KUSELAN- a review

If you want to see and enjoy a family drama with sentiment, clean comedy and neat portrayals, Kuselan is the only answer among all the recent releases. Kuselan, truly the most awaited movie of the year is released amidst lot of expectation and fanfare today and no doubt the film is surely a different attempt by Superstar Rajinikanth and Vasu.

First we should congratulate Rajini and director P Vasu for the honest remake of the meaningful Malayalam original Katha Parayumbol (of course there are some cliches, but those are tolerable!). The gist of the story is very simple but interesting. Rajini wants to convey the importance of true friendship. 'Matha, Pitha, Guru, Nalla Nanban and finally God' is the new lineup that the Superstar follows in real life too and the message to convey the young generation to follow.

Balu alias Balakrishnan (Pasupathy) is a poor barber, who is living in a tiny village Marayur and struggling to manage his day today life with a beautiful wife (Meena) and three children. He is unable to buy some good basic equipment to develop his barber shop located in the local Market. But he is quite satisfied with what he has despite the antics of his competitor (cum one time assistant!) Vadivelu, who earns lot of money by forcing local people to visit his shop for cutting and shaving.

One day the entire climate of the village totally changes just because of the arrival of Superstar Ashok Kumar (Rajinikanth) for shooting his film. Everyone in the village go to see and take photographs with the Superstar. But heavy police and Z category security force prevent them to have a glimpse of the Superstar.

Meanwhile news spreads around the village that Balu and the Superstar are close childhood friends. After knowing the fact, everyone in the village give new respect to Balu and his family. The local money lender comes forward to help him to develop his saloon with all brand new modern equipments to just get an intro with the Superstar. Everyone in the village wants to cash in on their friendship.

But just because of his ego, Balu does not like to even pay a visit to the guest house where the Superstar is staying. But the entire village, including his own family members force him to visit the Superstar and renew their relationship. How do the old friends meet at last? The question leads to the sensational, never ever seen climax of the film.

For years, many have doubts and questions about Rajinikanth's personal life, Himalayan trips, saint like life style and political interests. In a face to face conversation between Rajini and a critic (Sundar Rajan), P Vasu exposes the other side of the Superstar well. The way Rajinikanth replies to all the queries of Sundar Rajan is excellent and it helps the Superstar himself to satisfy a faction of people, who are always pinpoint him.

No doubt, Rajini is the real star of the entire show. From the second reel itself the film rounds the Superstar. Most of the scenes reflect Rajini's real life incidents and not even exaggerated a bit. Performance wise Rajini easily overtakes all the characters and particularly in the sensational climax everyone is stunned with the outstanding, class performance of Rajinikanth. (I have witnessed that most of the young audiences came out from the show with tear and mostly women audience hail the superior performance of Rajini!)

Pasupathy who comes throughout the movie has done his role well. Meena just repeats the same performance that she has already done in the original. Vadivelu is one of the real winners of the show. Particularly in a scene with the superstar, Vadivelu has played well and showed the exact feelings of a villager while he is happening to see a superstar once in his poor life. Nayantara is just appearing as the co-star of the movie and she has also done her job quite well. Other comedians Santhanam, Livingston, MS Bhaskar, Brammanandam, Chinni Jayanth have also played their part well and help a lot maintain the tempo of the film.

Aravind Krishna gives a new tone to the movie and his style of picturisation is really good. Three songs of GV Prakash Kumar are hummable but the opening song of the Superstar is not up to the level to Rajini's earlier films. The Superstar is just appearing in the film for just 40 minutes. But most of the audiences feel that it is a different but complete Rajini movie.That is the magic of superstar Rajinikanth!