It’s quite disconcerting to watch GV Prakash Kumar in Kadavul Irukaan Kumaaru. Not just because he shows all signs of becoming the Ilaya Thalapathy minus a decade, also because of his abject indifference to gender-sensitivity. Come to think of it, that’s probably what drives GV Prakash Kumar and his ilk of ‘men’ who just refuse to be classified as adults. They’d rather make offensive jokes, play at being the man-child they had idolised while growing up, turn up a collar or two, and ‘follow’ ponnunga. A screen-sport by itself where the women almost always turn them down, and these ‘men-children’ begin a lament of sad duets and extremely derogatory dialogue. Precisely why I have a healthy fear of what’s now being called a ‘romantic-comedy’ – neither romantic nor comical, they are filled with racy, sexist humour amplified a million times on screen. What’s worse, the actors are young; young enough to influence their wide-eyed, clapping and whooping audience who watch in avid fascination (http://series.fountainink.in/lurking-in-the-shadows/ – a chilling account that just needs to be read). Also young enough to rage against everything that they have made a movie about, to join a revolution already in place. But, they don’t, choosing instead to languish in a hormonal, pubescent space devoid of sane reasoning and social sensitivity. They follow, not knowing that off the sets, stalking is neither cute or desirable, nor does it yield to a scripted-win as they believe in their pretty, little heads. Though even if they did, would they really care? The answer to that is something that I worry about.
Or perhaps, I already know.
*****
Recommended
Kadavul Irukan Kumaru features GV Prakash with exaggerated mannerisms. He’s brash, uncouth and foul-mouthed with a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. There’s also the lamentable arrogance of youth; the thigh-slapping, expletive-ridden vocabulary – fashionably in tune with the new wave of actors vying to be the mass hero. All those negative adjectives notwithstanding, GVP as Kumaru also sees himself as quite the comedian; but poker-faced humour isn’t something he can pull off without insulting a person or two – and for this, he enlists the help of RJ Balaji, who sometimes is genuinely funny when not offensive. And yet again, director M Rajesh and Kumar fall into a well of their boyhood fantasies – a fairytale which they seem to thoroughly enjoy. One woman to love, one woman to hate – they fight over the hero all the same; a shoddily-written plot involving religion – so reminiscent of Thirumanam Enum Nikkah – that makes you really wonder about the censoring exercise, and a chase sequence that gets you nowhere. Amidst all this, Prakash Raj in his night-robe, cavorting drunkenly with a woman, who is called Amy Jackson because she’s white.
Deemed ‘universal’ by the censors for all the world to watch.
*****
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