Chennai 600028 II Innings Tamil Movie
Venkat Prabhu unleashed himself as a director into mainstream Tamil Cinema with the sensational hit, Chennai 60028, almost a decade back. The movie which was based on gully cricket and some mild drama silently contributed its own share of "easy" film-making to Tamil Cinema. By "easy" I don't mean careless filmmaking or one without a solid story, but it was more to do with the mild treatment, the character portrayal, and most importantly a candid narrative that awaited occasions "to break the fourth wall" - and that includes the famous bloopers at the end (like in most Jackie Chan movies).
With this second innings or sequel to his debut movie, he has certainly come a full circle with a bag of hits and forgettable misses. Was he able to recreate the magic that he was able to effortlessly bring forth with his debut movie?
The movie starts with the director's voice-over on each character from the previous part, like a status update or in other words, what we are in for this time. The boys in the first part are now men, who have responsibilities to be shouldered. In other words, they are family men, except for Jai and Premji (reflecting their real life marital status - fourth wall alert!). Jai, who has now found a mainstream presence (in his real avatar too, as a saleable lead), is about to get hitched to his love interest.
Friends gather together with their family and head to the bride's native, Theni, for the ceremony. Things go haywire because of their participation in a local cricket match and also a wild raunchy "kuthu" number (with Manisha Yadav) and things start to descend downhill for the men. How they mend things and stay united forms the rest of this wacky reunion.
It's that kind of a Venkat Prabhu movie where there are no clear demarcations between the good and the bad or there are no heroes and villains per se. This I believe is his pet theme, very close to how he lives his real life, with a bunch of guys to hang out, always. There are so many instances to rekindle the nostalgia of its earlier part. They weren't just forced into the film but were placed to perfection with comical sense.
The portions where Shiva, who also doubles up as a YouTube reviewer on screen was a riot to watch - where he gets to compare the movie's goings on with the ones in Hollywood (yet another fourth wall alert!). Premji somehow looked offbeat in this, perhaps it added to the genuineness in the script wherein he is getting transformed into a man. Vaibhav as the namesake villain made way for the necessary bumps in the story.
Slight cribs from me would be on Yuvan's below par music and the choice of the heroine (an expressionless Sana Altaf). Apart from those, it was like an enjoyable fun ride on the back of a pony on steroids. After all, what is a Venkat Prabhu movie - a bunch of gags threaded together with wacky and quirky scenarios, variety entertainment and some "men stuff" like the "Soppana Sundari" number. Go watch it for fun and relax without pondering too much into logic!
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