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In the next few scenes the villain emerges.
Akashdeep Segal (Kamalesh), son of a friendly
rival of Prabhu’s gang wants to depart
from the friendly ways and establish himself
as the numero uno. Segal informs the police
about the piracy and Suriya and gang have
a close escape.
Next, we are taken to Congo, the land of
diamonds and AIDS, as said by Suriya’s
character. Here we see Suriya, and his sidekick
Jegan, obtain a pouch of diamonds from the
country’s rebels. Suriya is watched
in Congo by Segal and his men and what follows
is a brilliantly choreographed action sequence
in which Suriya recovers the diamond pouch
that Segal’s men steal from him. If
you, like me, expected to see more such
action sequences later in the movie, you
will be sorely disappointed, for, with this
action sequence and the “hero’s
intro” song (Pala palakra pagala nee),
the movie is pretty much over. The audience
can now throw in some romance, some twists
and a climax sequence to get the entire
“picture”. The movie is about
how Deva overcomes Kamalesh in his smuggling
venture and eventually becomes (not unpredictably)
a customs officer.
Well, the romance does require some mention.
Suriya-Tammana chemistry seemed very good
and the scenes portraying their second meeting
(God! the first meeting was pretty deplorable)
have been shot well. Suriya, as usual, has
done justice to his role. His acting, dialogue
delivery, action and, perhaps more importantly,
his looks, are all as expected from the
Vaaranam Aayiram hero. Tammana looks good
and has done a decent job in a rather limited
role (which is not new in Tamil cinema).
The first half is racy with comic interludes
from Jegan who has got a decent role in
this movie and makes full use of it. He’s
not just the comic relief in the movie,
but plays a vital role. Without revealing
much, I can say that Jegan has done a good
job and we can expect to see him get more
such roles in the future.
While the “first half” could
have been the savior of the movie, the second
half was, without qualifications, bad. There
is a fair share of twists and bad song placements
in the second half (can you imagine a duet
song soon after the demise of the heroine’s
brother?). The twists in the movie are too
clichéd and too numerous to be enjoyed.
The Honey Honey song is completely out of
sync with the movie.
Do I have to talk about the villain? He
is a sore sight in the movie and Segal has
a lot of work to be done in the acting front.
Prabhu, on the other hand, is exceptional.
Portraying the role of a gang leader, Prabhu
is all brilliance and his experience shows.
Karunas has also managed to perform well
and the emotional scenes in later part of
the movie show his acting skills.
Harris’ music is, of course, pleasant
to the ears, but brings with it the feeling
of having heard it before. The re-recording
is good enough to be mentioned, but is not
fabulous.
Bottomline is that Ayan is a typical commercial
Tamil film set apart by some good performances
by Suriya and Prabhu and a rather decent
screenplay. Stay attentive during the first
fifteen minutes. It wont matter if you fall
asleep (and I wont blame you if you do)
after that.
Thanks and regards,
Manoj Mahalingam
manojlds@gmail.com
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