The movie is an epic allright.An epic fail.A poor man's titanic.An absolute scene by scene rip off of the Titanic and Lagaan.And to add to this poor lighting contributed in its own way to this british-girl-falls-in-lovvu-with-brave-man-story.
The movie begins with someone dying and moves to an 80 yr lady returning to India to seek her true love,one who she lost on the day of Independence.Cut to 1945 as the story beings to unfold through her eyes.And right from there I saw the movie through Cameron's eyes.
The first scene is exactly similar to how she sees the rusted interiors and starts visualizing how the original titanic was.Everytime I hear the theme of Titanic the catch that lodges in my throat refuses to go away.Yes,all these 12 years.And what did I feel when I heard this so called "Feel of love" theme?Sorry for the music director for attempting to recreate the masterpiece score of Horner.The soul stirring score has been reduced to something totally pathetic.
Allright moving on,yeah the same visualization with a pathetic attempt at a vivid description(Highly unlike the one by Gloria Stewart) the movie opens with a shot of Spencers in 1945 and strangely there were two characters resembling the character Broke Lovett and his assistant and of course a grand daughter.
The heroine is forced to get engaged to a british commander(Again duh!) and she has a mother who forces her into it.And right about that time she meets the hero.Now forget Titanic for a while as we get the copy of Lagaan out.Our hero is a dhobi and their settlement is annexed by the British who need the place to build a golf course.Hero opposes and fights the General one-on-one and wins the land.
Now too much digression from the Titanic cant be welcomed ,can it?Back on,they meet and fall in love.People start noticing.As per tamil cinema rules a Thaali sentiment sequence which is a must is also present.The thaali is of course a replacement for the Heart of the Ocean.
After a couple of duets being sung(with pookal pookum sounding strangely familiar(!))we are back to a bit of Lagaan when she dons on a saree and dances with the Hero and there is a small English bit in one song(again resembling O Rey!) and then Independence is declared and she has to return to England.She doubles back from the train and then on begins the chase very much like that in Titanic.They keep running and running until you start squirming in your seat,the popcorn and coke long gone.They hide in a clock tower with the heroine singing "Where will I be without you?"(Again sounded strangely like "Come Josephine").Finally,the villain gets hurled from a clock tower.And then they run some more(phew!)...
Finally hope rises in you(more like suppressing the bile rising) when you see her trying to save the guy by rowing them away when they are caught....So what does our heroine do? She forces the hero into a swimming ring and leaves him under a bridge,lest the britishers kill him.Now during the letting go of hands she again pulls a classic Rose.The same kind of dialogue is spoken and finally she lets go the same way Winslett actually does and the hand is seen sinking into the water and Amy is taken away to be married off.
The next scene is again a typical one from the Titanic where all the listener's of this classic(!)tale cannot control their tears and burst out like sissys.Now I had no idea what was going through the director's mind.Probably he must have been so tired in ripping off the Titanic and lagaan that he must have finally laid his hands on another DVD for the ending.-The Notebook.
When Amy finds him dead I actually felt no sympathy for her or Arya.The characters were so shallow and Arya in particular is neither funny and nor can he emote.The lighting is pathetic too.
There are no ways to differentiate the past and present when the movie cuts between both.
Somethings that I should have done:
1)Not trusted any movie reviews or for that matter all these emo cases raving that the movie was an extra-ordinary attempt.
2)Grabbed a copy of Lagaan and Titanic,kicked back at home and experience the catch in the throat that I do everytime Jack's hands disappear into the water.
3)Gone to Woodland and ogled at the pictures of old madras.(Wait!Googling is easier)
4)Thrown a live wire at GV Prakash for trying the "Copy" Raagam.
5)Asked to meet the non-existent Script writer(I am very sure 20 copies of all the three afore-mentioned movies did that work)
Finally:
Mr.Vijay(the director)if only you were about some 15 years early you could have won accolades for this movie for its novelty.Paavam,you too are the victim of plagiarization .Tch,Tch.Let's sue Cameron come on.But ,oh wait! he is not even aware of your existence,is he?
Madarasapattinam-A pathetic attempt at recreating Titanic.
Until the next one,
Gaya :)
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