Thala Thalapathy!

Pongal 2014 is indeed special, as a Thala-Thalapathy clash is up for the audiences after almost six years, and what follows is a dual review of these two festival bonanzas, Jilla and Veeram.

First up, is Jilla, starring Ilayathalapathy Vijay, Mohanlal, Kajal Aggarwal and several others. Sakthi, orphaned by crime, is raised by Sivan, a ruthless don who controls Madurai. This paternal bond faces a major challenge when Sakthi goes against Sivan in an attempt to rid him of his criminal days after he is forced to become a cop. 

This formula film, contains such a weird and draggy screenplay, which coupled with its ginormous 182-minute runtime, feels like an eternity on screen, with several positions of the story being rather preposterous and songs being placed pointlessly. The first half seems to go on forever, and the second half picks a haphazard pace which fumbles and fizzles to the end. The most commendable virtue of the film is Ganesh Rajavelu's cinematography, which makes use of a lot of interesting angles. While Don Max's editing does no help to the already-slow screenplay, the overuse of slow motion sequences add to lack of the film's speed. Imman's music is rather forgettable, and the album is of two extremes, for it houses both the interesting 'Kandaangi Kandaangi' rendered by Vijay and Shreya Ghosal, and the horrendous "Yeppo Mama Treat-u".

Next, Veeram, starring Ajithkumar, Tamannah, Nasser, Vidharth and a multitude of others. Vinayagam, a violent altruist, is made to fall in love and faces a challenge when the heroine and her violence-shunning family are put under mortal peril. 

Another formula film - the film adheres to a simple story, scripted to mass. With a first half roaming around in nonchalant humour, the film turns toward the story in the second half and races towards the end. Vetri's commendable cinematography coupled with Mu.Kasi Viswanathan's editing keeps the film taut. While DSP's album is forgettable, his background score suits the film well.

Both films provide nothing new to the audiences, for they follow the age-old concept of masala films. While Jilla stutters in terms of its draggy screenplay, its failed attempt at humour and its requirement to share the "mass effect" between two stars, Veeram holds fort with the point-blank simplicity of its nothing-new-at-all story that rides completely on Thala's charisma.

And thus, both films are complete fan material, but in the race, it would seem that Siva beats Nesan with his lack of complexity, but only by a small margin.

Aditya Baskaran