Meendum Oru Kathal Kathai Movie Reviews

Whenever a super hit film from the neighboring states is remade in Tamil it is bound to be compared with the original. Mithran Jawahar known for remakes has chosen Vineeth Srinivasan’s Malayalam sleeper hit ‘Thatthathin Marayathu’ as ‘Meendum Oru Kadhal Kathai’ which will surely force viewers to buy the DVDs or download the original film just to find out why it became a major hit.

Vinod (Walter Phillips) a college student is arrested by the Kanyakumari police for trespassing on the house of a local Muslim politician Nasser. The SI (Manoj K Jayan) probes the youth thinking that it is for political reasons as he belongs to a communist fringe group, but the boy tells that it is for the love of the daughter of Nasser’s brother Rahman(Thalaivasal Vijay). The SI gets interested and assures to help him if he tells him the truth and the flashback begins. Vinod meets Ayesha (Isha Talwar) in a wedding and as she falls from a staircase he falls head over heels in love. The rest of the over stretched story is how this Hindu boy finally gets the orthodox Muslim girl.

Walter Phillips, who has played the role of junior Prabhu in ‘Unakkum Enakkum’ debuts as the hero and he seems to be full of energy and enthusiasm, but one has to say that instead of bringing his own to the character he mimics the template romantic heroes of Tamil films. A better script could bring out the best in him as he surely does not lack talent. Isha Talwar as Ayesha looks much, much older than the hero, thereby killing any chance of the romance working and even otherwise she fails to make any impact with . Arjunan as the mandatory friend of the hero tries hard to tickle the funny bones and fails the majority of the time and Vidyulekha who makes a late entry adds to the torture. In fact, more than the comedians the antics of the Police who help the hero and some outdated love dialogues provide some unintentional laughter. Nasser is just there while Thalaivasal Vijay gives the only worthwhile performance, which comes at the very end when he breaks the shackles of his brother to let his daughter live the life she wants. Manoj K Jayan, Singamuthu, Sangili Murugan and Vanitha Ravichandran are also in the cast.

This is definitely not the best album of G.V. Prakash Kumar but along with his rich background score the songs are the only reasons anyone can sit through the film. Cinematographer Vishnu Sharma has given clean images throughout the film complemented by Thiagarajan’s editing. Vineeth Srinivasan’s story may have worked in the Kerala atmosphere, but here it looks like the usual commercial film hero wooing heroine with the help of friends sequence stretched to a full length feature. Mithran Jawahar’s screenplay completely lacks nativity and his direction leaves a lot to be desired as the film fails to make even the slightest connection.

Verdict : May appeal to those young lovers who may have gone through a similar situation or who just want to watch a love story for the heck of it.

Rating: 2.25 / 5.0