Now Dasavatharam was this year’s most anticipated Kamal Haasan movie and, to me, it was very disappointing. We all know the facts, 10 different roles for Kamal, the ever victorious Kamal-Ravikumar combo, a different kind of music by Himesh Reshamiya, blah blah blah… but all this never really lived up to my expectation of a Kamal Haasan Movie.
The story revolves around Govindarajan (one Kamal Haasan) who tries to save India from a noxious biological substance (I don’t remember what it is) which if exposed to air would cause million deaths by spreading violently across the country and the only way out is to pour NaCl (sodium chloride) over it as immediately as possible to stop suffusing. In the process of this, he encounters respite less hurdles for six days and finally its tsunami that saves the country.
Sivaji had acted in a movie called Navaratiri with nine different roles that had excellent interlinks between the roles and was a brilliant make. But Dasavatharam miserably fails in this interlink between 10 roles. Furthermore, there was absolutely no necessity of having 10 kamal roles at all in this moviel. This movie, visibly, was just made for the title and to have 10 roles, nothing more. Here is what I think about the Kamal’s presence in these roles.
1. Scientist – Definitely necessary, coz he is the hero
2. CBI officer – Not necessary but it was great watching him play this role. Awesome acting.
3. A Black local man – Not necessary but again awesome acting in this role. Different way of walking, talking etc.
4. Assassin or Villain – Necessary coz nobody else could have done this better than Kamal.
5. An old woman – Totally unnecessary, yeah good acting, but no way related to story line, useless.
6. A tall muslim – Absolutely unnecessary, only about 3 or 4 scenes and hopeless.
7. George Bush – Waste! Only 3 scenes in the whole movie. No scope for acting also. Just imitated George bush.
8. Rangaraja Nambi (12th Century) – I am sorry to say but very bad over acting. Needless in the movie.
9. A Punjabi Singer – Not a big deal, anybody could have done this. No acting scope. But the song looked good. They could have brought in Daller Mahinidi to act.
10. A Chinese guy – Good make up and again no big deal coz appears only for 3 scenes. I would have liked Jackie Chan in this role.
One of the very disappointing facts is that the story has absolutely no relevance with the 12th Century events. Looks like it was introduced to only portray another Kamal Haasan and he screwed it up by over acting. Also the comical dialogues written by kamal were 90 percent “mokkai”… He has again tried situation based comedy like Mumbai Express and to support its liking, it fails to impress here too.
Some commendable parts of the movie are the picturization of “kallai mattum” and “oh oh sanam” songs, awesome make up and Asin’s extraordinary acting. She has done something similar to Gajini but you will never get bored of her how many ever times she repeats it.
About Graphics, it was good but there are too many shots graphically made that will make you get really bored of it. And the way tsunami was created was terrible.
All in all, I don’t have to remind you how anybody will feel after watching movies like Anbe Sivam, Panchathanthiram etc. But after watching this film, I never had the feeling of having watched a Kamal Haasan movie and I felt that the film was adorned with too many elements that eventually became unwanted and completely ruined it. This movie is yet another commercial flick and no way different from other normal movies.
***/5 – one for the meticulous make up and some good graphics, one for Asin’s super performance and picturization of songs, and the last one for Kamal’s great acting in the 4 roles out of the 10.
Verdict: Turned all expectations down. Could have been filmed a ton times better.
