Review: Kalakalappu 2

Film: Kalakalappu2
Director: Sundar C
Cameraman: U K Senthil Kumar
Music: Hiphop Aadhi
Cast: Jiiva, Jai, Mirchi Shiva, Sathish, Catherine Tresa, Nikki Galrani, Nandita Shwetha in a guest role

Director Sundar C has gone back to his favourite genre in filmmaking, namely comedy, with Kalakalappu 2. Although Kalakalappu 2 is a sequel to Kalakalappu, which was a blockbuster, it is not a continuation of the first part. It is a completely different story.

The film starts with a politician’s house being raided by tax officials. To save himself, the politician Dharamaraj (Madhusudhan Rao) ensures that a laptop containing secrets of his ill-gotten wealth is sneaked out to his chartered accountant (Munishkanth), who, on reaching the holy town of Kasi turns a betrayer. He threatens Dharmaraj that he will pass on the laptop to the investigative agencies if he is not paid a ransom of Rs Five crore. Left with no option, Dharmaraj agrees.

Meanwhile, in Kasi, a hotelier Seenu (Jiiva) is just about managing to keep his business afloat. Interestingly, the hotel that Seenu runs does not belong to him. The structure in which Seenu resides along with his sister and grandmother is one that had been leased to his forefathers by someone who hadn’t returned to claim it. Therefore, Seenu and his family make a living by renting out rooms in the unclaimed structure, which they pretend belongs to them.

In reality, that structure belongs to Raghu (Jai), a desperate youngster in Tamil Nadu, who is struggling to make ends meet because of his dad’s folly. Raghu’s dad has lost all the wealth bequeathed to them by his forefathers. Just when Raghu is about to give up, he learns that there is still one property that belongs to him in Kasi that is yet to be reclaimed after having been leased out. He sets out to Kasi to reclaim that property and sell it. Although he knows there is a property, Raghu does not know the address of the property. When he confronts Seenu about the issue, Seenu admits that the property is not his.

The two become friends but then, they also learn that they have something in common. They have both been cheated of their wealth by the same man, Ganesh (Mirchi Shiva). The duo decides to reclaim their lost properties from him. However, little do they know that they will soon be involved in a conflict with a politician who is desperate to get back a laptop that has evidence of his ill-gotten wealth…

Sundar C is one man who has a complete and comprehensive idea of filmmaking. This is because he has been a producer, director, actor and distributor.

The man’s biggest strength is that he knows what his audience expects from him and more importantly, how to deliver it to them.

Sundar C has tried to use the same formulae he employed in Kalakalappu 1. However, Kalakalappu 2 is on a much bigger canvas with more number of characters. There are so many characters in this film that even Sundar C, with his great story telling skills, seems to have struggled to keep the film from being exhausting.

Even with so many charactes, Sundar C manages to keep the film enjoyable in the first half. However, with more characters being added in the second half, the story simply becomes too taxing.

Despite all this, the director manages to make one smile at the end of it all. It might not be to the extent that one laughed when one watched Kalakalappu but the film definitely makes one laugh.

Yogi Babu as a holy man and Sathish as a Sanyasi are the ones who succeed the most in making audiences laugh. Others like Mirchi Shiva and Jiiva too succeed but on a relatively smaller scale. Nikki Galrani and Catherine Tresa play their parts to perfection. Nikki, who has delivered good comedy performances before in films like Darling, comes up with yet another good performance in this one as Aishwarya. Catherine Tresa looks adorable as Hema.

The film’s cinematography is by Sundar C’s trusted cameraman U K Senthil Kumar, who does a clean job this time too.

The music by Hip Hop Aadhi could have been much better.  Simply put, the film might not be as great as the first part, but manages to evoke a certain degree of laughter.