The lates magnum opus from India's most relentlessly envelope-pushing, genre-experimenting and still it's most prodigiously gifted Thespian is, boiled down to it's very essence, a long chase movie. Yes, that most generic of plot threads is strung along a 3 hour running time upon which Dr. Kamal Hasan's views, opinions, thoughts and musings on topics as diverse as Religion Vs. Atheism Vs. Science, caste conundrums, bio-warfare, Chaos Theory and The Butterfly Effect are judiciously pegged and plugged at various intervals. It's all giddily entertaining, thankfully, as the whole enterprise is shot through with a commercial sensibility firmly anchored by generous heapings of comedy and wittily punning dialogue (penned,like the story and screenplay, by Kamal himself).
As Baradway Rangan so eloquently articulated in his blog, the only problem with the whole Kamal approach to being layered beneath tons of prosthetics, something fans have been treated to for the better part of a decade, is that it inevitably gives rise to a question: Are you supposed to be reacting to the performance or the facial tics, mannerisms, goggle eyed glassed, scars and accent heavy patois it comes bundled in?
Such musings can be swept aside for Dasavatharam as for once, it's the Performances which take the honours, swooping down victoriously and snatching at least 4 out of 10 incarnations from the jaws of Derisive Disbelief on the part of the audience, for the most shocking thing about this high budget Hoopla that has as it's USP the assailing of 10 distinct characters on the part of it's Star, a first ever for Tamil cinema, is the Low Rent Make Up.
If Shivaji's colossal budget couldn't detract from it's low concept,you at least saw the moolah splashed on screen.
Dasavatharam is delightfully high concept (for a masala) wedded, unfortunately, to shoddy make up and schlocky effects.
Kamal as George Bush, CIA assassin Fletcher, a Brahmin Nanogenarian, Japanese Aikido Master and an 8 feet tall Muslim is a disaster where acceptance of how realistic these characters are supposed to look is used as a yardstick but his pitch perfect Yank accent, Brahmin enunciation and Japanese rolls of the "R"s help soothe the ears, tiding over what your eyes refuse to accept, which for the most part look as if white, wrinkly dough was slapped liberally about Kamal's face, hands and thighs.
But the 12th century priest Nambi and Dalit crusader Vincent Poovaraagan are master classes in bringing characters to life. Watch the former cut down a Shaivite King for daring to uproot a Vishnu idol in flawless Chola era Tamil and the latter castigate a sand smuggler in a tongue wrapped mellifluously around a pitch perfect Tirunelvelli accent(which gave this viewer 2 reasons to be thankful of the film's excellent English sub-titling) and you can see why Kamal's still miles ahead of his contemporaries in the acting stakes.
But the doozy is investigator Naidu, the most rib-tickling creation Kamal has birthed since Kameshwaran the Palghat cook mixed Tamil and Malayalam to serve heaping helpings of mirth way back in Michael,Madhana,Kama Rajan.
Mallika's Hot, Asin's Not, thanks to a script that has the latter go from spunky to squealy to outright annoying.
In the end, you need to ask yourself, in the Creative Void where most Tamil movies seem to languish these days, how many films dare even put ideas and concepts in a mass entertainer, and while the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 has been mentioned, crudely in comedic punchlines in most movies, and disgustingly inserted into a song lyric in one, Dasavatharam dares to culminate in its actual depiction. As the mile high waves cascade down and wash people and property away, it ties up plot threads, inter-connects others and bridges a 12th century plotline on religious discord to 21st century musings on Religion and Causality. That takes creativity and guts..in regretfully short supply elsewhere on the Tamil Cine Landscape.
Anbe Sivam's sermons on Socialism and Marxism married to the Road Movie a little too hard to swallow?
Aalavandhan's psychedelic psycho thriller a little too unpalatable?
Hey Ram's reactionary approach to Gandhi's pacifism wedded to art house sensibilities too glacially paced for your liking?
Well, a swig of Dasa may be just what the doctor ordered.
