Jewellery ads’ curse & consolations! - A theatre experience

If there is a barometer to record petty things that irritate me, the flurry of Jewellery shop ads shown before movies in Cinema theatres will be among the top few in the list. The craze for buying and wearing Jewels in itself is an unfathomable riddle to my senses. To add to that, as if one ad is not enough, the retailer makes multiple versions of ads for his brand and to one’s dismay, all of them are shown-one after the other. And it doesn’t stop there. Repeat this repetitive set once each for Prince, GRT, Saravanas, Joy Alukkas, Jos Alukkas and other Jxx Alukkas.

One can ignore the monotony if at least the ads were interesting enough. But in reality, most of these ads show women drooling for jewels (disgusting idea!) & the women shown are by no means representative of the women targeted. They are all models or super model celebs. With so much surrealism shrouding these ads, I am taken aback when a few ladies in the hall discuss about those ads in detail. If there is an exception to the women-drooling jewel ads, it has to be the recently shown Jos Alukkas ad featuring actor, sorry, cine star Vijay. If the other ads were irritants, this one takes the cake for being the most pathetic, senseless & purposeless of the lot. No one I have talked to about it have got an answer to what that ad tries to convey.

There was respite & consolation offered when trailers of Boss e Baskaran & Quarter Cutting were shown. They were at least interesting if not pulsating. The teaser of Mankatha, surprisingly, was simple and effective too – the only perils being the gun & coolers of Thala. Hope he gets rid of these two for good from this film: They have been on for too much too long now.

The real satisfaction came only as the film that followed these (Naan Mahaan Alla), the cynosure, was impressive. The film has two disjoint halves. The first half, with enjoyable but highly improbable love sequences was probably made in the best interests of the producer for the commercial viability of the film. The distinct shift to a bit gory second half makes me think this part of the film was what the director had desired to show, for, it displays the sense of intensity & care the first half lacks. Other big complements are Yuvan’s background score – He goes to guitar this time & the songs Vaa vaa & Iragai Pole which are instant pleasers. Karthi too has done his part well. Humor comes naturally to him. He emotes well too. If only he stops rolling his eyes the way he does in romantic scenes!

Another very important plus is the apt casting – the choice for the villains couldn’t have been better. Those are faces you will typically come across when you take a trip down north Madras. In all, an intense second half, rocking background score, glimpses of enjoyable scenes in first half & venomous villainy make Naan Mahaan Alla a pretty good watch - Definitely a better watch than the bland jewellery ads shown before the film.