Singam is a roaring hit in Tamilnadu and is a grosser in all the centres, including the multiplexes and the rural areas. It has Surya donning the role of a Cop after Kakka Kakka and the voluptuous Anushka Shetty as his pair. The director is Hari ; Son in law of Vijayakumar, and director of previous hits like saami, ayyaa etc. Hari teams up with Surya for the 2nd time and the movie is a complete block-buster with all the masala ingredients perfectly mixed to the taste of the tamil audience. Even when we appreciate the great movies we saw last year like Nadodigal, Naan kadavul etc., it is very important to understand & appreciate that tamil cinema runs on masala movies and everyone from Kamal, Vikram, Surya have to do such movies to live life to fight another day.
Surya is a principled man, living & working as SI in a remote village called Nallur in Tootukudi district. He is loved by everyone in the village and is a local star standing for his principles. Anushka is daughter of Nasser who hails from that village, but is a big businessman settled in Chennai. He visits the village with his family and Anushka falls in love with Surya. Prakashraj as Mayilvahanan is a powerful dada in chennai who is cunning and smart and runs his own parallel kingdom. As fate has to be, Prakashraj gets a conditional bail on a land-grabbing case and is asked to sign for 15 days in Nallur policestation. The righteous Surya refuses to accept Proxy and Prakash is forced to attend in person which creates an ego-clash. Prakashraj tries in vain to tackle Surya in his home-turf and fails, and hence gets his promoted & transferred to Chennai. Surya initially gets frustrated with what happens in Chennai, gets a dosage of energy injection from Anushka then gets charged-up and takes Prakashraj head-on. What follows is then an intelligent cat & mouse game with hero defeating the villian. Right.. the story isnt all that novel... then what really made this movie click ?.
Surya's character is a powerful macho role, but Hari cleverly mixes the character with humour, human weaknesses, humility, falling in love and all the emotions that you associate with a regular human being. This balance prevents the movie from going overboard, and retains audience's interest level. I think it is high-time Vijay learns from this !
The sequences of Anushka and Surya's brief flirt and love are done very well. They are interesting and cute. Again Hari cleverly mixes the human side of a intelligent cop, powerful singam, with his domesticated side wonderfully to make these sequences click.
Prakashraj has done such kinda roles numerous times in the past. But he brings in something fresh everytime he comes on the screen. Hari has to be credited for not dumbing out his character and gives enough intelligence credit to the character. If you look back at all the big masala hits, the villian will not be all brawn. He will be clever, cunning and at times should out-smart the hero. Hari has mixed this proportion rightly and again something for Vijay to learn !.
All the songs are super duper hits, thanks to Devi Sree Prasad's kalakkal music. Foot tapping tunes, choreographed well, and paced nicely. DSP rocks !. (Vijay movies also have great songs, but then for the rest of the movie, people go out for a popcorn or a fag!)
Another important aspect is they have left Anushka remain a normal city girl without too much of a skin-show that gets attached to heroines of masala movies. She has good scope for acting and does it well too. The family sequences she has with Nasser are really funny and makes audience sit up. Honestly people dont want their heroines to be a bimbo. Not sure where the other masala directors picked this wrong notion !
The cat & mouse game between PrakashRaj and Surya in the 2nd half is not all brawn. Infact they are intelligent and well-crafted with each trying to out-fox the other. Something of the sort we saw in Ayan as well. If you have a hero bashing up everyone at will, and doing super-heroic things without much use of his grey matter or without giving adequate credit to the intelligence level of the villain,... you dont end-up with a Rajinikanth movie, but you only end-up with a Vijayakanth at his worst !. Hightime the masala movie directors and actors take a note of this reality formula.
Over-all, everyone in TN loves the movie. They pay big bucks, go to the theatre, have fun and come back contended. You know what to expect in a masala movie, and only when that is served exactly in the right proportion, it clicks !. This movie is another big success for Surya, after previous hits like Ayan and Aadhavan. Guess in terms of collection, Surya is the no-1 grosser in TN now. Well deserved !.
PS** I got 2 free tickets to watch it in PVR cinemas, multiplex in Aminjikarai chennai. There was a funny incident in the theatre. One middle-aged man had come with his family to watch the movie. It appeared that he never follows Tamil movies closely and was there mainly for his family. He walked to the counter and asked " சிங்கம்னு ஒரு படம் வந்து இருக்காம்லே .. அதுக்கு 4 ticket குடுங்க.. ".. The counter-wala looks up and asked him " ஆண் சிங்கமா, பெண் சிங்கமா, முரட்டு சிங்கமா ? ".. It was very funny to see the "ங்கே" look in his eyes.. உடனே ஆளு பம்மி, இருங்க .. வீட்ல கேட்டுட்டு சொல்லறேன்.. என்று சொன்னான் பாருங்க .. எனக்கு ஒரே சிரிப்பு !. ஆமாம் தெரியாம தான் கேக்கறேன், தமிழ் நாட்டுல இப்போ என்ன திடீர் சிங்கம் வெறி ???.. அது சரி, புலி பாசம் தான் இல்லை, சிங்கம் பாசமாச்சும் இருந்துட்டு போகட்டும் விடுங்க பிரதர் . ;)
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