Balaji's Thots

Recent horror comedies in Tamil cinema have tended to look alike with stock elements like a haunted mansion, ghostly apparitions making sudden appearances and a group of comedians evoking laughs by being frightened by the scary images. Maragadha Naanayam,  which mostly revolves around the search for the titular item, does things a bit differently and delivers some good laughs because of that.

Though termed a coin, the film’s maragadha naanayam looks more like a rather large pendant with a large green emerald encased in a gold circle. Supposedly guarded by the spirit of the king who owned it and was eventually buried with it, it has killed everyone who has laid hands on it. So no one is willing to take on the job of stealing it until Senguttuvan(Aadhi), who works for Ramadoss(Ramdoss) and is unaware of the coin’s history, agrees to steal it.

Senguttuvan starts off with some petty smuggling jobs which indicate the film’s comic tone. The film’s zaniness(a gangster speaks to the people he is threatening via radio) and some word plays that would make ‘Crazy’ Mohan proud(like a comment about the name John) keep the laughs coming in spurts. Senguttuvan gets three spirits to help him and the way they are employed is clever and the main driver for the comedy. The laughs peak in the scene where a character literally loses his head, which is a riot.

Anandraj is particularly good as a gangster Twinkle Ranganathan. He pulls off the difficult job of playing a comic villain without hamming it up and his interactions with his dumb but well-dressed henchmen are frequently funny. M.S.Baskar also makes us chuckle with his deadpan delivery during an interrogation scene. At the same time, the reaction shots could’ve been orchestrated better. The reactions from the actors in many scenes, like a torture scene involving a drill or another one where a couple of the goons commandeer a vehicle with no driver, are not effective and lessen the impact of the scenes, leading to muted laughs.

Senguttuvan is in love with Chanakya(Nikki Galrani), who he just sees at the bus stop from across the road. The way this romance is developed is one of the film’s pleasant surprises. While the track seems familiar enough initially, it packs a couple of good surprises with respect to Chanakya. Senguttuvan and Chanakya do end up spending a lot of time together but it is not in the way we expect. The film appears to take the easy route with a cheat at the end but it is only a momentary occurrence and the film admirably sticks to its guns with respect to the story.