MANGAMMAA SABATHAM
A movie review by Balaji Balasubramaniam
| Cast: | Kamalhassan, Sujatha, Satyaraj, Madhavi, Balan K.Nair, Sukumari, Nalinikanth |
| Music: | Shankar Ganesh |
| Direction: | K.Vijayan |
This is one of those generic vendetta tales that used to be extremely popular at one time. A young kid's parents are killed and he grows up and takes revenge. Only in this case, just the father is killed and the mother herself drives the son to take revenge. There have been movies where the theme has been handled interestingly. Kamal himself acted in one of the best ever, Aboorva Sagodharargal. But this is not one of them. In fact, if not for its cast and performances, this movie would find its place close to the bottom of the heap.
Ashok(Kamalhassan) is raised to be a stuttering, frightened coward by his cruel uncle Bhoopathy(Satyaraj). (The acts of cruelty on the kid are rather graphic with him being thrown into the swimming pool and having a snake thrown on him. The boy playing the role has gone through a lot). When Mangamma(Sujatha) and her cohorts learn that he is unmarried, she works her way into his mother's heart and marries him. But when she learns about his ill-treatment at the hands of his uncle, his plight changes her heart and she decides to stay on. But Bhoopathy reveals her initial plan of absconding with the money and drives her out. When Ashok runs to join her, Bhoopathy kills him. Mangamma is thought to be dead but she survives and raises her son Raja(Kamal again) to be a fearless young man well-versed in fighting, dancing, etc. (After the cruel acts performed on the other boy, there is another disturbing scene here when Sujatha holds up a crying baby in the rain). Once he learns the story, he, alongwith his girlfriend Radha(Madhavi), settles scores with Bhoopathy and his son Jaipal(Nalinikanth).
There are no surprises or interesting characters here. The heartless uncle, the cowardly hero, the mother itching for revenge and the "sagalakalaa vallavan" son - all of them are stock characters behaving exactly as they always do in any revenge tale in tamil cinema. The initial portions move along purely on the strength of Kamal's performance as Ashok. He earns sympathy as the simpleton completely under the control of his uncle. Smacking his lips before speaking and stuttering in fear, he introduces another memorable character. The performace deserves a much better movie. The scene where he is beaten by Satyaraj in the lawn is surprisingly realistic. The sequence where his mother comforts him after the thrashing at the hands of his uncle and the first night scene between him and Sujatha are also nicely handled.
While things generally perk up from when the revenge-taking starts, the reverse happens here. The younger Kamal's introduction is followed by so many fights that it starts to get tedious. The revenge stuff itself is so routine that it soon becomes hard to suppress yawns. Using the same plot that Satyaraj used to inflict the same kind of beatings on him and his son, looking for a hidden will - none of these manage to raise any interest. The only sequence innovatively handled is the one where Kamal forces Nalinikanth to accept that he is mad and then convey the information to his dad. The song sequence here is definitely different(a touch of michael Jackson's Thriller video?) and the scene where Kamal makes Nalinikanth say the phrase in different ways evokes laughs. Other songs are laughably bad and their picturisation reveals a complete lack of imagination on the part of the director.
For a Kaadhal Mannan, the romance between Kamal and Madhavi is surprisingly low-key. They have very few scenes together and their interaction lacks the kind of sparks that Kamal exhibits with most heroines. Madhavi looks wodden throughout. Infact, the romance between the older Kamal and Sujatha has a couple of tender moments and is much more interesting. After watching Satyaraj play the hero in several sub-par movies, it is a pleasure watching him as villain again. But we don't get to see any of his unique styles that characterised his performance in movies like 24 Mani Neram and Kaakki Sattai, making him extremely popular as a villain. The climax takes place in one of those rocky surroundings where the tamil cinema villains tradionally take the near and dear ones of the hero. It definitely looks like an attempt has been made to stage a big-scale climax fight but the results are not obvious on the screen.