REVIEW: UTTAMA VILLAIN
“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering”
Superstar Manoranjan (Kamal Haasan), leads a happy life with his wife (Oruvasi) - son and has an extramarital affair with his family doctor Arpana (Andrea Jeremiah). His father in law Purnchander (Viswanath) plays a major role in his huge stardom. Amid of this, two things come in Manoranjan’s life… a major blast from the past and blow from the future and changes his life irrevocable manner. With his days enumerated, Manoranjan goes back to his mentor Margadharsi (K Balachander) clears his disputes with him, in an effort to make one movie that will live in the minds of audiences forever. After a lot of suasion director decides to come up with entertaining folklore Uttama Villain based on Uttamudu (Kamal Haasan), a theyyam artist who becomes immortal with some divine intercession. That’s when malefic kind Devraj (Nasser) contacts Uttamudu for immortality rules. Will Uttamudu reveal his secrets? How did Kalpavali (Pooja) help him and saved Uttamudu from Devraj’s evil plans forms the rest of the storyline.
“Art is man's expression of his joy in labor” that’s completely suits Kamal Haasan’s dedication in Uttama Villain. He is absolutely fabulous in a double role enacting both the characters with ease. Kamal grooves with élan, carries emotions with elegance and delivers the most complex of lines with a lot of commitment. Acting wise film is in firm hands. Pooja Kumar is good. She is sure to bag a lot of movies after this one. Andrea Jeremiah is just apt for the family doctor’s character. Late K Balachander is just perfect as the mentor of Kamal Haasan (who in real life share a guru – shishya relationship) and his outburst scene in the film is sure to move the audiences. K Vishwanath is quite impressive. Parvathi Menen & Parvathi Nair have limited role to play and they hasn’t been used to their potential. Jayaram is fine and M S Bhaskar is ok.
“Life is short, the art long”
Uttama Villain is a fantasy drama churned out by Tamil cinema. The film thinks it’s realistic, fun, emotional, intense journey of a superstar, whereas it’s little more than a badly written and ineptly directed enterprise (Ramesh Arvind second directorial film with Kamal, earlier he directed Rama Shama Bhama in Kannada). Our film makers seems to think that with a one line idea, (Artists will die, and Art will live forever) viola – the movie is as good as it’s made. That the microbe that needs to be fleshed into a tenacious script with properly gestated sequences seems to escape them. But three conversations of Kamal Haasan with K Balachander (Introduction), MS Bhasker (Letter Scene) and his son deserves a special applause. These emotional moments are one of the major highlights of the film.
A one liner here is simple, the very occasional emotional scenes doesn’t make a film. All you’re thinking of while the story slowly unrolls, is that what if the 8th century sequences are not made at all. Then there wouldn’t have been any conclusion at all and looking at what you’re seeing, maybe that’s not a bad thing after all. The film is predictable & dragged, fails to offer any freshness, has no idea how to merge emotional and raw comedy or to determine how long to keep each gag going, treats immortality/cowardice in as jejune a manner possible to desperately get the laughs, and even the love story (Except for Andrea-Kamal) gets painfully boring as it proceeds.
Ghibran music sounds fine and a shade better than the rest of the film. Cinematography by Shyamdat is just all right as the director doesn’t seem to be interested in using any kind of major effects to enhance the overall impact of the story. With more than 172 minutes of duration, the film becomes all predictable and boring towards the end. Transition of scenes between 8th century and present time are very abrupt. Dialogues are vapid and the special effects in the film are amateurish. The production values of Thirupathi Brothers Film Media Pvt. Ltd. and Rajkamal Films are fine.
“Artists are never complete people. But it's the art that completes them”
There is art and there are blockbusters. This is very well established in the first few moments of Uttama Villain. Taking its own sweet time to get to the premise, Uttama Villain makes you forget the passable 15 minutes and sets the tone for an experience the "actor" Kamal Hassan wants to give to the audience and make them laugh for one last time. The layers to the screenplay are subtle, there is a comedian who is immortal and a star about to lose everything and trying to look at his tree of life for one time. Uttama villain has a story which is stoned to death in Indian Cinema and there it fails in striking an emotional connect with the audience because it is too contrived. Where it had a chance to score in the comedian episode, it falls flat with long sequences which fail to evoke laughter after a while. Neither of the two episodes are executed perfectly and it leaves us with something desired after the movie. On the whole, Uttama Villain is neither art nor blockbuster.