Movie: Thanga Magan / Thangamagan
Direction: Velraj
Cast: Dhanush, Amy Jackson, Samantha
Music: Anirudh Ravichander
Cinematographer: A Kumaran
Editor: M V Rajesh Kumar
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Rating: ∗∗
What is it about: It’s an everyday story of a young lad who transforms from a Boy to Man. Comprising ups and down in his love life, family, career and society, how he tackles these issues forms the crux of the story directed by Velraj, which stars Dhanush, Amy Jackson, Samantha, Radhika, Sathish, Adith and KS Ravikumar.
Why it’s disappointing: First and foremost it was an old wine in the OLD bottle itself, there was nothing fresh to offer, so that we can use the phrase “Old wine in a new Bottle”. Director Velraj, picked a script which is age old and ended up making even more clichéd with very predictable sequences, which loses its essence right from beginning. The makers were quite confident that due to the previous success by this team, but unfortunately they forgot just the previous image won’t fetch a good movie.
Then comes the characterization, Amy Jackson for instance. Who looked out of place with her lip sync, I agree the obvious fact why that happened. But it’s the placement of the character which made this one worse. She managed a lot with her body language, how much can she save the character by just body language. Poor thing she did the best she could, can’t blame her.
Dhanush is a tremendous performer, but when you see him carrying a role of this sort, it breaks your heart because he can do way better. That makes me wonder was it a favour he did by acting in this movie, well it seemed like he was trying to make this character lovable, unfortunately he couldn’t as the response in the cinema hall was terrible to his acting for the first time.
Sathish is getting monotonous by stereotyping his image in movies, I understand he can only fit the bill of a comedian, but even there many wonders can be done.
The screenplay drags, the best part was the quick runtime of 2 hours which made this one bearable.
The background score by Anirudh lacked the punch which created waves in VIP.
What to watch out for: The best part of “Thanga Magan” is the character played by KS Ravikumar as Vijay Raghavan. He did a commendable job among the entire cast he was one of the best and did convince the audience the genuine portrayal of the character.
Samantha seemed quite good compared to her recent outings in Kollywood, she did suit the homely type girl clad in a cotton saree, and did a decent job. The new comer Adith Arun seemed quite good and did a good job.
The music was good by Anirudh, what was lost in background score, he made it up with the songs. All of them were placed well and were good with “Poetu Dhanush” penning the lyrics. There was not much scope for cinematography to explore as the movie travels like a tele-serial, which was crisply edited by Rajesh Kumar.
Verdict: Velraj disappoints at many levels with Thanga Magan, as he is capable of dishing out some good work. It turns out be a lengthy TV serial on silver screen made on a Kollywood scale budget with big stars, which even Dhanush couldn’t carry it on his shoulders.
