KUTTI PULI MOVIE REVIEW

M.Sasikumar, who had a decent score at the box-office with his last 'Sundarapandian', is back once again with the same pair in Lakshmi Menon, and more 'importantly' back in his home turf, Madurai. Directed by a former associate of Boopathy Pandian, Muthaiya has played it safe by scripting a story based on what he and the lead artistes are comfortable with. With Madurai as backdrop, its inevitable to expect plenty of bloodshed and violence. But were they all justified ?

Starting off with the M.Sasikumar. We have seen him before as a Madurai youth, so there's nothing refreshing here, in terms of performance and characteristics. He has been portrayed as the quintessential rough-and-tough, machoisme-filled Madurai rogue. His comedy timing is getting better and better and he has improved a lot in terms of being comfortable with dance and action sequences. Not bad, but there's nothing much better, either. Lakshmi Menon has an inconsequential role, who just comes in like a typical Madurai girl-next-door. It has been the umpteenth time Saranya Ponvannan played an emotional, rural mother and she just breezes through her role. There's nothing much for the character artistes such as Rama Prabha, Vaijayanthi, Lal, Rajasimman, Gnanasambandhan, Namo Narayanan, Murugadass, Saravana Sakthi, and etc to perform, but the particular guy among a group of friends, who dons the role of 'Pappu' evokes some laughter with his dialogue delivery.

The technical department's work just passes muster. Natraj's costume designing was apt, as each artistes looked the characters they played, very much, and evidently showed the various social strata displayed in the film. Dhilip Subbarayan must be commended for choreographing action sequences which suits M.Sasikumar's personality and style. The opening scenes, though very much morbid in nature, was somewhat, stylish. Suresh Kallery's art direction sufficed the need of the script. The props for each situations and locations looked perfect and any exacerbation was toned down. Gopi Krishna could have done a lot better, especially with the length of the film. His editing for song sequences were smooth, though nothing new in treatment. Mahesh Muthuswami's cinematography was sadly, only functional and the man's true potential has been not exploited. The opening night chase sequence was well shot, but apart from that, nothing else sticks to our mind.

M.Ghibran, has tried to be innovative again with his musical scores but pithily not a single number is hummable. "Thaattiyare" was used as a simple opening song sequence for the protagonist and only plays for a very short time. "Kaathu Kaathu" has dance choreographer Dinesh and his dance crew dancing for the opening song for the heroine, which has been shot in narrow streets and alleys of a smaller town in Madurai. "Aruvakaaran" is a montage song, picturized on the lead pair, showcasing the blossoming love of the heroine on the hero. "Aatha Un Selai" is a sentimental situational song, also shot with plenty of montages, shown as flashbacks, picturized on the hardships faced by the protagonist and his mother. Also, we do have an uncredited Malaysian song, "Akkamage" by Malaysian artiste Darkkey. The song was picturized on M.Sasikumar, dancing in modern outfits amidst dancers, in the narrow streets. The background score, was lacklustre and uninteresting in terms of quality and output. Do not bring down your quality, M.Ghibran !

Coming to the script and direction, debutante Muthaiya has penned plenty of scenes and sequences, but a good, major portion of them do not serve any purpose at all and is absolutely redundant ! The storyline is wafer-thin and the presentation is very much outdated. If one has to come up with negativeness of the film, the list will be endless, for sure ! Stories based in Madurai, always have had a litany of gory sequences, but what Muthaiya executed in the climax, was mind-numbing and shocking. Also, its pretty lame and archaic to watch the director make use of old Ilaiyaraja classics, excessively. The screenplay wanders without any aim the direction has been pretty poor. M.Sasikumar, should read more into scripts and choose to come out of this Madurai-circle and enhance his repertoire. And for Muthaiya, please do keep up to date with the tastes and mindset of present film watchers.

'Kutti Puli' - Doesn't even raise a 'meow' !


Ratings: 1.75/5 STARS

BY:TAMIL