This post remained a draft for four years and I had forgotten about it and now published, as it would go wasted! :)
7am Arivu Review -- An Unintellectual Rhetoric!
7AM ARIVU runs full houses at Satyam, Devi, Escape, Fame National, Inox and PVR which would account to about Rs. 1+ crore collections (gross) within the first five days to the weekend in Chennai alone. Yet, there are those who don't get tickets to watch the movie. The crowd at the billing counters for the snacks is overwhelming.
Suriya's market graph would rise, AR Murugadoss would rewrite his CV and Udhayanidhi Stalin would bag it all. Suriya's highest (to my knowledge) was Rs. 78 lakhs in Chennai for Singam but surely the five Diwali festive days would make it go past Rs. 1 crore which would be known by Tuesday. Ajith scored Rs. 1.79 crore in the opening weekend for Mankatha. 7am Arivu could be much close.
Suriya, the Rs. 10+ crore star is worth the money -- if you completely exploit him as Bodhidharman. Suriya's well-trained prowess comes to the fore in the first few scenes itself. The elegance with which he performs martial arts is awe-inspiring. 7am Arivu is a compulsive/compelling watch for families try to get a glimpse of the film, good or bad. Post-script opinions do not matter by which time the audience have shelled out hundreds.
The marketing began when AR Murugadoss proclaimed the surge of Tamil spirit that would result from watching the movie. He went so far as to say "Ovvoru Thamizhanum". So, every Tamilian has felt that it is his duty to watch the movie and felt guilty if not. The same couldn't be said of Velayudham. They could voluntarily miss out on Velayudham. There is enough dilution in Harris Jayaraj's music from Minnale to Vaaranam Aayiram to 7am Arivu. He was considered almost at par with AR Rahman when he made his debut. The feeling gradually subsided in 12B and other films post 2003.
As I get to know from circles, Harris Jayaraj, like most other musicians, composes music only abroad. He takes his friends too and the producer and the director wait till their hangover is reset. Meanwhile, Harris clinched Shankar's Nanban, when he was supposed to work in 7am Arivu. That's why, he could probably choose to align Chinese lyrics to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Baba Black Sheep! The background score towards the end is simply blaring and is reminiscent of the 70s and the 80s of the MGR's and Sivaji Ganesan's twilight heroic era.
The editing is not one that you would associate with Anthony. Carrying out proper discussions in the pre-production period would have proved useful. AR Murugadoss could have enjoyed autonomy over the script. Though he would have had discussions, there could have been no greater opinions than his. That's why, Johnny Tri Nguyen's introduction happens soon after the Bodhidharman documentary. I would have preferred watching Bodhidharman part in toto. Any other director would have considered postponing Johnny's introduction after Shruti Hassan's.
The part could simply have been edited to fit after Shruti Hassan's and Suriya's introduction. The audience do not empathize with the yet-to-be-seen Shruti who is under threat by a Chinese high-conspiring group. Since we watch enough number of Hollywood movies, we understand how dialogues are written. Tamil directors tend to spoon feed while writing dialogues in English. The film went to the extent of ensuring grammatical correctness to write bad English dialogues. Okay, it is the Chinese but Chinese hardly speak English at all, among themselves.
"You have to kill that girl" is the laughably childish and amateurish dialogue ever written. Why not let Shruti be displayed on a large screen than on a Chinese Jiangxi Shicheng laptop? A pathetic photograph of Shruti Hassan is shown on a Windows Photo Viewer. Moving onto the next scene, Ringa Ringa song is the most generic of songs you could ever see with limited imagination that tries to ape Shankar. Suriya's love story isn't that strong nor has Shruti Hassan been actually wrong in trying to bring Suriya under the genetic research. Can Shruti Hassan use genetic engineering to bring her father Kamal Hassan's talents onto herself?
She is clueless, as an actress and is doubly bubbly to show mere exuberance in Yellaelama song. Shruti neither hates Suriya too badly nor is she selfish enough to be wronged. The dialogues in their argument are forced and Shruti's bad performance makes it far too worse. It is just a pre-lead or lead build up to the one song inspired by "Unna nenachen" song from Apoorva Sagotharargal. The first half does not have much to boast of with Johnny Tri Nguyen reappearing only in the interval block to announce, "Operation Red has started successfully".
There is some fluttering of emotions and swelling with pride when Shruti Hassan takes Suriya to the museum and explains him about Bodhidharman and the lost legacy of Tamils. However, it is evident that the film tries to woo neighboring states too by the references to Aryabhatta and showing Telugu television channels' coverage of the new disease. Dialogues again, juvenile and amateurish, are irritating and mind-numbing when Shruti repeatedly utters, "Vaanga polam", "Come on", and "Call him immediately". The screenplay and editing prolong proceedings when they logically try to be correct by showing that they take the stairs when Johnny is on the lift. Why do they use the stairs when the lift is just coming up?
Here, they could simply move (out of frame) and Cut to Johnny, (the lift door parts open), would be understood as he comes at a later time after they left. Although for convenience, the one brilliant scene is when Johnny's "Noakuvarmam" or hypnotism would not work against Suriya. When Johnny gets lorries to motorcyclists attack the lead pair by simply looking at them, and when a bystander girl performs elegant kung fu, it strikes awe due to the spectacle and the resulting chaos. However, the climax and pre-climax sequences are epic fails.
The build-up takes simplistic and immediate propulsion to end it all. Suriya in a sensory deprivation tank and the laboratory ambiance create an authentic lab atmosphere. Despite all the plus points, even the dialogues on the Tamil plight do not flutter your nerves much but any little flutter is due to the recent memory. The collective emotion is purely exploited but this exploitation at least helps the vigor to resurface. Though the on screen scenario does not contribute to the feeling, the feeling is automatic when spoken about.
In the simple climax, the hero beats the villain after taking a few blows. Harris is on duty probably in another film. We distinguish - the sound and the sight. The orientation of our two primary senses are split into heading towards two different directions. Thanks to Harris! The final epi(mono)logue sounds good only because Suriya makes it sound good. Manjal (Turmeric) is an antibiotic but whose custom is it to apply turmeric as an antibiotic? Is it a Tamil custom, invented by the Tamils? I doubt. Topical antibiotic need be applied only when there is bacterial infection. Otherwise, it can weaken the immune system. Wouldn't it also kill the good microbe bacteria too?
With inadequate "intellectual" quotient and with lame arguments, the premise of 7am Arivu is built, that tried to utilize the freshness of the concept to attract eyeballs. Perhaps, there was some overconfidence and a little too much of concentration on the concept than on the execution. Perhaps, the only saving grace is that the film is not that bad as it is made out to be. The strength of the premise or the foundation slightly held it strong from a complete collapse. The potential of the premise and the production values made it a decent film, though not causing a sweeping impact on the audience which they would keep on talking about for days on end -- and that would not correspond with the pre-release hype. 7am Arivu - A Mortal's Combat!
Rating:- 2.5/5
