Raavanan, the highly anticipated Manirathnam’s movie is finally out and it has lived up to its expectations. The story revolves around unworkable love between the lead characters. Veera as the tribal leader protects their members from exploitations. He kidnaps Ragini, wife of police officer dev, to take revenge for his sister’s death. But attracted towards her beauty and dignity he eventually falls for her. Did Ragini attracted to Veera? Did Ragini and Dev separate? Did Dev and Veera settle their scores?
Mani was clear in adapting Raamayan and fitting the mythical characters into his premise. The casting is great with Vikram as Raavanan, Prithviraj as Raman, Aish as Sita, Karthik as Hanuman, Priyamani as Soorpanakai and Prabhu as kumbakarnan. But it is Vikram and Aish who share the major screen space. Manirathnam cleverly uses the 14 days captive of Ragini to 14 years exile of Ram-Sita. Prabhu and Karthik performances show that they are veterans in the job. Vikram portrayed the antagonist veera at ease.
Technically the film is brilliant. The movie is shot at stunning locales from UP and MH with never seen before places photographed brilliantly by Santhosh Sivan proving he is the best in business. The film is full of green and water which are so eye-pleasing! There are plenty of praiseworthy shots in the movie especially; the scenes of Veera diving into hogenakal waters, Ragini falling from the cliff through the trees, the climax fight between Veera and Dev over a hanging bridge and so on. Mani has presented the epic Ramayana thru this movie without getting into any controversy.
Performance by Vikram is good but there is some confusion in portrayal of his character, i.e the scene where he enters into Dev’s camp looks like an act of insane and while he looks in mirror reminds Nandhu of Aalavandaan. In some scenes he roars like lion, some scenes he sounds like a hen. When he comes near ash he melts like ice.
Prithiviraj’s cunning character irritates. His face expression in every scene is identical. His looks at the crippled person hanging in a tree appears as if he is gonna kiss him. Director was keen on portraying Veera (raavanan) as honest and humble person and Dev(raama) as crooked and clever enough to confuse us who is Raavanan and who is Raman. Dialogues are not as good as his earlier movies but kept some momentum. Audiences love the dialogues in the combat scene of Priyamani- Vikram during her marriage. Aishwarya’s dialogues takes you to the period of 1960’s.
Music by A.R.Rehman is noteworthy. Kodu potta and usirae poguthey has become cult favourites both were shot superbly. However the songs act as speed breakers for such a racy screenplay. Movie has too many character artists however only prabhu and priyamani shines. Karthick uses his limited screen time worthy. To symbolize Karthik playing hanuman character should he be introduced like a monkey jumping through trees?
The problem with the movie is lack of nativity feel because it was mostly shot in North Indian villages. The wedding song of priyamani doesn’t look like Tamil people’s wedding spot and the song, music makes one feel to be in the midst of Hindi people. The script has its potholes but can be forgiven for a racy screenplay. Climax was boring. Expected a different ending but it ended with usual and formulaic. I hated the ending and friends of mine too. It is not Manirathnam’s best, not a worthy script for his standards. We cannot compare this to his masterpieces such as Iruvar, Kannathil Muthamittal, Bombay or Ayutha Ezhuthu. However, You’ll not be disappointed because this raavan is a visual treat and I loved it.
