TAMIL CINEMA:
Letdown Debut: Aegan
Cast: Ajith, Nayanthara, Suman, Devan, Navdeep, Piya, and others
Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja
Direction: Raju Sundaram
The much awaited Aegan, choreographer-director Raju Sundaram’s directorial debut, has all the ingredients to entertain — a charming hero, a dazzling heroine and a younger pair in Navdeep and Piya to pep up the proceedings. Apart from Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music, it also has talented cinematographer Arjun Jena. Despite all this, Raju fails to come up with a credible and engrossing screenplay from a story that was successful in Hindi (Main Hoon Na).
The success of Main Hoon Na was due to Farah Khan’s smart characterization of Shah Rukh Khan and an intelligent screenplay. Raju fails on both counts.
The story goes like this: Shiva (Ajith), a daredevil young angry cop, comes to India with a mission to put an end to a dreaded gangster John Chinappa (Suman), who is being hunted by the Interpol. Ram Prasad (Devan), ex-associate of John, decides to become a witness for the prosecution. But he goes into hiding fearing John.
Shiva comes to a college in Ooty where Ram’s daughter Priya (Piya) studies. Shiva disguises his identity to join the college and protect Priya from the goons. Narain (Navdeep), who studies in the same college, falls for Priya.
The rest of the film revolves around how Shiva accomplishes his mission.
Ajith, dapper and handsome, somehow looks odd in such a character, especially in the college scenes. The Billa hangover continues and that doesn’t go well with the character in Aegan. Despite these shortcomings, Ajith does his best to make the movie worth a watch. He dances, fights and acts with conviction and saves the film from being a total disappointment.
Nayanthara, whose stock went up by her bold and beautiful act in Billa, continues to sizzle with her glamour. She is quite attractive in song sequences but somehow, the magic she created in Billa is missing in Aegan. Her character, too, isn’t etched out well.
Raju has managed to make the proceedings in the college interesting. Jayaram, Sathyan, and Haneefa provide some hilarious moments.
Villain Suman’s character is hopeless and the clichéd role is a big letdown.
Though the lead pair — Ajith and Nayanthara — has an enticing chemistry, too many songs spoil the flow of the proceedings.
Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music, just above average, fails to add any pep.
On the whole, Raju Sundaram’s debut venture fails to impress, as the script and the characterizations lack punch.
— Courtesy Chennai Online.
|
!-- Start Alexa Certify Javascript -->
