ViJaY In ViLlU StIlLs

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Review: Kuselan

Cast: Rajinikanth, Pasupathy, Nayantara, Meena, Vadivelu, Mamta Mohandas, Sneha

Director: P Vasu

Producer: K Balachander

Music: G V Prakash

Review: Kuselan

Sudhish Kamath, Special Correspondent, The Hindu

First of all, Kuselan is not the regular superstar film.
It is just a film with superstar and on superstar.

By not a regular superstar film, I mean there are no powerful adversaries, no challenges, no revenge, no riches to rags to riches character graph. And a Rajnikant film without a villain is something we haven’t seen in God knows how long!

Kuselan is faithful to the Malayalam original Katha Parayumpol with an extended Vadivel comedy sequence and a few superstar-movie elements inserted into the film under the pretext of movie within a movie, though we are really never sure what is the movie he’s shooting for in the film – Sometimes it’s Annamalai 2, Sometimes Chandramukhi 2 and sometimes, Kuselan.

Real meets reel as superstar Rajnikant plays Superstar Ashok Kumar and frankly, you can’t tell the difference nor does director P Vasu want you to know the difference.

Montage of Rajnikant films and references to superstar’s life are thrown in liberally into the Tamil remake. Since the pace of the original is already slow, these elements further slacken the pace.

Performance-wise, superstar is a little subdued because he has to play himself. As a fan, I understand the expectation out of a regular Thalaivar film.

Though it is closest to the real him, with Kuselan we realize that his screen persona is larger than the real him and it’s like watching a tiger put inside a cage at the circus. We so want him to break free.

All we see is superstar flashing a smile all through the film, except the climax when he really makes you reach out for the hankies, along with the phenomenally talented Pasupathy who underplays the role to match Srinivasan’s subtlety in the original.

To make up for the masala, Vasu unleashes glamour in the form of Nayanthara cavorting in the rain and has Vadivelu leer at her like a voyeur.

By genre, it is a sentimental film targeted at women and family audiences.

City folk who are fans only because it is cool to be superstar fans will not like the film because it has absolutely no superhero elements.

Like superstar himself says in the film: Watching a film being shot is not as exciting as watching a film. And Kuselan is a soppy drama with the shooting of a Superstar film being a mere backdrop.

For people closely following his political ambitions, let me just say that superstar distances himself from the political punch-lines from his past films saying that he was only an actor saying his lines.

And he hastens to add, that he does not have to answer to anybody about whether or not he will do something in the future.

There’s also a tinge of Superstar’s personal philosophy when he reveals why he takes a trip to Himalayas every year.

Kuselan though slow is extremely watchable if you forget the hype. Go for it only if you are a sucker for sentiment. Let the taps flow. Bring out the hankies.