A couple of minutes into the movie 2 States, our hero is asking his father to drop the knife, a spoof of the classic scene from Kireedom. That scene is actually a warning for the viewer about what they will have to suffer for the next 130 minutes. If you weren’t willing to walk out of the theatre in the first couple of minutes, director Jacky S Kumar throws another major hint about the quality by showing the hero in a horrible female getup just before the second half. 2 States is a clueless movie that wants to be an entertainer but has a weird definition for that word.
Hari Krishnan a jobless young man is our hero. He is living with his father Vijayaraghavan and grandfather Raghavan. One day he happens to see this good looking girl named Sushita and just like any other young man in cinemas, Hari was sure that she was the one even though he doesn’t know a single thing about her including her name. But Sushita had a different story and that had to do with her family background. The problems in this relationship due to this family issue are the core idea of 2 States.
Jacky S Kumar, who has written and directed the film, is desperately searching for entertainment in every second of the film. Divine love, at first sight, is totally okay here and the things that bond the hero and heroine together are utterly cheesy. The first half of the movie is basically a series of events that don’t have much to do with the main plot. You get to see caricature comedy that is bearable simply because of the actors who are performing in those scenes. In the second half, it has this cultural conflict kind of theme which again gets forgotten after a point. At one point the movie wants to portray the heroine as some kind of an opportunist bitch and then it suddenly shifts the plate for the sake of a twist.
Manu Pillai as Hari Krishnan may have delivered the performance the director was looking for as I could see almost every actor making their characters look buffoonish to an extent. Mukesh is playing an older version of his usual comedy avatar. The same was the case with Vijayaraghavan. Sharanya R Nair who made an impressive debut with Maradona gets a character that demanded her to look pretty and do nothing much on the acting front. Aroul D Shankar is the father of the heroine with only two expressions. Shammi Thilakan was extremely annoying. I am guessing this film may get a Tamil release in the near future as I couldn’t find any other reason for the inclusion of the character played by John Vijay.
Jacky S Kumar’s idea of entertainment is the problem here. He is trying to make sure that every moment has something happening and in that process, he even forgets that things that appear on screen have to make some sense. The script is going through random sequences in the first half. Facepalm was my constant state while I was sitting through this absurd story. The interval portion that has our hero in a female getup with expressions that will make you want to puke is funny according to the makers of the film and I guess they are all stuck at the time Mayamohini was released. The comedy in the movie is forcefully added to the narrative. The background score was on the excessive side. The visuals were on the average side.
2 States is one of those movies where I wonder what made them greenlit the film. There wasn’t a single element in the script that made me feel that it had the potential to be an entertaining cinema. Even the title of the movie never gets its due as the movie is rarely exploring that aspect.
There wasn’t a single element in the script that made me feel that 2 States had the potential to be an entertaining cinema.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
