Movie Mush: Oru Kal Oru Kannadi - Just OK!

Director Rajesh of "Siva Manasula Sakthi" and "Boss Engira Baskaran" fame hopes to hit a hat-trick through his third venture "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi" (OKOK) starring Udhayanidhi Stalin, Hansika Motwani and Santhanam in main roles. But the problem is, though the treatment tries to be fresh, the story and screenplay are often seen ones in tamil movies - the best examples being the director's first two movies itself.

Sample this: The female lead actor, in spite of a number of attempts by the male lead actor, seems uninterested in him. The male lead persists and finally makes her agree. Then, Santhanam does something stupid and causes a rift between the male and female lead. This rift widens to the extent of the female lead getting engaged to another guy. Finally, something really stupid happens and the male and female leads are united.


The above is the storyline of OKOK. You could have been excused for thinking that I was telling you the storyline of "Boss Engira Baskaran" too, because it's virtually the same over there. Sometimes, in the second half, the staleness of the storyline gets to you and you start getting bored. Fortunately, every time you begin to get bored, Santhanam comes in and makes you laugh.

You need to give it to him: Santhanam carries the movie on his shoulders and delivers his witty dialogues with perfect timing. But sometimes even his dialogues fail to arise laughter and it is more so because you tend to feel that he shared a better rapport with Jeeva (in 'SMS') and Arya (in 'Boss..'). He plays "Paartha" aka "Parthasarathy" - a Brahmin boy from Triplicane. It is visible that his accent and role have been well etched and due credit must be given to the director and actor for that.

Udhayanidhi Stalin does much better than what I expected him to do, but he still falls way short of the justice that amny other actor could have done to the role. His role has shades of grey - he back stabs his so-called best friend 'Paartha' on a numerous occasions - which goes unnoticed partly because of the monotonous expression on Udhayanidhi's face.


Hansika actually has a decent scope to emote in this movie and the child-artist-turned-actor does her best. However, her dialogue delivery leaves much to be desired.

Saranya Ponvannan as Udhayanidhi's mother shines in her role and once again proves what a capable artist she is. The rest of the cast also do justice to their part.


The cameos by Sneha, Arya and Andrea are a wasted effort - they neither have the desired effect, nor do they create a huge impact, which, again, is one of the downfalls of the movie. The climax - especially- leaves you irritated: its a shameless confession that the director has ran out of ideas to unite the male and female lead.

Bottomline: An otherwise ordinary effort, watchable only for Santhanam. 2.5/5.