It is difficult for me to see Nerkonda Paarvai without making comparisons to Pink, at the same time it is also difficult for me to accept that an EDM festival in such a large scale would be held near Mamallapuram.
Yes, that is how H Vinoth’s Nerkonda Paarvai begins.
If this had been an FRS we would have cut points for disbelief, but this is no FRS.
Even with some years behind since its release Pink had something going for me, its absolute lack of heroism itself was heroic, the smooth transitions between the scenes which were not wanting to create dramatic tensions when they did not exist.
When Amitabh Bachchan stands up to say “No” there is but a ticking clock (presumably of the court) which keeps him company, there is no other score.
Just a lawyer delivering the closing arguments of his case.
There has been many a column dedicated to how bold it is for a hero like Ajith Kumar to take up such a subject.But many columns need to be written on how the film making differs and the additions that Vinoth has added only hamper the classic and on point film making of Pink. Hopefully this is a start.
Nerkonda Paarvai is in all ways an inferior remake of Pink. Let’s start with the characterisation.
Deepak Sehgal is a disturbed ageing lawyer, his illness is mentioned but not explained, we know it is an impediment when he mixes up words when fighting for the girls. These impediments make the fight difficult, they add one more layer when the wronged girls go against the powerful boys.
In the Tamil remake, the worst I had feared had happened; Bharath Subramaniam has a mental condition- bi polar, stress and anger issues etc but this is hardly an obstacle, in fact this mental condition gives Ajith a superpower to bash goons- again typical nondescript goons. There is no obstacle, in fact here they fear the hero.
I loved Viswasam, I almost felt it was a clever Tamil reworking of Logan- Ajith even sports the same tired look of Hugh Jackman (this for another blog post). In Nerkonda Paarvai, his association with super heroes continue and Bharath Subramanium is nothing but a Bruce Banner/Hulk as realized by Ajith.
Nothing wrong with that, except that this characterisation is in the wrong movie.
I am not sure if the Pink remake needed a heroic backstory for its hero, but it surely did not require the utterly unconvincing Vidya Balan flashback. Oh and a loud Yuvan background score.
And of the other actors only Rangaraj Pandey seems to be having fun, playing a version of himself- one of the most confident debuts in recent times.
At the Laureate we do not celebrate movies just because of the themes that they take up- but hey many liked this film- why such negative notes?
Maybe it is me, I should have given more time between viewing these films.
In that case I would have forgotten about how beautifully absent of background music Pink was.
I would have forgotten the biting sarcasm that Sehgal brought about in his ‘guide to the modern Indian woman’.
I would have forgotten that Amitabh was just a player ( an able one at that) in the movie which was more focussed on the girls.
I would have forgotten all about how the original treats people as people and not playing them as heroes and villains, the remake does this constantly by close-ups and ominous music.
Maybe it is not them, it is me.
The Lowly Laureate 