Meenkuzhambum Manpaanayum

The first movie of Jayaram’s son Kalidas, Actor Prabhu playing his father’s role and Ulakanayakan Kamal Haasan doing a cameo; there were enough reasons for me to watch Meenkuzhambum Manpaanayum. But after 10 or 15 minutes into the movie, I sort of sensed the danger. It’s a totally immature fantasy comedy that has no high points to its credit. Built on the clichéd formula of preaching, this one will make you feel exhausted.

Annamalai is this Tamil man settled in Malaysia and he has a restaurant there named Meenkuzhambum Manpaanayum. He is a widower and has a 19 year old son Karthik. When Karthik became a teenager, his openness to his father got lost and the over caring father is kind of depressed about this change. The film revolves around a fantasy element where Annamalai and Karthik get to swap each other’s body and know about each other (emotionally).

As a one liner it is kind of an interesting fantasy subject. But the problem here is the lameness in the making. You have Karthik doing car race for a girl who is just his classmate, their quarrels, their problems, their campus and  the behavior of all those characters are way too caricaturized. The silliness of situations and the way all those songs pop out of nowhere without any sense is too damn annoying. It is difficult to explain such absurdity in words. The film sort of gets a life in the second half with the fantasy element coming in to play. But unfortunately there also this utter nonsensical and chaotic feel of the film makes it a pointless childish story.

Prabhu as Annamalai was good in his usual style, while as Karthik he was overacting. Kalidas fails in being a pleasing face as Karthik. I liked his restrained performance in the second half. Ashna Zaveri in that excessive make up acts pathetically. Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam leading lady Pooja Kumar is paired opposite Prabhu and is just okay.

The making of Amudeshwar is amateurish to the core. I don’t know how he convinced the entire script to the cast. Every event in the screenplay looks detached from each other and all these lame portrayals of goodness and self realization can be enjoyed by people who haven’t seen movies for over a decade or so. The cheesy melodramas and awkward jokes make this film an eye sore. Cinematography is poor and the edits look tacky. The average music of D Imman is probably the only good thing in its credit.

Meenkuzhambum Manpaanayum is a lousy lame preaching fantasy film which doesn’t even try to be sensible. Kalidas should be more careful while selecting scripts.

Rating: 1.5/5