Natchathiram Nagargiradhu Movie Review

Filmmaker Pa Ranjith, whose directorial attribution inclines to the premises involving lifestyle and crisis of SC community continues to bring up yet another inclusion to his kitty titled Natchathiram Nagargiradhu. Pa. Ranjith is appreciable for a couple of salient elements he owns as a director. The first one is about his ability to strike with hard-hitting dialogues, and the other one is his sense of humour. Taking the former context for reference, we get to see it by the opening sequence itself, where Inian (Kalidas Jayaram) and Rena (Dushara Vijayan) have shared their intimate moments together, and a verbal conflict leaves the guy to yell out, “Whatever might be the external progress you show, the cheap mentality of your group is inherent within you.” And she replies, “Oh yeah! You didn’t know that I belong to that particular caste while licking my body few minutes ago?” That’s really an outstanding dialogue that makes sense to the core.

Getting on with the humorous part, we get to see it in couple of sequences, the pre-interval scene, where Arjun (Kalaiyarasan) throws out his furious gesture that leaves entire cinema hall in uttermost laughter, and the post-interval sequence of facing the emotional blackmail from his mother. We also get to see the smartness of director Pa. Ranjith through the eyes of Arjun’s character, who is outsider or a spectator like audience. Precisely, the major group of audiences, who aren’t used to the theater artiste groups, they have a plenty of take away. Initially, we see one among them calling for Arjun and saying, “Look! Don’t mingle with this bunch of aliens, they’ll brainwash your ideas about getting into the movies.” And then, it’s Arjun, who becomes infuriated and spells out his satirical words, which settles down the pressure among audience. However, the second hour gets too stretched out as we get to see lots of conversations and unwanted drama.

There are few moments, where you get annoyed with the conversations among the dialogues. It looks intentionally thrust into the show. Say for instance, there is a scene, where Dushara enjoys the birds flying, and she says, “How nice it would be to fly free like these birds?” and Madras fame Hari says, “For that you shouldn’t be a human.” Such conversations after some time starts testing your patience. The final act of an antagonist bumping into the show and ruining it looks odd. It looks like Pa. Ranjith didn’t know how to end the movie, and he had to bring up this artificial approach.

Speaking about the performance, all credit goes to the director, for his clarity in crafting the characters. Dushara steals the show and the next one to capture our attention is Kalaiyarasan. Kalidas Jayaram is good.

Musical score is appreciable, and the cinematography is commendable. But the visuals with dark tones might keep you comfortable for few moments, and then start straining your eyes. We have come across many filmmakers doing this blunder, where even the most engrossing movies loses out its intensity by distracting us.

On the whole, first half of Natchathiram Nagargiradhu is appreciable for its hard-hitting dialogues and good directorial approach of Pa. Ranjith. But anything that exceeds the limit, will hamper the process, which happens with this movie.