Review – Mr.Chandramouli

Film: Mr Chandramouli

Director: Thiru

Cast: Gautham Karthik, Regina Cassandra, Karthik, Varalakshmi Sarathkumar, Mahendran, Satish, Santhosh Prathap, Agathiyan

Music: Sam C S

Cinematography: Richard M Nathan

Mr Chandramouli is a regular entertainer that has a little bit of most genres. It has drama, comedy and more importantly, loads of crime and a little bit of romance.

Chandramouli (Karthik) is a carefree, fun-loving dad, whose world revolves around his only son Raghav (Gautam Karthik), a boxer by profession. The only other thing that is close to Chandramouli’s heart is his car, a Premier Padmini, that stalls almost every time it starts.

Apart from Chandramouli and Raghav, the family also has another member in the form of Raghav’s friend, Padmini (Sathish), a car mechanic whom Chandramouli treats like his own son. Chandramouli’s family is small but a happy one.

It is under these circumstances that one day, Raghav falls for Madhu (Regina Cassandra) after she picks a fight with his dad for damaging her bike’s tail light with his car. Eventually, both take a liking for each other and fall in love. The couple also have Chandramouli’s blessings. Life is pleasant for a while.

While Chandramouli leads a content, peaceful life, there are others who are ambitious and whose ambitions are turning them to be aggressive.

Two such people are Azhagar and Vinayak. While Azhagar (director Mahendran) heads Garuda Call Taxi, the number one call taxi in business, Vinayak (Santhosh Prathap) heads Go Cabs, a rival firm that is intent on dislodging the leader and rising to the number one position.

Both heads are ambitious and will stop at nothing to be number one. After a chance meeting at an awards ceremony, the competition between the two intensifies and it is then that a series of crimes begin to get committed in one of the cab services.

Some drivers of Go Cabs begin to commit crimes like murder, dacoity and rape and as expected, the brand takes a beating. Things get to a point where authorities step in and order that the services of the firm be put on hold. One such crime that a driver commits, results in a huge personal loss for Raghav, who then begins to investigate the whole issue. Soon, what seemed to be individual, arbitrary acts of crime emerge to be motivated, planned crimes to sabotage a brand. The question is which brand is being sabotaged…

Mr Chandramouli has Karthik acting with his son Gautham Karthik in a full-fledged role for the first time and needless to say, the bond of affection is there for all to see. Some of the portions involving Karthik and his son, Gautham Karthik are heartwarming and adorable. Gautham Karthik delivers a clean and convincing performance as a professional boxer, a loving son and a romantic boyfriend.

Regina as Madhu has very limited scope for acting in this film. Despite that, she scores wherever possible. Regina Cassandra turns the heat on in a sizziling number that is bound to catch the attention of youngsters. The romantic portions between Regina and Gautham Karthik are cute and enjoyable.

Director Mahendran, who plays Azhagar, and Santhosh Prathap who plays Vinayak, come up with neat performances.

However, the finest performance of the film comes from Varalakshmi Sarathkumar, who plays Bhairavi. The actress, who makes a brief appearance, steals the limelight with her measured yet commanding performance. There seems to be a marked improvement in Varalakshmi’s performance, primarily because the actress seems to have consciously worked on her dialogue delivery. In her earlier films, she was known to utter her dialogues in a hurry, often making them incomprehensible to viewers. However, in this film, the actress seems to have made a deliberate effort to slacken the pace at which she speaks. Varlakshmi also seems to have taken considerable effort at improving her diction. All of this put together makes this Varalakshmi’s best performance till date.

Music director Sam C S and cameraman Richard M Nathan do a reasonably good job in their respective areas of expertise.

In all, director Thiru has an interesting tale to tell but he takes his own sweet time to tell it. As a result, the first half moves at a snail’s pace. But then, the story picks up pace once the second half begins. To Thiru’s credit, he manages to sustain the pace throughout the second half and ends the film with a flourish.