Review of Kaala - No masala

The movie is a classic example of what is wrong with Tamil movies – the promise of a good story and plotline, compromised to accommodate the image of the lead actor and a Director who equally sees himself to be a messiah of sorts.

The movie does have some “mass moments” made for Rajni and he still delivers them with ease. The scene when Kaala and Hari meet is hands-down, the high-point of the movie. Sadly, there isn’t much else of substance except, the second direct meeting between these two. I think the Director basically gave all his focus only to these two scenes.

As you may have heard by now, Kaala is an old Don who is still wielding significant influence with his men in Daravi. Bad politicians are trying to promote the space to build infra projects and Kaala tries to stop it. Rather, stops it. Ho-hum. Seen in too many movies. And will be seen in many more to come too. So, not a new story by any stretch of imagination.

However, the first half of the movie did make you sit up, primarily because of the introduction of a character that comes to help these slum-dwellers. While this too is probably standard, the interesting aspect is that she is a former lover of Kaala. And this fact is known to all and sundry. And we also get to see them interact and make it clear that the past should be left in the past. It was quite a welcome change from the regulation in Tamil movies, where true love means death, when circumstances split lovers. Then, these two are also at loggerheads with the first project that is proposed and you start thinking that, the scorned woman is going to seek revenge. That doesn’t happen and by the time the movie ends, you realize that the only reason for having that character is to show some white skin in an otherwise dark-skinned movie – yet another trap that Tamil cinema can’t get out of. 

Otherwise, you get to see all the standard tropes laid out one after the other. Young kid suddenly being giving advice usually means he is going to be killed or would turn out to be a traitor. Son who is the brawn for the ageing Daddy Don, gets killed. Don’s wife gets killed right after a "cute" scene. Hindu Don offering Namaz. One son who is defiant and others who want to. Etc.

The Director presents the protagonist always in black and the antagonist always in white, when usually it is the other way around. I felt it was a nice touch, but sadly, he ruined it by literally spelling it out in the second one-on-one meeting between these two. And this second scene is almost a replay of the first scene with all roles swapped; in a way it is an interesting premise.

A jarring note in the entire movie is that none of them speak properly. The Director should have concentrated more in fine-tuning the dialogue delivery of Eshwari Rao – her Telugu accent makes its presence above the Tirunelveli slang, thereby dampening an otherwise awesome performance. Like one reviewer said, this is how one portrays innocence. Similarly, Nana being made to talk in Tamizh is equally jarring. Agreed, he’s a Mumbai guy (reel and real) and can speak only broken Tamizh, but once it was decided that it had to be Tamizh, he should have at least spoken it loudly.

One must be really blind to miss the subliminal messaging scattered across the movie. You get to see or hear Buddha, Ambedkar or Bhim in every scene or the other – when the good guys are shown. Characters often say they were born in Bhim Nagar. You also see Ram and Ganesh when the bad guys come up. There was an over-sprinkling of Swastik and Om symbols in Nana’s public meeting. In fact, the lead up to the climax has a parallel scene of the Yudha Kandam of Ramayana being narrated at the antagonist’s house. The message, if it was still not clear, Ravana is the victim and Rama is the perpetrator. The Director also doesn’t leave the chance to splash the screen (quite literally) with his favorite colors of Black, Red and Blue. The end credits also show up anti-NEET protests!

Even if you ignore all these aspects, one cannot miss the shadow of the Tuticorin Sterlite agitation looming large over the movie. This movie was not made after the incident, but there are enough scenes that resemble what happened there.

If you treat this as a mass movie, it fails miserably because the protagonist has not really taken direct revenge on the guy who destroyed his direct family and the extended one in the slum. If you want to treat is a non-mass movie, then it fails even more miserably, because all the tropes of a standard masala movie are presented in abundance and there is an obvious lack of story.

Rajni does get some acting scope and his mass scenes still deliver what his fans expect. So yes, you can watch the movie because it is not in the league of Baba or Sura. But you don’t have to feel bad if you don’t.