Movie Mush: Kalakalappu : Laughter Feast!

I took a risk by booking for "Kalakalappu" on the very first day. And that too, to watch it with family. Though the trailer was rather dull, the movie's cast boasted of people such as "Chennai 28" fame Siva, who can make you laugh with anything he says, "Kalavaani" Vimal, who has consistently chosen good roles to play and most importantly Santhanam whose mere presence adds screen value these days to movies. Added to that, the fact that Sundar.C - who can forget his "Ullathai Alli Tha" - is directing a movie after a long time. Well, I took a risk and am more than happy that I did it. Because at the end of the movie, as I was walking out, everyone was busy discussing which of the scenes was the funniest and everyone had one favorite scene of their own. My mom, sister and granma were all praise for my choice of movie to watch as a family. Voila, Sundar.C, what were you doing other than directing all these years?!

The storyline concerns Seenu - played neatly by Vimal - whose only possession his his three-generation old traditional restaurant, "Masala Cafe", which is now in ruins. He struggles to keep business afloat and hopes to make his restaurant big one day. When the new food inspector Madhavi decides that "Masala Cafe" isn't hygenic enough and gives Seenu a two month notice period to either improve the infrastructure or close his Cafe down, his brother, Raghu - perhaps Siva's best role yet - an ex-con, helps Seenu to get out of the problem. Meanwhile, a set of diamonds, hidden in a cell phone case, comes accidentally into Siva's hands and all hell breaks loose.


Anjali as Madhavi and Oviya as Maya play the love interests of Seenu and Raghu respectively. One is surprised that after acting many strong character oriented roles right from her first movie, Anjali has opted to play a not-so-significant tole in this movie. Also, she definitely looks odd in song sequences wearing skimpily clad outfits. Oviya doesn't have a big role to play but she does the best with what she has.


The real plus of the movie is that the first half is definitely owned by Siva's unique brand of humor evoking statements. For example, "Kaalam kaalama attu figure ku good-u boy-um, good-u figure ku attu boy-um thaan set aagum!" and "Unaku ipdi ellam doubt ae vara koodathu. Naan yaaru kaasu kuduthalum vaangipen!", when Maya expresses doubt if he would accept money from her, has the audience in splits. Though he has a long way to go in acting, his unique dialogue delivery style and the baby-faced innocence make up for it.


The second half, though, belongs to Santhanam. As the to-be-groom of Madhavi, all the scenes involving him evoke hearty laughter. The car chase scene in the second half and the confusion in it evokes wild laughter. In fact, there are so many laughs throughout the movie and most of them work.

 The movie is not without its flaws: there are lots of logical loopholes in the movie and the songs actually stagnate the pace of the movie. For example, Madhavi, who seems nonchalant towards Seenu accepts his proposal at once. And when there are so many ways to hide your assets, would the villain be stupid enough to hand over the job to his stupid cousin, that too in a cell phone? However, such an analysis would be too rough on a movie which tries to evoke healthy laughter throughout.


Sundar.C is back to directing movies and with a bang. Go watch it and laugh your heart out. Quite an enjoyable fare. 

A deserving 3/5.