As is the norm in the Karan Johan school of filmmaking, Vikram’s release was preceded my huge promotions. It started with the star cast – Kamal Hassam, Vijay Sethupathi, Fahd Fazil, and Suriya. The only way they could have bettered this is if they had added one the Telugu superstars to the list. Well-crafted teasers amped up the expectations even more. Especially the one that shows Kamal preparing for a meal to which he has invited all the main characters. The scene isn’t there in the movie, it was made separately for promotion only.
Add to that all the glowing reviews that I got from my friends, many of whom made sure they watched the movie, if not on the first day, in the first week. “Kamal is back”, was a constant refrain.
I don’t claim to be a Kamal fan, but I have seen most of his good films. They fall into two broad genres – action and comedy. There is a third genre made exclusively for Kamal – the magnum opus. I doubt any actor has made as many magnum opus’ as he has. Even if someone has, I doubt anyone had a 100% return on making bad magnum opus movies as he does. For all his achievements as an actor, he seems to still be searching for his place in the story of Tamil cinema, in particular, and Indian cinema, in general. That question will be answered by posterity when someone will do a Ph.D. on his movies and his contributions to cinema. But in the meanwhile, Kamal continues to search and continues to fail in that search.
Any story that revolved around a hero requires us to identify with the hero. We must want him to win so much that when he does, it should feel like a personal victory to us. For that, the hero needs to fall so far down that there must seem no way back. It must be a lost cause. Remember the scene in Padayapa when Rajni meets Ramya in an empty room, and she is sitting on the only chair? That is a perfect Tamil movie scene. The implications of him standing or sitting on the floor to talk to her was clean to everyone in the movie hall. Then when he pulls the swing, which has been rolled up to the ceiling, the movie hall erupts in applause. But a lot happens before that scene. We are shown how conniving Ramya’s character is. We are shown how proud Rajni’s character is. We have already identified with the Rajni character by the time this scene comes along. It is not surprising that the entire movie hall stood up and applauded. I did too.
There isn’t a single scene like this in Vikram, which is supposed to be a story about an honest man against the system. A system so powerful that he has hidden his family from them. A system so powerful that he has had to hide from them. But the audience is not taken through that painful journey. Instead, we have to sit through boring sequences that are meant to show us that Vikram is cool, his is misunderstood, but that he has people loyal to him. Not on single scene that makes Vikram one of us.
Irrespective of how much money Vikram makes at the box office, it will not change the fact that it is a bad movie and when the years have passed, it will lose its shine. Unlike a Nayakan, Thevar Magan, Anbe Sivam, Pushpak, Moondram Pirai, Mahanadi or Kurithipunal, all of which can be watched today and enjoyed.
Someday, and I sincerely hope the magnum opus will come to pass, Kamal will make that movie for which he will be remembered by rather than derided for. When that does happen, it will make for a perfect movie script. The superstar searching for his place in history and failing so many times that everyone has given up on him. Then he does finally make that movie and is recognized for his talent. I really hope this does happen. But until then, Kamal will keep on trying. His fans will continue to watch his movies and with each movie they will say, more hopeful than confident, “Kamal is back.”
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