March 13, 2015

A solar flare hits the Earth and mobile communication across the city takes a hit. Vasanth, a tech whiz, is trying to restore mobile networks in his locality by using TV signals. Raja, a taxi driver, is busy romancing his lover inside his car not realizing that a terrorist has placed a bomb inside it and plans to activate it over phone. If Vasanth succeeds, it will actually help the terrorist execute his plan. Meanwhile, Mukil, a property dealer,… read the rest.

A solar flare hits the Earth and mobile communication across the city takes a hit. Vasanth, a tech whiz, is trying to restore mobile networks in his locality by using TV signals. Raja, a taxi driver, is busy romancing his lover inside his car not realizing that a terrorist has placed a bomb inside it and plans to activate it over phone. If Vasanth succeeds, it will actually help the terrorist execute his plan. Meanwhile, Mukil, a property dealer, is searching for his love interest Simi, who is actually buried under debris in a construction site — with a superheavy stone block dangling over her at a great height. And, the only chance of him saving her is if the mobile network is restored on time.

Thus, Ramprakash Rayappa sets up his story effectively and keeps us on the edge of our seats for the most parts. The manner in which he handles this multi-strand narrative without making it chaotic deserves appreciation. The success lies in how he makes each of these sub-plots interesting.

Vasanth is shown as a tech savant (probably, that's why the character is named as an anagram of the word) who likes to invent things —solar bike, robotic dog, bomb detector, invisible ink, miniature bike with a video camera — and finds being in a job boring. He ghostwrites project reports for college students and one student, Harini, falls in love with him. His mother (a stellar Urvashi) is not quite educated but has learnt a lot about science from her son and can talk about them with conviction. She can even make a clock run by using potatoes as batteries! There is a very amusing scene where Vasanth lets her reply to Harini's messages, that highlights the easygoing relationship between the two.

Raja is the loudmouth driver who doesn't get a girl because of his indiscreet talking. However, one girl falls for him but he can woo her only with the help of Ramesh, the small-time thief who has stolen his mobile phone. Ramesh also has a part to play in the terrorist's plan and gets the loudest cheer with his actions in the climax.

But the track involving Mukil and Simi doesn't feel intrinsic to the plot. Take it away and the film will hardly suffer. Also, their romance seems forced and ridiculous. She is a suicide counselor who mistakes him for a suicide victim while he mistakes her empathy for love. But when they realize the mistake, he tells her that he will continue to love her until she verbally abuses him! And, Dinesh, who still seems to be in Cuckoo mode, and Bindu Madhavi, who is mostly wooden, make one of the most unconvincing romantic pairs in recent times.

Ramprakash Rayappa gives his own spin to the race-against-time thriller with Tamizhukku En 1-Ai Azhuthavum, a solid debut film. Generally, in films of this nature, the hero will have to push himself and beat time and accomplish a task. Here, Ramprakash does what Albert Hitchcock mentioned in his famous conversation with Francois Truffaut while explaining the difference between surprise and suspense. He lets us — the audiences — know the stake while his three leads are hardly aware of what they have in store. We see the bomb being placed, Simi getting buried and the cables holding the stone block snap. Thus, we become active participants in the developments on screen and that makes the film more thrilling than it should have been.

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