Mankatha – A treat for Ajith Fans

First of all I should declare that I am not a great fan of Ajithkumar. Of the 50 I loved select films like Amarkkalam, Vaali, Dheena, Amaravathi, mugavari and some others. I hate some of the movies like Aegan, Aasal, Attagaasam, and his recent movies excluding the glossy BILLA.

What will happen when a true ajith fan gets an opportunity to direct his movie? Really want to have a blast. Isn’t it? Venkat Prabu a self proclaimed Ajith Fan did just that. Literally and pictorially it is a visual blast and treat.

The biggest opening generated by Ajith next to one and only Rajinikanth fizzled out the second day in the past. The selection of directors, choice of scripts and Ajiths’ own performances played spoil sport. That might be the only reason he left his 50th to be directed by a young team immensely talented and takes movie making as a part of entertainment and do it jolly well.

Mankatha is a hide and seek game between cops and swindlers, robbery and heist, friends and traitors, gambling and betting, love and lust, songs and fights. Interestingly, you find all the characters are negative in this film save Trisha and Anjali. But being negative, the way the characters are being shaped and handle themselves sets the film on a different platform. Sure this kind of Robbery, backstabbing, treason are often well presented in some of the Bollywood movies like Race etc. But in a Tamil movie it is a different game altogether. Venkat Prabu needs to be applauded for the bold treatment.

The film opens on a grand scale with a bulky ajith (vinayak mahadeven) clad in khakis out of a police vehicle sporting a stylish raybon walk slo-mo as he walks in other previous movies, fights dozens of goons and cops to save one hapless goon Aravind Aakash. In the melee he shots most of them including cops and got suspended. Nice setting to the title song Vilayadu Mankatha with Vivacious Laxmi Rai as partner who inevitably landed in his bed for the night. Enters Trisha the lovely lover of Vinayak dumb and beautiful inexplicably fallen for a 40 + cop and trust him blindly.

The story is plotted around the gambling in Mumbai, hawala transactions, betting in cricket especially IPL and the consequences of this kind of money laundering. A fabulous four Vaibhav, Magath, Aswin, and Premji amaren, plotted a plan to loot Rs.500 crores of betting money transferred from across the globe to Mumbai for ipl final. The money is to be handled by Jayaprakash to whom Vaibhav and Aravind Aakash works. While the four friends planned for the loot enters the maniacal vinayak to make the team fantastic five. Being an ex cop with a cunning mind he soon masters the rest to his side and lead the heist they have planned. After successful completion of the task the money was hoarded in a secured place electronically locked.

Circumstances changes so fast as Prithviraj (Arjun) ACP special task force smell the rats and always on the toes of the team to get the money back. The avaricious Vinayak never the one who trusted people even for a second try to get his share at the earliest got a rude shock when realized Premji and magath eloped with the money. Partners in crime turned hunter and hunted. What happens when all of them met, in a single meeting point forms the climax.

Performance wise it is one of the easiest Ajith would have essayed. He needs to do nothing but smoke, drink, smile, grin, guffaw and dealing heaviest of body blows to everyone in the movie. Sorry he speaks occasionally but only MONEY MONEY AND MY FUCKING GAME. But his screen presence is awesome. Probably the younger lot who were in awe about ajith all the time didn’t have time even to get acclimatize with him. That was very evident by their body language when he is around. From his point ajith has done what his director wanted him to do after a long time. Never minding about the salt and pepper hair, and stubble, his tummy he just essayed the role with comfort fully trusting the team. Veteran Arjun also does a neat job fully aware that being an Ajiths 50th movie the focus would be on him. But he shared the screen space with him equally and not compromised on his performance.

Technically the film has a lot to cheer about with Sakthi Saravanan’s Cinematography and Yuvan Shankar Rajas music stands out. The non linear narration, frequent updation of flash backs, fast paced editing, and well choreographed action sequences all deserves to be mentioned. A single shot where Vinayak’s working pattern gets established, with a dozen Ajith doing different things and the duet of Ajith and Trisha is an example.

It is not a flawless film altogether (especially the relationship between Ajith and Arjun) you can find so many on your second viewing which you do it anyway. All the characters in the movie have a chance to try their hands at guns, revolvers but never shot right from a distance. Ofcourse Ajith and Arjun took care of that part. They kill, kill, kill and kill again who ever crosses. Lots of Expletives were used which could have well been avoided especially Ajiths rendering the word on Laxmi Rai though beeped even a normal movie goer would have deciphered the words so easily.

Whatever don’t miss the beginning and climax end credits first is for the song and second is for the twist. You have plenty of time to smoke, message, update facebook , and eat your snacks during other songs. Venkats’ team members got two new additions by magath and ashwin. Sampath raj is the lone miss here.

Come on guys. Go for it just for the making. When THALA cheers Arjun as ACTION KING I AM IMPRESSED why not you and me.

N.Mathusuthanan