in the 'storyline'. It's almost as if the director decided to have 3,240,213 songs in the movie, to be inserted anytime the story heated up. I suppose the conversation at the editing stage would have been something like this, "Hmm, the story is getting too interesting, olddown here, lets have a song here, here and here. Oh, lets also have a song here, just to spice things up!"

Overall it was a pretty disappointing movie. Do you know what was the most upsetting bit? I ignored several divine messages to catch this movie. I first tried to watch the movie before it released (mixed-up the release dates), then missed the bus (quite literally) and therefore missed the show, and even had a fight just before leaving thereby cancelling the movie plan. I went and watched it against all odds and I'd have been a very disappointed man had I paid money for this. Thank God for the Unlimited Pass!