(Kuppai) Thotti Jaya

What starts out as a promising violent flick peters out as a flicker of mediocrity. Of course, there are flashes of brilliance, mainly in form, but nothing new in substance.

The story of Thotti Jaya is tepid and run-of-the-mill, the “one man from the dark side decides to be good, all for love” story. Throw in some extremely unnecessary songs featuring lithe maidens in wet saris, an “Uppu Karuvadu” (of Mudhalvan) rip-off, a villain who looks evil and has the face to go with it, and some fight scenes, you have a Thotti. Apparently it's doing well, but the final box office verdict remains to be seen.

I was impressed with the fight scenes. It was intended to be a fight-fest, and the director Dorai (of Mughavari fame, I read on Sify) has done well to portray a bearded Simbu as a cold, methodic and mechanical fighting machine. Fight choreography was well done, I’m not sure if it was Stun Siva or someone else. But it was good stuff, I like violent action scenes when choreographed well (refer to Batman Begins).

Camera work and editing was good stuff, same guys who did Kaakhe Kaakhe.

Simbu looked like his obese father TR in some angles. For a cold-blooded gang dude, Simbu’s age works against him, beard notwithstanding. The fact that he tosses, punches and whips asses of 30 and 40-something year-old experienced and well-built thugs is too much of a stretch, but hey, in Kodampaakkam, nothing is impossible. Anyway, I felt that they could’ve used TR as an old, washed-out and obese Thotti Jaya in a “many years later” scene.

Harris J gave some good jingoistic sounds for Simbhu’s “I’m here, let the girl go” entry scenes, which worked in Simbu’s favour as Simbu doesn’t talk much in the movie. Yes. You heard me right. His actions and the accompanying music more than make-up for his lack of verbal histrionics he’s famous for in his “Kaadhal Azhivathillai”, "Dum" and “Kuthu”.

Overall, catch it on VCD if you have time. It’s getting very difficult to impress cinema-goers these days. Especially if you go to air-con-less cinemas like Plaza Theatre at Beach Road. Man, the seats are wasting away, my mom said she could feel a tinge of static electricity on one seat (which was stripped of fabric and left the metallic arm-rest exposed). The introductory music they usually play before the start of the movie was epilepsy-inducing, with its faulty rewinding and jumping and looping. In what I think is a 1,200-seater (maybe more), there were 8 people including my mom, sis and myself, and the air was stale and humid. I went there because Yishun’s pretty out of the way, and there were time constraints. But it was a grim reminder for us to know how pathetically the cinema is maintained.