Avan Ivan, one of the most eagerly expected films of the year, thanks to the hype around Bala and the coming together of two of Tamizh cinema's macho heroes, Arya and Vishal. Arya has been going great guns in the box office with most of his recent films becoming hit and for Vishal, this is a crucial film because his fate is totally the opposite of his friend. Besides that, Bala had promised a commercial based film this time, deviating from his usual pattern. How is the outcome?? Quite honestly saying, it is a disappointing one from Bala, script wise.
The major backbone of the film is the performance of the male leads in the film. Vishal was simply mind-blowing and definitely this film will be one his best ever performances in his whole career. Performing is one task, but doing it with a squint eye, is a totally whole new level. Right from his opening scene, where he cross dresses as woman dancer and dances brilliantly, and his interactions with Ambika and the part where he had to climb a 70 feet tree, he has performed an awesome job. The ultimate scene is definitely the 'Navarasa' performing one.. Hats-off to Vishal. His body language, expressions and voice modulation which has a slight effeminacy touch with the near perfect dubbing of actress Senthikumari for Vishal's woman voice, was simply out of the world. No surprise if he brings in lots of awards. Arya meanwhile plays more of a secondary role, but he too did well especially with his rocking and expressive body language and dialogue delivery which really shows how he has matured into a good actor. His best scenes will be the interaction with GM Kumar in the waterfalls and also the climax where he scored really well with his emotions. GM Kumar had a superb comedy timing and effortless performance, not to forget the dare-bare act in the pre-climax. Besides that Ambika, Prabha, the small boy who comes along with Arya and the police inspector all did a decent performance. The biggest drawback was the heroines. Not to say they didn't do well but usually in Bala's films, heroines have tremendous potential to score in acting but in this movie both Janani Iyer and Madhu Shalini have nothing much to do with the former having some scenes to perform while the latter literally has so less dialogues which won't even come to a single page!! RK making a late entry as villain was OK and he should be appreciated for the fight sequences. Suriya makes a decent cameo.
Technically the film has a decent work. Suresh Urs's editing is perfect, Muthuraj's sets especially the interiors of the Zamindar palace and the cow shed are authentic. Vasugi Bhaskar's costumes are natural and not over-the-top. Suchitra Chandrabose's choreography in the opening dance sequence and Arya's dance sequence with Prabha were lively and natural. Super Subbarayan's stunts are realistic and kudos for the actors to perform them well. The final fight scene in the cow ranch and in the swamp area was raw and hard hitting. Arthur A.Wilson's cinematography was brilliant as usual, especially with his angles in the fight sequences and also the camera movement focusing the characters and the beautiful shots of Theni are noteworthy. Yuvan Shankar Raja is on a hot streak and it continues in this film as well but sadly the songs from the album are missing in the film and replaced with bit-songs apart from the "Rasathi" song which has a slight difference from the album track. His background score impresses in a few places like the track involving Vishal-Janani especially the "Kaavalkaara Kizhiye" bit song and also the climax scenes.
Among Bala's 5 films, this one has the weakest script although he did not fail to transport us into a remote village world filled with various type of people whom we never met or will not meet in our lifetime. Bala himself admits that his films has no story and he makes films based on characters rather than a story-line, but his previous films indeed had some story which left a lump in throat of the viewers. Alas here, the emphasis has been given to comedy portions in the name of commercialism, and only the last 20 minutes having the real Bala touch. It might be purposely done by Bala, keeping financial business aspects in mind, but after more than an hour, viewers get tired of waiting for some story or plot and instead get more of the buffoonery acts of the male leads. It looks like Bala wanted to play safe by putting in comedy scenes bearing his trademark with the two leading heroes, and at the same time to safeguard his reputation, throws in a serious plot in the last 20 minutes. This can be a dampener as threading a middle path in Tamizh cinema is akin to walking on a tight-rope and guess Bala has slipped this time. Yet, dialogues by Ramakrishnan complements the characters drawn out by Bala.
Avan Ivan is watchable thanks to the brilliant performance of the male leads and Bala should be more careful when he wants to attempt a commercial cinema.
Ratings: 2.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
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