Aegan - Kuppa Thotilla Podu (throw this movie into the garbage bin).
Compared to the devilishly bad Aegan, its Bollywood inspiration Main Hoon Na is an Oscar-worthy masterpiece and a lofty work of art.
Compared to Ajith's Ultimate Korangu like antics in Aegan, Shahrukh Khan is a Marlon Brando.
And compared to Aegan's mis-director Raju Sundaram, Farah Khan is Kazan + Hitchcock + Spielberg + Coppola + Scorsese.
The principal villains of Aegan are a hopelessly disjointed story, pathetic performances by Ajith, Nayantara et al compounded by inept direction by Raju Sundaram, who is also the writer of this piece of junk.
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The Aegan story hews broadly to the Main Hoon Na theme albeit with some differences.
In Aegan, a young police officer (Ajith Kumar) goes undercover as a college student to nab an approver Ram Prasad, who's on the run after escaping an attack on the police convoy while he was en route to the court to testify against notorious criminal Chinappa (Suman). You see, the thinking is that Ram Prasad will come to the college to meet his daughter Pooja (Piaa Bajpai) and can be nabbed there. Elementary, my dear Watson.
Like Shahrukh Khan in Main Hoon Na, Ajith too falls for his college teacher (the horrendously bad Kerala actress Nayantara in this instance).
Unlike Main Hoon Na, there are so many disjointed elements in the Aegan story that together impart a sophomoric stain to the whole movie.
Take a look at some of the egregiously disjointed nonsense in Aegan:
Out of the blue, Pooja’s boyfriend Naren (Navdeep) is suddenly shown helping Pooja's father to escape when he is chased by Ajith.
Unlike in Main Hoon Na, the family tension that led to Ajith's step-mother (Suhasini) and step-brother leaving home is abruptly introduced at the end, almost as an after thought.
In the beginning, Ajith is shown to be friends with four kids Tinku, Rinku, Karan and Varun but the kids vanish after that. Were they kidnapped?
The final scene shows Ajith's family happily reunited, again without any effort to explain things.
But surely the most bizarre scene was when the approver Ram Prasad blithely walks into the the college to be handcuffed by Ajith and taken away in a police jeep.
Besides the many disjointed elements, the Aegan story has other nonsensical features like Ajith taking the approver Ram Prasad with him to Chinappa’s den and single-handedly vanquishing a whole posse of criminal underlings.
Ajith - All at Sea
It’s a mighty shame that Ajith Kumar has failed to pick up the most basic acting skills even after aeons in the movie business. Surely, even lobotomized dolts or a washerman’s ass would learn something after 16 years in a trade.
From the moment the fella appears on the screen leaning against a fence with a gun in hand to the last frame of Aegan, Ajith Kumar is the ultimate case study of a gibbering monkey. All that’s missing is a Vaal (tail) for this thala (as Ajith is referred to in movie circles).
When Ajith dances, it's with the grace of Oliver Hardy; when Ajith fights, it's with the finesse and bravado of Vadivelu's comic scuffles; When Ajith walks it's with the swagger of a drunk Johnny Lever or the late Jeevan. When Ajith talks, it's with the charm of the handicapped child in Black.
Never a great dancer, Ajith sinks to a new low in Aegan.
The Hey Baby song dance featuring Ajith, Nayantara and four buffoons represents the nadir of dances in Tamil movies although Ajith’s other song/dance Hey Sala (after the kidnap incident) comes a close second.
When Nayantara kisses him, Ajith seems like a deer caught in the headlights. Odd for one obsessed with his teacher.
A similar zombie expression follows when Ajith sees the photo of his father in Naren’s house.
Such was the torture Ajith inflicted upon us that we felt as if he were not an agent of Lucifer come to torment us but Lucifer himself sinking his fangs into our throat.
High time Ajith picked up some acting tips from his peers - surely even Vadivelu, Simbhu and Vishal can give this bloke some tips.
When Suman asks him towards the end, Villain Madri Pesare, Ajit replies - Villainakku villainthan.
Sadly, with his ugly performance, Ajith has proved to be the villain for the whole movie (not just for the villain).
Nayantara - Thigher, Higher, Wider
If Ajith's performance in Aegan is a study in laziness and contempt for the audience, Nayantara is hellishly bad.
With her complete lack of acting skills, the sight of a scowling, shrieking and simpering Nayantara wantonly displaying her thighs or her cleavage on the screen is a sure signal of acid reflux to follow, just as night follows day.
With her mouth open in a emetic pout, an overdose of eye shadow, a mostly bare back and a bent posture beseeching viewers to peer into the dark canyon between her 36C (??) breasts, Nayantara in the song Kichu Kichu climbed the Mount Everest of crudity on the screen.
Just in case you nodded off in the Kichu Kichu dance scene, Nayantara provided an encore in the Freedom song/dance with a fig leaf of a dress showing us a glimpse of her left thigh and then her right thigh and higher and higher until there was nothing left to our imagination.
Thigher, Higher, Wider seems to be Nayantara's cinematic moto (you know just like the Citius, Altius, Fortius moto of the Olympics).
Among the many maggots feeding at the Kollywood trough, surely there's never been one as untalented or as sexposed as Nayantara.
Oh, the kayya/vaya birds of the night we used to encounter in the darkness of the Marina beach in Chennai not only showed us heaven but also showed more grace and more charm than the Nayantaras and Trishas of Tamil filmdom.
Comic Action
The action scenes in Aegan struck us as a grotesque attempt at comedy.
The fights were awfully one-sided with Ajith repeatedly pummeling the goons into the dust and casually walking away (happens twice - when Pooja is kidnapped and later when Naren and Pooja are attacked). Just a day at the beach for our Ultimate Star!
The dance scenes involving the other dancers were plain rubbish and amounted to no more than foot stomping (particularly in the Yahoo, Yahoo dance) on hard ground.
Oh, we almost forget. Suman, Navdeep and Piaa Bajpai’s antics in Aegan convinced us that in some Indian asylum three inmates must be missing.
In Main Hoo Naa, Suneil Shetty was miles ahead as the villain Raghav Dutta. As was Boman Irani as the college principal compared to Jayaram in Aegan.
Like most Indian movies that lack a strong story or compelling acting and try to mask them through filming in foreign locales, Aegan has been filmed in Hong Kong and Switzerland (??).
Aegan - Ultimate Artistic Felony
Ultimately, Aegan is a vile act of artistic felony that exposes the dark underbelly of rot and glaring incompetence in the Tamil film industry.
An ugly monsterpiece that should never have seen the light of the day, Aegan is the most fatuous piece of crap to emerge out of Kollywood in the 21st century.
If Raju Sundaram has proved anything, it’s that he'sll make a good success as the Ambattan Master of the Srivilliputtur hair cutting saloon. After all, this mis-director shaved us of $12 for a matinee show smoothly.
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