Reviewer's Summary - Rubbish
Language: Tamil
Year: April 2007
Actors: Cheran, Navya Nair, Radha Ravi
Director: Cheran
Producer: Chellamai Celluloid
Story: Cheran
Screenplay: Cheran
Music: Ilaiyaraaja
Dialogs: Cheran
The moment of reckoning for Mayakkannadi came at the end of the first show of the movie at the Cine Plaza Theater in North Bergen (New Jersey) when the audience started clapping joyously in sheer relief at the close of this lengthy nightmare.
A bad New Year gift for Tamil film lovers, Mayakkannadi has very little going for it.
Even a highly talented actress like Navya Nair (who delighted us in Amirtham and Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy) has little opportunity to salvage this sophomoric film with its moral message about avoiding "get rich tomorrow plans" and the virtues of toiling hard for long years to step up in life.
The latest addition to the long list of odious Tamil films, Mayakkannadi's principal weaknesses are its limp story line and ordinary music.
While the movie manages to plod along till the interval thanks to a sparkling performance by Navya Nair and an average showing by Cheran, it collapses catastrophically after the interval.
Two poor youngsters Kumar (Cheran) and Maheshwari (Navya Nair) work in a beauty parlor in Chennai ministering to the needs of wealthy folks. Always broke, the young lovers are star-struck by the enormous wealth and material goodies of their wealthy customers.
The more ambitious of the two, Kumar entices Maheshwari into joining him in a partnership to sell life insurance policies to make quick money. After their insurance foray comes a cropper, Kumar is lured by the Big Money that he sees in the movie business. He now catches the acting bug big time.
But Kumar's acting dreams never get off the ground.
To make matters worse, Kumar is fired from his job at the beauty parlor because of his careless work with customers. Adding to his woes, his mother falls sick and needs an expensive medical operation.
Penniless and with few options, Kumar joins a drug smuggler to raise money for his mother's operation. But he is soon caught by the police and thrown behind bars.
By this time, the audience is clearly hoping that Kumar will never get out of prison so that they can go home from this depressing spectacle. Alas, there's no relief forthcoming. Only more pain for viewers.
Some song sequences of Mayakkannadi were shot in Venice and Austria. Talk of throwing good money after bad.
Even a blind dog finds a bone now and then but there are no bones to be found in Mayakkannadi.
Compared to some recent Tamil movies, Mayakkannadi is downright deplorable. Mayakkannadi lacks the slickness of Pokiri, the rich dialogs of Mozhi or the fine music of Jillunu Oru Kadhal.
All in all, Cheran's Mayakkannadi is awful to endure, rotten to contemplate and unpleasant to narrate.- Copyright SearchIndia.com.
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