Games people play.
In points: Mankatha
1. Venkat Prabhu is not a serious film maker, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take his job seriously but spends the extra minute on the stereo-typing of current youth which people around me call ‘fun’. So it is my humble theory that his films shouldn’t be analyzed the same way one speaks about a Mysskin film. I’m sure many would disagree.
2. In the lands filmed by the above mentioned director, the recurring themes that one finds are gambling, cricket, cricket+gambling, policemen, corrupt policemen, corrupt policemen+cricket+gambling+Premgi Amaren and all these are found in Mankatha as well.
3. Mankatha is slightly better than his previous attempts because he spends less time in playing patron to his brother Premgi who probably thinks that he can create a career by spoofing others. Many people in the Venkat Prabhu camp think this is humor
4. There are things to be lauded in the film; the director does not seem to compromise on his usual style even in the presence of greater star. Now we have seen that happen before, but Venkat Prabhu weaves his Goa camp well into the heart of a truly Thala film.
5. Thala in his 50th appearance on screen plays macho Mumbai cop Vinayak Mahadev and he does this with ease and fills the screen with fans eating out of his hands. It is indeed a different outing for Ajith and must be praised for choosing an unconventional film. Unconventional I might add because, it is not the usual ‘landmark’ film that heroes choose to do.
6. The entire film rests on those broad shoulders of Ajith Kumar while he walks the thin story line expressing expressions unseen before, a totally populist performance but on the other hand the rest of the cast are only names in the credits and occasionally as chess pieces. The ladies have even less to do, this time even the song and dance routines are trivialized.
7. If one can look deep into the script and find out what the movie is all about, that person would necessarily find the word ‘Greed’ uniformly etched into the character profiles of whoever are in this movie, it is the greed for the money which drives the people and the plot. But then I would not subject the film into such an analysis just because Mankatha was not meant for such introspection.
8. Sometime after the interval gun shots begin at random and continue to harm you ear till the end of the film well of course if you don’t count the car chases in between.
9. At the same time, there is no reason for a person to be dissatisfied with Mankatha, it achieves what it seeks and gives pleasure in plenty to the hordes of Thala fans who have been in waiting for something like this for quite some time now.
Head Shot from Thala, but then we can choose to ignore other aspects of the film.
The Lowly Laureate 