Tamil Movie Review: Arumugam 2009 & Peranmai 2009, Dumb Movies

(The poor idli maker cum the hero in the movie – got style but no sound whatsoever. Image source: http://nowrunning.com/)

I watched 3 Idiots twice in one day and I watched it again the next day – it was a brilliant movie and touches right down on one next step in pursuing education and career. It is a must watched movie.

Then I watched Arumugam, a 2009 Tamil movie – an almost remake of Rajinikanth’s Annamalai and a thought came to my mind – shouldn’t any movies be released for a 21st-century human’s viewing need to be filtered through a logic machine? Any illogical storyline should be automatically rejected or banned without hesitation (unless the viewers have been fore-warned before they waste their money and time to watch the movie).

I don’t mind watching the story about the 3 Idiots but not willing to watching a story written in a very idiotic way. Arumugam is one such movie, despite having a grand line of stars, was narrated and told in a rather idiotic way. My upfront apology to the director and the screenwriters – they may have their own reasons, constraints and hidden hands meddling with the storyline but once it is finalised and sent for public viewing, they must know that the story has to make sense, otherwise, the viewers have the right to spit on it.

The trailer of Arumugam looked very tempting and the skeleton storyline, whilst not original, had the right premise for a good movie. It is a story of the David against the Goliath, the story of poor & weak against the rich & powerful, the story of the oppressed against the arrogant.

The plot is pretty simple (from Wikipedia):-

Arumugam (Bharath) is a good Samaritan who makes a living selling Idli’s on roadside platform shop along with his father (Ilavarasu), sister (Saranya Mohan) and side kick (Karnas).

Arumugam is in love with his childhood sweetheart Yamini (Priyamani) His best friend is the rich kid Karthik (Satya) whose sister is an arrogant tycoon Malini (Ramya Krishnan). She and her uncle (Mahadevan) hates Karthik’s deep bonding with Arumugam, who she finds to be below her stature.

Malini, through her machinations is able to separate the friends and bring Arumugam to the streets. Our hero after his mother’s (Seetha) grave is bulldozed and his sister humiliated vows to bring Malini to the streets. And like you have seen in hundreds of earlier films the hero due to his hard work and smart moves becomes the richest man in the town and takes his revenge.

The same thing happened to Rajini in Annamalai and whilst in Annamalai, it made sense and somehow entertaining, the same cannot be said on this sloppy work called Arumugam. There were way too many loopholes in the storyline

How a roadside idli maker (who can’t even pay back the family debt) can make so much money so fast legally and is able to stand on his own against a seasoned wealthy business tycoon (who has a powerful politician on her side)? And how Arumugam managed to defeat his enemy by selling his property twice cheaper – didn’t he lost money as well?

How come the doctor who supposes to kill the baby ends up holding the baby in secret when Arumugam had not played in this trickery? And what’s the significance of building of a temple on the grounds where Arumugam got cheated to buy the overvalued worthless property?

Plenty of opportunities for the director to create tense (in sense of entertainment of course) moments was simply wasted on the loose and idiotic storyline. Typical portray of a hero who shouts emotionally and challenges the bad characters to a final showdown but nothing logical was shown on how the hero wins the challenge.

(The girls look good on Peranmai but can they fight off 16 well-trained soldiers? Image source: http://www.behindwoods.com)

Another brainless movie that I made the mistake of watching was Peranmai (I was duped by positive reviews on the net) – Jayam Ravi acted well in the movie but unfortunately all the brilliant acting energy wasted on a floppy, illogical storyline.

Just imagine one forest ranger with 4 cadets taking on 16 or so ruthless, well trained, heavily armed mercenaries. What would be the chances to be in the real world? Instead of laying out tactics and do special training, we have the hero – the lonely forest ranger taking on the mercenaries without much sweat.

The expected well-trained mercenaries in the movie acted on the opposite side of this – as if they were some first-year army cadets, getting caught on a one to one basis. That is one thing I unable to comprehend, looking at the mercenaries falling like flies. Totally illogical!

By the way, the good thing is movies like Unnaipol Uruvan or Nadodigal and of course, 3 Idiots redeemed logical way of story-telling.