Jigarthanda

Jigarthanda directed by Karthik Subbaraj is a mix of good inspirations. The young director has adapted the style of Quentin Tarantino to depict the humor within the violence and the story reminded me of Malayalam hits Best Actor and Udayananu Thaaram (bowfinger) at many occasions. But with a treatment that we are not used to in Tamil Cinema, Jigarthanda is a delicious slice.

Karthik is an aspiring filmmaker who was eliminated from a reality show. A producer/ judge of the show who wasn’t in support of the decision to eliminate him offers to produce Karthik’s first film and asks him to work on a Gangster story. Karthik’s attempt to capture the Gangster life by knowing them closely is what the movie showing us.

Director takes ample time to create the environment and to step into that final kickass phase (170 minutes is the total runtime). I was curious to know how Karthik Subbaraj is going to conclude the movie which kind of looked predictable.  But the nature of the twist he created that had some emotional impact on characters made me like the movie. The 170 minutes of running cant be considered as totally non boring affair as there were a lot of phases which looked a bit stretched like the shallow romance that comes in between the incidents. But its this QT/ GOV feel in the treatment that gives the film that freshness which isnt typical in a tamil film.

On screen Sidharth is comfortable playing the role of Karthik. But the person who delivered a great performance on screen was without a doubt our Vatti Raja Simha. The conventional villain with certain unconventionalities  -which makes Assault Sethu a variety, was brilliantly portrayed by Simha. Lakshmi Menon on the other side was just an over written cameo whose relevance was quite less in a film that doesn’t have much space for a female lead.   Rest of the cast ( whom I sadly don’t know the names) were also pretty good.

Direction from Karthik Subbaraj is excellent as he creates that quirky and creepy feel for the film with his treatment. At many places in the beginning I felt the script was over written. But some really classy scenes were there and the one I could easily recollect was the funny one were one of the henchmen tries that filmy bullet trick and it goes wrong. Dialogues were good. Music was a variety and I liked it. Nice use of BGM. Satisfactory cinematography.

Overall Jigarthanda is a brave attempt that gets in to track after taking a long time. The rating is a generous 3.5/5 for this Karthi Subbaraj film. The variety makes it delicious.