Soodhu Kavvum(2013)

Cast : Vijay Sethupathy, Sanchitha Shetty, Bobby Simha, Ramesh Thilak, Ashok Selvan, Karunakaran, M.S.Phabhu & Radha Ravi

Plot and Story Line:

Soodhu kavuum( Evil Engulfs) is a  tamil comedy drama directed by debutante Nalan kumarasamy. The story revolves around the life of four friends, when they are involved in a kidnapping of a minister’s son. Things go wrong for the four of them when their fugitive has some other plans for his father.

The film begins with three friends kesavan( Played by Ashok Selvan) , an IT professional who gets fired from his office because of misconduct with women, Sekar( played by Ramesh thilak ) –a valet who gets fired for trying to seal a car and Pagalavan( played by Bobby Simha) ,  He gets kicked out of his hometown for building a temple for Nayanthara.  On the same day the story pans to Dass(Played by Vijay Sethupathy), a small time kidnapper who works alone( not exactly alone, along with his imaginary girlfriend Shalu(played  by sanchita Shetty)) . He tries to kidnap a school teen and its goes bad and he ends up getting chased.  Dass and Kesavan & Co meet at a local Bar where they get involved in a Bar fight and their friendship begins.

 The Next day after breakfast, Kesavan and Co get involved in Dass’s operation, they Kidnap a Bank manager’s daughter. The three friends get impressed by the way Dass does his job, It’s not a regular kidnapping scene, there is no big ransom, no police and they get the ransom in a few hours. Dass askes them to decide for themselves if they want to join his team.  Except for Kesavan , the other two join his squad and their success continues.

The Soodhu- Evil comes in the form of Nambikai kannan- one of the clients of Dass. He calls and makes a offer to kidnap Minister Gyanodhayam ‘s ( played by MS bhaskar) so Arumai Praksam( played by karunakaran). Dass initiall refuses the offer as it breaks the rules that he has set. He than agrees to talk to kannan face to face to know more of the deal. Finally Dass Agrees to the deal and they go ahead to Kidnap Arumai. On the Day  of the Kidnapping they are surprised to find that already another team kidnaps Arumai.  Dass and Co Kidnap Arumai once again and things go very bad for them after that.  What happens to all people at the end is the rest of the film.

Dass is the pivotal character in the film, though we don’t know his past, we can tell that he has a very bad one. To forget it he makes an imaginary friend Shalu to whom he shares all his success and failure, it’s more like his Alter Ego guiding him what to do and what not to do. After they get the ransom money and the car crashes Shalu dies in the crash (at least that’s what Dass imagines) and Dass looses all his good fortunes after that.

Even though this film is a comedy and it is very funny!, it hits on hard truth about the society and some brutal facts about politics and the current judicial systems. Arumai’s Character in the film is an example for this, His father; though an attention seeking politician is known as one of the non-corrupt politicians. When he finds out that Arumai has stolen from the ransom money, he rushed to his leader’s office and tells him the truth. In response the party leader appoints Arumai as the next candidate for the election, appreciating his skills for stealing from his father.  The final scene where Dass and Co are produced in court and Arumai denies that they were the ones who kidnapped him, They get locked up in a truck and get driven to somewhere, Dass understands what has happened and tells

“We were prisoners, so we were protected by law, now we are free men, they can do whatever they want”

Verdict:

Soodhu Kavuum is more of a Black comedy than a comedy film, it can be compared to many real incidents which we read in the newspaper daily, All of the stuff which the media hype in TV has some kind of a quirky story behind them, One of them is shown in Soodhu Kavuum. It reminds me of some of Guy ritche’s film – Snatch , lock Stock and Two smoking Barells, though the style is completely different, the way both of them tell the story is quite the same, very unexpected endings! Santhosh nayaranan's music needs a special mention, Especially the  jazz number in the Bar( mama touser kazhatichi )will be remembered as on the of quirkiest one's ever),

Nalan and Karthick Subburaj of Pizza and Jiggarthanda Fame are the upcoming directors of the south. The whole team including vijay sethupathi, Ramesh, Bobby and Karunakaran have come a long way from the short films which they have done. These people will be talked about very highly in the future i can see it clearly from the way they are making waves now.