Dasavatharam

Ten roles! All the hype, the money, was it worth it?
A big YES! Kamal has surpassed his best performance ever, not because of just the complexity of the script, but the effort needed to implement a fabulous idea. A repertoire of ideas represented in the movie ranging from belief to chaos theory to bio-weapons. One of the biggest concerns raised prior to release was whether or not the 10 characters were necessary. Looking at it in critical way, it would not be "needed". Yet an objective view of the whole story would clearly indicate that each of the ten roles were clearly defined and not nascent.

One the most impressing features of the movies was the extent of detail. The detail was cared for not just in the scenes depicting the 12th century, or the research center, or the Tsunami. Importance of detail was a perennial aspect of the movie. For example, the accent of the Govind, one of the Kamal's trying to save the world was not perfect American but the Indian settled in the US of A accent. On the other hand the accent of Fletcher, the ex-CIA agent was one of the many American accents. As an actor it must have been extremely challenging considering the make up effort, switching accents, characters, their mental approach and what not. It would supposedly take anywhere between 3-5 hours just for the make up! A marathon effort by Kamal. Kudos to his effort and few skeptics can deny that this is the greatest effort by any actor contemporary or history!

Ranging from the 12th to the 21st century, the movie is flawless in terms of the logical flow, which is not the case with most movies. Its a case of connecting the dots and once all the dots are connected and you see the full picture (Here, i mean the picture formed by connecting the dots, metaphorically), its brilliant. The essence of chaos theory that every single action of ours has its implication although we don't realize has been beautifully delivered in the span of 3 hours. For those of you who are chaos theory illiterate, I would suggest a bit of background reading to really put the movie in perspective.

In all the adulation for Kamal, one cannot miss out on crediting the artists, art directors etc who have done a fantastic job. Despite the small role, Napoleon who plays the Chola King in the 12th century has done a great job. Asin, as pretty as ever and did the role of Kamal's love interest in the best possible way. Mallika the vamp, though she manages to use the gun as well as land a few kicks at the right places.

Like every other of his movies, this too requires a certain level of understanding to really enjoy the movie and appreciate the effort. Unfortunately for Kamal, as always, this is limited to a small quantum (read as minuscule) of the population. Thats where a movie like Sivaji or Baasha or Padayappa (Its purely intentional that I quote Rajini's movies) beat movies like Dasavatharam or Anbe Sivam on economics of the mass that is used to classify as Blockbuster or not.

My favorite of the ten was the role of the Naidu. Comical in a serious situation was just spectacular and perfection in being a multi-linguist is the specialty of Kamal as he has proved in several of his earlier films. I'm not sure if any one can pick out a single entity that is the reason for Dasavatharam being what it is. Its the movie as a whole that was brilliant.
All in all, its one helluva movie and definitely worth watching whether you are a Kamal fan or not!