Kaali Tamil Movie
'Kaali' enjoys a titular value thanks to Rajini's yesteryear film with the same title. That said, the movie also stood on its own merit with respect to a good pre-release buzz in the form of a 7-minute sneak peek on YouTube. Also, director Krithika Udhayanidhi, though only a film old, for obvious reasons has got the clout to pull in some solid marketing for this low budget movie.
Bharath (Vijay Antony), an NRI from the US visits India to find answers to some intriguing questions that brushes through his subconscious memory. He does find the answer at the end after traversing through the minds and souls of a few characters - at least with the help of a screenplay that seemed to play out differently, at least on paper.
However, the story and Vijay Antony, the actor remained stale throughout. The first 10 minutes of the movie had themes ripped from Vijay Antony's previous movies - "Pichaikkaran" and "Saithan". Then, rapidly when the plot shifted from the US to a small village in TN (incidentally titled Kanavankarai), we expect some sort of thrilling elements or interesting twists, but Nah... we end up getting introduced to Yogi Babu and Anjali who contribute very little for the movie. In fact, they make the plot wobble big time!!
Anjali, in particular, was the odd one out and was in no way related to the plot. Yogi Babu was not armed with enough comic ammunitions and so he had to deal with some wry humour that hardly created any impact. Vijay Antony was as insipid as ever and doesn't seem to care an iota to put up an impactful show. Well, this time around he masked his innate timidity playing a doctor. However, the other roles he played were an offshoot of that timidity. It was like shifting between timid minus to timid extra minus. In short, bad acting!
Shilpa Manjunath who made a brief but solid appearance as the pair for 'Kaali' was noteworthy. She sort of had a character which was developed quite well and was the most humane of all. The college romantic episode of Vijay Antony and Amritha was another goof up and was totally unnecessary for the script.
The movie, in general, suffered from the craft as well. The production value was mediocre, with the scenes of New York falling apart due to tacky backdrops and inanely made-up lines. Graphics of a bull and a snake suffered from serious budget issues and Vijay Antony's music was also average. The cinematography was also not all that great, but at the same time, there wasn't much scope for the same.
The movie struggled to settle in with a theme and wavered from pillar to post. Also, for no sane reason, Vijay Antony was made to play so many roles. The pay off at the end after all the drag was also not that fulfilling. Director Krithika should have come up with a better plot and shouldn't have been carried away by the idea of making an actor like Vijay Antony play these many roles in a single movie. The reason is simple, his last name is "Antony" and not "Sethupathi"!!
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