From the first frame, to the last, Acham Enbathu Madamayada keeps you glued to your seat. And it's not just Gautam Vasudev Menon's dreamlike vision, or STR's acting (though they're both top notch); it is AR Rahman's OST and BGM.
Baba Sehgal is Dynamite!
Yes, the movie has The Baba Sehgal. He plays a villainous cop, who isn’t really smart, but makes up for it with oodles of badass. The little Tamil he spoke (around two or three words!) had the audience in splits, and got their hairs standing on end at the same time. It’s a shame that Gautam Menon used him as a placeholder. He could have done so much more, if he was given more screen time.
Manjima Mohan and the Royal Enfield
The Royal Enfield is different things to different people. And the moment I saw it on screen, I was sold on the road-trip movie premise. Especially with the Rasaali song playing in the background, the highway just became my way.
Manjima Mohan was a breath of fresh air. While she's quite well known in Malayalam cinema (child artist, then debut in 2015 in lead role), this is her first Tamil film. Everything, from the way she speaks, to her on-screen persona, is completely un-heroine-like. And I mean this, in a good way.
There are a lot of overt references in this movie to Gautam Menon's Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya (also starring STR). It had Trisha in the lead role, and the entire movie was an ode to her beauty. This movie has Manjima just being herself, with (seemingly) no effort to 'beautify' her, and it works like a charm.
STR's Self-Deprecating Humour Wins you Over
Every time there’s mention of unrequited love or the goofiness thereof, STR (and sometimes his friends) takes a dig at himself. This earned him wolf-whistles and raucous approvement from the crowd.
I don’t know if he’s changed as an actor, but as an individual, he seems to have matured, and it shows on-screen. In an interview to Star Vijay in the show ‘Coffee with DD’ (it’s occasionally better than Karan’s brew), Gautam Menon speaks about how he leaves the script open ended, and then lets STR rip through the scene, in his own style.
The actor owns his role, and grabs attention with his earnestness. Typical of Gautam Menon, there are a few dialogues that are so earthy, and ‘natural’, that STR says it like he really, really means it. And the audience is left wondering if someone had actually eavesdropped on them and stolen the dialogue.
Here’s a trailer with some of them.
Suspend Disbelief – You Won’t Regret It
How is it that the hero and heroine are always well-dressed, though on a road trip on a bike? How does an ordinary bloke who has never been in a fight (fisticuffs with the local boys don’t count) ward off hooligans, handle hand-guns and outsmart the police?
Screw logic. Suspend disbelief. Watch the sunrise at Kanyakumari with two beautiful people. And immerse yourself in AR Rahman’s music. You won’t regret it. Especially when the song Thalli Pogathey plays. Oh, man!
Acham Enbathu Madamayada is a bilingual. The Telugu version is called Sahasam Swasaga Sagipo, with Naga Chaitanya in the lead role, and the others reprising their original roles.
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