Ayan Movie Review

Ayan is one movie that, according to me, shows its best within the first 15 minutes, only to fizzle out as the story proceeds.

The movie begins by showing Suriya aka Deva as a wealthy and well-educated traveller ( who criticizes corporates) only to find his English to be replaced with Madras slang and his true profession revealed when he leaves the airport. Suriya is a smuggler working for Prabhu (Doss)and in this intro scene, he is seen smuggling pirated copy of a diwali release.

In the next few scenes the villain emerges. Akashdeep Segal (Kamalesh), son of a friendly rival of Prabhu’s gang wants to depart from the friendly ways and establish himself as the numero uno. Segal informs the police about the piracy and Suriya and gang have a close escape.

Next, we are taken to Congo, the land of diamonds and AIDS, as said by Suriya’s character. Here we see Suriya, and his sidekick Jegan, obtain a pouch of diamonds from the country’s rebels. Suriya is watched in Congo by Segal and his men and what follows is a brilliantly choreographed action sequence in which Suriya recovers the diamond pouch that Segal’s men steal from him. If you, like me, expected to see more such action sequences later in the movie, you will be sorely disappointed, for, with this action sequence and the “hero’s intro” song (Pala palakra pagala nee), the movie is pretty much over. The audience can now throw in some romance, some twists and a climax sequence to get the entire “picture”. The movie is about how Deva overcomes Kamalesh in his smuggling venture and eventually becomes ( not unpredictably) a customs officer.

Well, the romance does require some mention. The Suriya-Tammanah chemistry seemed very good and the scenes portraying their second meeting ( god! the first meeting was pretty deplorable) have been shot well. Suriya, as usual, has done justice. His acting, dialogue delivery, action and, prehaps more importantly, his looks, are all as expected from the Vaaranam Aayiram hero. Tammanah looks good and has done a decent job in a rather limited role ( which is not new in Tamil cinema).

The first half is racy with comic interludes from Jegan. Jegan has got a decent role in this movie and makes full use of it. He’s not just the comic relief in the movie, but plays a vital role. Without revealing much, I can say that Jegan has done a good job and we can expect to see him get more such roles in the future.

While the “first half” could have been the saviour of the movie, the second half was, without qualifications, bad. There is a fair share of twists and bad song placements in the second half ( can you imagine a duet song soon after the demise of the heroine’s brother?). The twists in the movie are too cliched and too numerous to be enjoyed. The Honey Honey song is completely out of sync with the movie.

Do I have to talk about the villain? He is a sore sight in the movie and Segal has to a lot of work to be done in the acting front. Prabhu, on the other hand, is exceptional. Portraying the role of a gang leader, Prabhu is all brilliance and his experience shows. Karunas has also managed to perform well and the emotional scenes in later part of the movie show his acting skills.

Harris’ music is, of course, pleasant to the ears, but brings with it the feeling of having heard it before. The re-recording is good enough to be mentioned, but is not fabulous.

Bottomline is that Ayan is a typical commercial tamil film set apart by some good performances by Suriya and Prabhu and a rather decent screenplay. Stay attentive during the first fifteen minutes. It wont matter if you fall asleep ( and I wont blame you if you do) after that.

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