REVIEW

DASAVATHARAM


Is everything that happens in this world is planned by God (a part of his design)? Or is there something called coincidence?? Dasavatharam puts forth this question and cleverly avoids answering it and asks us to make our own decision. The movie starts off in an arena where Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister of India and G.W.Bush are sitting side by side!!! Dr.Govindh starts narrating the story stating that it is important to know a lot of things to understand this story completely…

12th century. Nambi follows Lord Vishnu but the king wants everyone to follow Lord Shiva. In this battle of beliefs King wins and kills Nambi by dropping him into the ocean along with a Vishnu statue. Nambi’s wife kills herself in the temple.

2004. Govindh explains to his boss after a minor accident, the effect of the new BIO-WMD and the need to shut down the project. His boss feels otherwise and decides to sell it for a huge sum of money. Hence our hero is forced to steal it from there. What follows is his adventure in which circumstances force him to meet Andaal (Asin) and meet 8 other kamals each with thier own issues.
A lot of Chaos theory… sorry chaos ensues!!!


This entire 3 hrs is belongs to Kamal. He is there in every frame of the movie in one character or the other (except for the opening scene of 12th century… but he wrote this movie remember??!!? Hence technically he is THERE). Out of the 10 characters played by kamal, Rangarajan nambi (12th century), Govindh (hero), Fletcher (Ex-CIA), Balram Naidu (Telegu speaking Indian Intelligence officer) stands out because of characterizations. The other characters are not well written. Although they have their fair share of moments, they just fail to strike a chord. Pooragavan’s (black Kamal) character fights against soil being stolen. His make-up looks great but one could not say the same about the role. The singer Avtar (Punjabi Kamal) is there to provide drama and sentiment. Kamal as the Old lady has performed well. The Tall Muslim Kamal provides a few laughs. The Japanese Kamal does nothing in the movie except in the last sequence. Finally Kamal as George W Bush tries to depict the real character of Bush (funnily stupid).

Watch out for the scenes where Bush asks whether he could drop a nuclear bomb on the virus, or where Fletcher gives the finger to the security camera, or Nambi chanting Om Namo Narayana . These are some of the scenes that stay in your mind. The movie should’ve had more of these.

Asin looks pretty and does nothing. Mallika is there in the movie for the obvious reasons and does her job. There ain’t lot of other cast to talk about since all important characters relevant to the story are played by the same man!!

Then there is the technical aspect of the film. Cinematography is good. Music by Himesh is fine. CGI looks awkward in some places but scenes involving different kamals in same frame are done brilliantly. The tsunami scene which is of great importance in the movie looks OK. I’ve heard that creating CGI involving water is the toughest job for any graphics team. The only movie to have done a good job with water effects is The Day After Tomorrow. You can see a couple of ideas lifted directly from TDAT. The Statue of Liberty is replaced by Thiruvallur Statue and the Central library is replaced by a Mosque (Water did behave in front of Mosque exactly like it did in front of the library). There are some smart dialogues in the movie which is of typical kamal style. K.S. Ravikumar does a decent job as the director of the movie.

The film ends with the song ‘Ulaga Nayagane’. You get to see the effort and hard work the actor had to put into these characters. I cannot help but think if kamal had put half the effort he had put in the make up and acting into the script department the movie would’ve been outstanding. Now it looks like a 3 hour trailer of what kamal can do as an actor rather than as a movie!!

This film shows us what a brilliant actor Kamal Hasaan is. Kamal who has succeeded in this movie as an actor has fell way too short of expectations in the writing department. You can see this movie for Kamal the actor… but I think one has to wait for ‘Marmayogi’ to see him as a writer.

RATING: 6/10

P.S : It is quite interesting that if we rearrange the letters from GOVINDH we get my name with Initial!!!! Co-incidence?? Or Divine power?? Now I am freaked out!!!!!!

- V