Production: RS Infotainment, Red Giant Movies
Direction: K.V. Anand
Star-casts: Jeeva, Ajmal, Karthika, Pia,Prakash Raj, Kota Srinivasa Rao and others
Music: Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography: Richard M Nathan
Editing: Anthony
Dialogues: Subha
So, who is lucky now? Well everyone is lucky for choosing and not choosing the project.
Jeeva does his role to core of perfection while K.V. Anand terribly fails to bring a good screenplay. Though the technical department scores 4/5, it’s a slight disappointment for those audiences, who expected a lot of raciness in the script.
K.V. Anand, an avid watcher of various foreign films has picked up a superb Hollywood thriller ‘State of Play’ and has added the ‘Masala Fry’ of commercial ingredients just as he did in ‘Ayan’ (he even makes fun of his ‘Ayan’ through a half-star rating through the dialogue of Pia). Well, if so ‘Ko’ doesn’t such ratings as it deserves half a star more.
The film is about Ashwin (Jeeva), a photo journalist vigorously bringing more honors for his newspaper. He often brings breaking stories by revealing the dark side of politicians through his photo works. His colleagues Renuka (Karthika) and Saroja (Pia) are madly in love with him, but Ashwin prefer Renuka. Then comes Vasanthan (Ajmal), an aspiring politician and his party ‘Siragugal’ that comprises of vigorous youngsters hoping to bring changes in the society. While the leading politicians (Prakash Raj and Kota Srinivasa Rao) are constantly captured in frame by Ashwin for bad headlines, it naturally brings Vasanthan as top priority of Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu. It turns out to be an unexpected event when a bomb is blasted during the propaganda program of ‘Siragugal’ party that results in the death of several people including Saroja.
But everything takes an immediate twist in the tale as the conspiracies are revealed.
Jeeva does his part well. He looks cute, charming and is astounding at stunt sequences. Nothing special to mark on his performance as when compared to his previous movies, this one isn’t really a bigger show. We have seen him performing stunning roles in ‘Ram’, ‘E’ and ‘Katradhu Tamizh’. Karthika, the newcomer looks too young for the role, but she manages to carry off with perfection. Thanks to her special efforts of making her role look perfect. She conveys the emotions at the best and her performance is flawless. Ajmal sways on top as he dominates during major portions of the film, much more than Jeeva. We must appreciate Jeeva accepting such things. But it’s Jeeva who rules the climax portions. K.V. Anand has seemingly stage the climax inspired from Mumbai 26/11 attack. It’s impossible for anyone to call upon such big troupes within short span of time. The flashback sequence looks too unconvincing as we see the bunch of buddies in same college becoming engineer, doctor, lawyers… (Oops! Thaanga Mudiyala)
While Jeeva is busy demolishing the status of almost all the politicians, one can sense the real culprit before it’s revealed.
Songs by Harris Jayaraj are fabulous, but it’s advisable that Harris doesn’t make any appearance onscreens and perform. The Song ‘Aga Naga’ looks great, but watching him utter ‘Oye’ and funny comedian John Vijay performing makes it too amateurish. Rest of the songs are superb, though some of them are unnecessary for the script.
Richard M Nathan’s cinematography is top-notching as he captures every shot with brilliance. Good effort by him. Anthony seems to have failed to deliver a perfect show as the climax portion has so many rapid cuts.
On the whole, ‘Ko’ is nothing but an usual masala story, but with a strong climax. Now we understand why the film wasn’t released before election.
Bottom - Line: Old Wine in New Bottle
Verdict: Interesting in small parts only
