PURATCHIKKAARAN

A movie review by Balaji Balasubramaniam

Cast:	Velu Prabhakaran, Satyaraj, Arun Pandiyan, Mansurali Khan, Kushboo, Roja, Neena, Manivannan, Radharavi
Music:	Vidyasagar
Direction:	Velu Prabhakaran

It is ironic that the movie I watch after Paalayathu Amman is Puratchikkaaran, a movie that can be classified as being on the other end of the spectrum from Rama.Narayanan's devotional offering. While the former banked on the people's belief in God by offering up a tale of the deity performing miracles to save her devotees, this movie denounces God and charges that the people's belief in God is responsible for all the ills besetting the country. While it is more mature and better presented that the devotional movies, the extremity of the propaganda puts one off.

Thamizhmani(Velu Prabhakaran) is a terrorist who propagates the non-existence of God and to convince people of his beliefs, he kidnaps the heads of the three religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. A reporter Kanimozhi(Roja) travels to the forest to interview him and he tells her his story. He was born as a pious Brahmin Ramanujam but happenings within his family and in his village made him debunk the existence of God and follow the path of Anna(Satyaraj) an IAS officer turned revolutionary. When he lost his sister(Kushboo), his wife(Neena) and Anna to the schemings of the village headman(Radharavi), who used caste as his own toy, he turned into a terrorist.

If Rama.Narayanan's duping gullible viewers by showing miracles on screen is an extreme case of a filmmaker taking advantage of people's belief in God, Velu Prabhakaran is also guilty of the same charge. He just goes to the other extreme. Belief in God in intensely personal and a matter of faith to most people and Prabhakaran strikes at the heart of that. And unlike Vivek, who debunks people's irrational acts arising out of their belief in God in his comedy routines, Velu Prabhakaran proclaims that there is no God. So the movie must be taken as a single man's propaganda vehicle and seen with that frame of mind, it does have some good points.

It is obvious that Velu Prabhakaran believes in his convictions and the dialogs sizzle with intelligence. His questions to the religious heads as to whether they believe in each others' Gods and then declaring that he doesn't believe in all three of their Gods is a good point. His demands to the Chief Minister about banning activities related to people's belief in God is radical but well-intentioned. Satyaraj too has some nice points about people having to believe that they can help each other rather than waiting for God to help them.

But the movie bends under its own weight. With his intention of showing that God is the root of all evil, Velu Prabhakaran introduces too many issues. For instance, Radhika's segment is just another episode about casteism and untouchability and seems completely unnecessary. It just confirms the director's intention to drill into the viewers his ideas about casteism with no subtlety whatsoever. He needs to learn to temper his views and that too much of a good thing can be bad too. He also paints almost everyone who believes in God as a villain. The stereotypes of the lusty zamindar and his fake godman sidekick are overdone caricatures.

Velu Prabhakaran appears in three different getups and looks at home in each. His voice and dialog delivery remind one of the late MGR in many scenes. Satyaraj, a self-confessed atheist, gets a chance to express his own ideas. The character must have been a relief for him after so many lightweight roles. Kushboo makes an impression in the short time while Neena overacts. Vidyasagar's aggressive music fits the mood of the music and Vairamuthu's strong lyrics aid the director a lot in expressing his views.