20 years too late

The one good thing that comes from watching Atchaya Multimedia Creations' Innoruvan [The Other], directed by S T Gunasekaran, is that it makes you realise how far Tamil cinema has come in the last two decades or so.

At the dead of night, minister Aranganayagam [Kadhal Dhandapani] steals a valuable idol of Lord Shiva from a temple. A local priest prophesise that within six months, Innoruvan will bring the idol back to the temple.

Cut to the hero, Shiva [newbie Aditya, who looks a bit like actor Pandiyarajan in his younger days], a guy who works in a waste paper mart [certainly a new career onscreen]. His boss Vaali [M S Bhaskar] and work-mates are a howl.

In the meantime, Shiva is handed a book on Swami Vivekananda by a Judge [Visu] in a very timely fashion, prompting a speech on positive thinking and other wonderful lessons of life that are so wonderful to hear, but never easy to practice. Our hero learns that positive thinking really does work; exactly how, we're never shown.

Armed with such thoughts, he launches into an elaborate speech to 'aunties' on the look-out for young men and other such wayward people who are generally directionless. He also decides to buy a paper-mill. Nothing wrong with that but what's hilarious is how he accomplishes it, with the help of his heroine Kavinaya [Manoha, who looks and acts infinitely better] and a few extremely helpful people.

In the midst of all this hard-sell about positive thoughts comes Vaali. His cohorts' genuinely funny comedy track follows him on a romantic road and almost eclipses the main story with its laugh-out-loud moments -- possibly the only thing that saves the movie from being a complete wash-out.

Shiva's journey of self-discovery certainly doesn't impress you as his path seems pre-ordained by a very partial god; he gets the idol, his paper-mill and the girl with practically no effort. Now, if only he didn't give so many moralising speeches and become successful in one song.

With such a movie, it's no surprise that the crew and the music director haven't really put in any effort. Anyway, the movie's about 20 years too late.

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