144
144
Mirchi Siva
,
Ashok Selvan
& more
Manikandan
Sean Roldan
27-November-2015
After the first thirty minutes, I was ready to give up on 144,
directed by G. Manikandan and produced by C.V. Kumar, who’s quickly
become Tamil cinema’s answer to the venture capitalist funding
small-time techies with big ideas. To the directors of his films, cinema
means more than just the opportunity to direct Singam 23. (Not that they’d refuse the opportunity to make Singam 23
if it came their way –– just that they seem to realise the story, not
the star, comes first.) Here too, we have a screwball set-up no big star
would touch ––something involving feuding villages, a cache of gold
biscuits, a Ganesha statue made of glass, and some inspiration from
Sujatha’s story Vasanthakala Kuttrangal. But the initial scenes
are a rhythmless mess. Instead of plot and character development, we get
quirks, more quirks, even more quirks.
Manikandan badly wants us to accept him as “hip” and “new-age” and
whatever else we call the makers of C. V. Kumar’s productions –– he
fractures the narrative to an extent that leaves it in a shambles. The
thinking in these portions is along these lines. “Let’s show the
audience how cool we are. Let’s have a village big shot watching The Gold Rush,
in a theatre (never mind how improbable it is that a cinema hall in
Tamil Nadu is going to be screening Charlie Chaplin classics), and after
the scene where Chaplin turns into a chicken, let’s superimpose a
chicken’s head on the big shot.” A little of this sort of thing goes a
long way, but this is what we get, scene after exhausting scene.
But slowly, the film began to draw me in. I began to tune into its vibe.
I began to laugh. Once we get why certain things happened –– why the
girl with the key on her necklace was kidnapped, why the women step out
of their homes and act as if possessed ––144 really takes off.
The writing isn’t entirely of a piece, but the laughs keep coming as if
on an assembly line. I cracked up every time a gangster named ‘Feelings’
Ravi (Udhayabhanu Maheswaran) was addressed as ‘Feelings’. I loved his
absurd methods of torture. I loved that he kept a doctor alongside all
the time, to keep measuring his BP after losing his cool.
I loved that various characters kept stuffing pori urundai into
their mouths, even though I didn’t understand why. (It’s very hard to
explain why this is funny.) I loved the couple that played cards way
past midnight. I loved the bemused cop who kept saying “kandippa.”
(It’s as hilarious as ‘Feelings’.) I liked the curly-haired crook, who
starts sculpting a statue of an accomplice (Oviya), and then starts to
paint her likeness. Just because I loved Desu’s (Shiva) efforts to
ensure that this sculptor-painter doesn’t keep high-fiving his
girlfriend. The plot has to do with Desu and Madan (Ashok Selvan)
pulling off a heist that involves crawling into a rodent’s bottom, and
just thinking about the little bits now is making me smile. I suspect
this is one of those films that will reward repeat viewings.
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