Kuselan

Kuselan Cast

Kuselan Disappoints.

This is a loving bad review, from a person that can see the film’s flaws and strengths, k?

This unsubtitled dialog heavy comedy-drama has Rajinikanth in a guest role that consumes about half the film. It commits the cardinal mistake of throwing too much money at a film that demands small production values, and natural light shooting (when not doing production numbers , of course).

I was sitting in a restive crowd which started out festive. (at $ 16 ,the film charged a buck more than the Kamal disaster that was released last month) The first half hour Rajinikanth didn’t show they demanded his presence good humouredly from the screen. Then as the film switched to the Pasupathy Meena story , they were loud unsympethic and abusive.

Then the last half hour of the film unfolded and the Audience teared up, but by then it was too late. It wasn’t a problem with the script. (Katha parayumpol had solidly artsy values which Kuselan tried to convert into A list commercial cinema) It was , in my opinion a radical directorial misjudgment of the elements to be included to make the movie appeal to the “masses”. In a rajinikanth film, people expect to see their hero first.If the film wasn’t going to deliver that, why adverize with huge banners all across America? The film should have started with rajinikanth’s daily life in Poes garden. And then cut to the different quality of happiness pasupathy’s family enjoyed. …except they didn’t like it so much now because the outside world kept telling them they were poor or unhappy…

P Vasu, Director

P Vasu (Who is no Shankar) is at his best making melodramas. A melodrama means there should be some interaction between the two stories in the film – The superstar’s and the Barber friend’s. There was none here. So the audience could easily detach itself from one story(pasupathy’s) and only pay attention to the Rajinikanth parts. I think he misdirected the film somewhat, and made it an inside joke on the Tamil film industry. The way it came across to me It felt as if P Vasu or K Balachander(whose Kavitalaya films (Muthu) produced this movie) gave us their very patronizing “City rich man’s view of the poor wretched villager ” . the film and Rajinikanth’s humility suffered from the frame. So it came across as if Rajinikanth was like Richie Rich , the poor little rich boy, being protected against himself.

K Balachander’s Kavithalaya produced Kuselan

People HATE that. They know all about being disempowered and can recognize a lame duck when they see one. You guys (in tamil cinema) want to lobby for jobs for the industry go write to your Member of parliament. The Audience votes with its feet. If someone is a “flop director ” he’s that because he made films that didn’t resonate with the Audience. No amount of industry insider-hood, appealing to caste Hindus by talking down to the poor, using superstars or Giant cutouts is going to make your film successful. M G Ramachandran consistently did something right . You (the flop director) did not.

Let that massage your brains (with gingilee oil) a little.