Review: Kadhanayagan

Film: Kathanayagan

Director: Tha Muruganantham

Cast: Vishnu Vishal, Catherine Tresa, Soori, Anandraj, Aruldoss, Saranya Ponvannan, Naan Kadavul Rajendran, Manobala, Meera Krishnan, Siddarth Vipin and others.

Music: Sean Roldan

Cinematography: J Laxman

The huge success of Velainnu Vanthutta Vellakaran (VVV) seems to have got actor Vishnu Vishal to make another comedy. Unfortunately for him, this film doesn’t work as well as VVV. In fact, it is only half as good.

Kadhanayagan has very little to offer in terms of story value. Thambidurai (Vishnu Vishal), a timid person by nature, takes charge as a Revenue Inspector in a government office. His school friend Annadurai (Soori) too works in the same office as an attender.

It is under these circumstances that Thambidurai falls in love with Kanmani (Catherine Tresa), a neighbour. To impress her, he tries a number of tricks all on the advice of Annadurai. After making him run around for a while, Kanmani admits that she too is in love with him and asks him to come home to seek her hand from her parents.

Thambidurai does as he is told. Taking along all his family members, he goes to seek Kanmani’s hand. However, he is in for a rude shock as Kanmani’s dad refuses to take him for a son-in-law.

The reason? Well, Kanmani’s dad thinks Thambidurai is a coward. To put across his point, he recalls a couple of instances when Thambidurai has taken to his heels. On one occasion, Kanmani’s dad would have been physically assaulted by a goon (played by Aruldoss) for questioning the harrassment being meted out to a poor roadside vendor. Thambidurai would have appeared on the scene and everybody including Kanmani’s dad would have thought that he would come to his defence. However, Thambidurai,instead of fighting back, would have suggested to Kanmani’s dad that they both flee the place.

A humiliated Thambidurai returns home dejected. What does Thambidurai do next? Do Thambidurai and Kanmani get married? If so, how? Questions like these are answered by Kathanayagan.

This film can be used to help one understand the importance of timing in a comedy sequence. The first half of this film is boring and drab with most of the so-called comedy sequences doing little to bring even a smile to one’s face. However, in the second half, one sees the arrival of actor Anand Raj as a sheikh needing to undergo a kidney transplant operation and with him, some amount of genuine humour. Soori, whose jokes fall flat in the first half of the film, combines well with Anandraj in the second half to tickle your funny bone. In fact, one can safely say that it is Anand Raj, who has managed to save the day for the film, if at all it manages to get saved.

Vishnu Vishal seems to be getting better and better as an actor with every film. In this film too, he does a neat job as Thambidurai. Catherine Tresa sizzles both in her western outfits and the traditional costumes as well. If the director had thought that making her repeat her lines from Madras again in this film would increase the ‘cuteness’ of her character, then he is terribly mistaken. Making Catherine repeat her lines from another film doesn’t impress audiences. On the contrary, it annoys them.

Sean Rolden’s score for this film is a disappointment. To be fair to the music director, the music he has scored for this film is reasonably good. But then,expectations from him have always been so high that the numbers in this film don’t measure up.

Laxman’s cinematography is the only other good thing about the film, which just about makes the cut. Director Muruganantham might need to do more research and come up with a more convincing story if he wishes to make an impact in the Tamil film industry.