Maattrraan–The Hounds of Baskerville

There are (rather were) two kinds of commercial movies in Tamil Cinema. The movies made by KV Anand and the rest. He showed the world that even commercial movies can attain cult status and through Maattrraan he has given us a firm message that just because someone’s previous movie was brilliant, we can’t expect the same from him every time.

Even though the Sherlock reference is quite explicit in the title, KV Anand has made it as subtle as possible. But still The Coventry Conundrum (watch Sherlock for further details) might draw some facepalms. As every other movie nowadays is either ‘inspired’ or at least used a reference of an English movie, there is not point in talking about it. The best a director could do is to make sure that it is not explicit and conceal it within his own masala elements and KV Anand has done a decent job doing that.

There wouldn’t have been any major change in the storyline without the concept of conjoined twins. Even for a marketing gimmick, it has been handled with utmost care. The movie answers all our basic queries about them and the police woman’s doubt steals the show even though it was unanswered. The obligatory and utterly illogical fight sequence during the end of the first half (which is claimed to be the better half among the two halves and reason for that is still unknown) is where everyone loses all their high hopes on KV Anand and add the movie to the second type of commercial movies even though the VFX was extraordinary in that particular scene.

The script is written in such a way that every single detail has been explained very elaborately but KV Anand has to understand that some things better left unanswered. This makes the audience to come up with their own conclusions and they are tempted to watch the movie for the second time. But even this detailing seems clumsy most of the times.

One more thing that KV Anand needs to know is that it is not about placing a song right after someone’s death. It seems like after the whole movie was completed, the director was left with 5 songs. He chooses random five places and the songs were just inserted into the reel. Take this for instance – Two people go to a Russian bar for investigating something. One of them has lost a brother and the other was his lover. All of a sudden they start singing and dancing for a Tamil song. Neat.

The logiclessness is not limited to the songs alone. Even some of the characters take some brilliant decisions during crucial periods – One of the conjoined twins has already found about about his father’s criminal plan and the other is agitated by his brother’s death. Now might be the proper time to give an awesome inspirational speech so that his son might stop taking any further step; After finding that a product is dangerous to consume, talking about it’s fault to the head of the place that produces it should be the most brilliant idea ever; Oh! He is the most cruel and vicious military leader? Pointing this gun in his face might help us get what we are looking for!; Two people are locked up in a cell in a foreign country. Why don’t we just exchange romantic looks and dialogues? That should get us out of here; This one is the best. One son is waiting to kill after coming to know that his father is the cause of his brother’s death. This is the perfect time to tell him why he hates his son so much. That should make him forget everything and let him live.

Even the writers show some extraordinary skills in places – It seems they sell DNAs of Sachin and Michael Jackson in every street corner so that people can use them to ‘design’ a baby; It has been decided that we are copying a scene from Anniyan. Why don’t we just tell it to the audience explicitly? That should make them feel that it is not copied; One cruel killer military leader who manhandles a bunch of Olympic medal holders for his whole lifetime, transforms completely into a light-hearted normal human being from some dying children who don’t even belong to his country. Brilliant!

With every Tom, Dick and Harry giving decent performances in every other movie, incompetent actors are not even cast in movies nowadays . But KV Anand, who is known for squeezing out the best even from the extras, should have been more careful in that area. Some of the casts, the lab scientist who proposes to Kajal for instance, irritate us just by their screen presence. Suriya, showing his well renowned six packs wherever it is possible, has made the viewer feel his pain. Even though he overdoes it in some places, his charm makes it imperceptible. Being one of the very few movies where the heroine has a screen presence for more than a couple of songs and a lip lock, Kajal Aggarwal has missed an awesome opportunity of being the number one in this industry for the next month.

When people go to a Harris Jayaraj’s musical, one thing they are guaranteed of is shitty BGM. And shitty BGM is what you get in Maattrraan too (except in a couple of scenes. They are still investigating whether it actually was Harris who scored music for those scenes). If someone want’s examples of BGMs that are absolutely irrelevant to the scenes, Maattrraan would be in one in the Top 10 list.

On the upside, leaving out the acting, cinematography and visual effects (which is expected to be top notch in a movie like this, using motion capture technology and stuffs), KV Anand has handled some aspects of this kind of movies rather well. He has sanely skipped the tiresome explanation that a doctor gives while making an operation. He has not gone too deep inside into genetic engineering even though that is the kernel of the movie. Most importantly, Suriya does not come after the climax and give a lousy speech for a TV program (but sill, an award from the president? For someone who has killed his father? R.I.P. Justice).

Maattrraan – Not a film by KV Anand.

[rating: 2.5/5]