Annatha was Thalaivar's latest flick and it was very disappointing and the disturbing factor for me was Thalaivar had to rely on so much emotional quotient to make his movie a Box office success. In my community when someone reaches 70, Beema radha santhi is celebrated and it is time to increase dosage for Metformin, Amlodopine and Rosuvastatin ...but looking at Thalaivar he is still on the ground fighting it out when his counterparts like Vijayakanth, Sathyaraj, Chiranjeevi, Mohan babu all have either retired or doing character driven roles. You have to give credits to the man for pulling this feat. But before we get into Annatha would like to go over some of Thalaivar's strengths which I would personally like to term as his success strategies.
1) Almost Nil endorsements for commercials: Apart from the Polio campaign have you ever seen Thalaivar endorsing any campaigns? Have you seen him as a celebrity endorsing any FMCG product? Apart from the cut outs and hoardings during his releases have you seen his advertisement during any other time ? He played it very smart by limiting his public appearances and that translates to Freshness factor in Cine world. When you endorse for a FMCG product the company plays the advertisement multiple times in televisions and people tend to see your face 'n' number of times and this psychologically brings down the curiosity when audience tend to see a mass hero in big screen. Now you may understand how actors like Vijay, Chiranjeevi are mass heroes whereas actors like Surya who chooses good scripts can never become a mass hero.
2) Limited public appearance: Getting invites is pretty common and just imagine for Thalaivar how many invites he would receive in a calendar year to attend for functions (wedding, cine related) etc., If Thalaivar attends everything he would hog limelight but once again that will translate to bringing down the curiosity factor when people see him in big screen. He has always maintained low profile - attend very few functions, skip cine functions for most part, minimum participation for any protests etc., One other significant thing which Thalaivar does is he does not participate in Film promotions even for his own films other than Audio functions (2.0 was an exception as he had to oblige Zee networks since Zee procured satellite rights for 2.0 and Endhiran at the time of release was an expensive movie so he gave interview with Sun TV as SUN network acquired satellite rights); On a similar note I see that people who are super duper talented like Ilayaraja, AR Rahman, Mani Ratnam focus less on marketing and instead focus on their respective work to do all the talking. This particular strategy of Thalivar pays rich dividends as he always keeps the freshness factor and when people see him in celluloid after one or two years they go mad to catch glimpse of him.
3) Family audience: These days film's fate is decided in the first 10 days but if you look into the past silver jubilee films run for 25 weeks (175 days) and if you deep look first 30 days belongs to hard core Thalaivar fans who consists of Auto drivers, rickshaw man, Milk vendor, vegetable vendor, lorry drivers etc., and then once the film crosses 30 days mark that's when Thaikulam come into theatres and they take the kids along with them. Thalaivar has this uncanny habit of attracting kids through his movies - the graphics song in Raja chinna Roja may look amateurish in today's world but it was considered cult classic at those times which attracted kids, Thalaivar's body language of catching Snake in Annamalai and murmuring 'Kaduvulae Kadavulae' will make kids laugh like anything, flipping of sun glasses/cigars all attracted kids. Can you name one movie of Thalaivar which is considered very glamourous and embarrass family audience ? Consider two songs - "Adikudhu Kuliru" from Mannan and "Siva Rathiri" from MMKR and nature of both the songs is same that of heroine trying to woo hero and director's intention is to make the song look sensuous. But such was the choreography and picturization that Adikudhu kuliru brought out the intention of the song merely through the tone and kudos to Thalaivar for making his movies family friendly in nature. I am not saying he doesn't have glamourous songs in his movies but he has always kept family audience in his mind whereas his arch rival Kamal Ji is considered to be kadhal mannan.
Now that I have gone through some of Thalaivar's success strategies I would like to point out his current state of mind. Some of the biggest directors in 90's were K.S Ravi kumar, Mani Ratnam, Shankar, P. Vasu etc., After Linga bombed and Jaggubhai didn't take off it was curtains down for K.S Ravikumar. P.Vasu pulled off a miracle for Chandramukhi but then Kuselan was absolute disaster and the movie was completely written off so P.Vasu was out of equation too. Shankar made Sivaji, Endhiran and 2.0 and problem with Shankar's movies are like it takes whole lot of time apart from demanding huge budget. There are rarely any producer who could afford to produce Shankar movie on top of casting Thalaivar as hero so Shankar was out of question too. Mani Ratnam is still an option but believe both Thalaivar and Mani ratnam want to keep their everlasting record of Thalapathi intact and don't want to create any mishapenings in their combination. Thalaivar tried his luck with his daughter on giving audience an absolute new experience in the form of 3D Avatar by doing Kochadaiyaan but unfortunately audience did not like the movie very much though it was a novel attempt. Now Thalaivar sat back got his act together and realized new comers are the future and that was when movie 'Madras' was both critically acclaimed as well as huge box office success. Thalaivar surprised everyone in the industry by giving PA.Ranjith to direct his next movie. Movie was produced by marketing wizard Kalaipuli Thanu sir and there was almost feverish pitch as far as marketing was concerned and the scenario in Tamil Nadu was like if you haven't watched Kabali you have wasted your life. Movie released and though it was different from many of Thalaivar's past movies I personally did not like the movie as there was excessive violence and gun shots were used like "Potu vedi"; I watched the movie with hard core Thalaivar fans and enjoyed every bit of the experience. Movie was declared box office success and Rajini handed over next movie to Ranjith for 'Kaala'.
Kaala was an average flick and the movies didn't fare well at Box Office and Rajini moved onto Karthik Subburaj, a hard core Thalaivar veriyan for PETTA and the movie by far was the best of thalaivar's movies retaining the vintage Thalaivar factor as well as coming up with a good script for a mass hero. Personally apart from the flashback which was not at all convincing overall movie was very good. Now Rajini moved onto AR Murugadoss for Darbar and the movie happened to be an above average flick. Now Rajini saw Viswasam and blown over by the movie gave Director Siva a chance to direct his next movie and that is how Annatha happened. You cannot blame Thalaivar as he had to trust his instincts and give someone a chance to direct. But Annatha relied way too much on emotional quotient and villain was like a puppet. Movie must have run in villages and Tier 2 cities but overall movie disappointed many including hard core fans.
Now that he is out of Politics TN People are not going to make him retire so it is always going to be LIGHTS - CAMERA - ACTION ...I think he should work on following as next steps
1) Thalaivar has to bring on board a strong Antagonist to rub his shoulders on screen.....Antony of Baadsha and Neelambari of Padayappa is still fresh amongst audience. There has to be lot of screen space for villain ..in short we no longer need Mighty Australia vs docile Zimbabwe on field rather we need nail biting India vs Pakistan matches of 1990's ...
2) Focus on Character driven roles: I think problem with Industry is they want Thalaivar to be the hero for economics to work out ....if he does Guest roles it affects Business hence Thalaivar is forced to be commercial hero. I think he is coming to a point he has crossed threashold of a mainstream commercial hero rather do roles pertaining to the age and what story demands. Dhruvangal 16 was a classic movie and if Thalaivar does what Rahman did it might still work out because there is a good actor inside thalaivar which no one really extracts. I would personally like to see two releases every year and roles can be character driven.
3) Please stop the romance: Nayantara and Thalaivar's daughters should be of same age and it is absolutely awkward to see him romance, run behind the trees, slow motion shots trying to attract girls. If it is delicate for us to see I cannot imagine how Thalaivar acts because am sure it would be very embarassing to act on romantic scenes where his grand son is already a teenager.
4) Bring back the scenes to tickle your bones: Action scenes are fine but too much violence through gun shots is definitely not cup of tea for Thalaivar rather go back to his strength of including scenes which invokes laughter. Kids adore him, Fans worship him, Thai kulam like him and he shouldn't let these go as these are the building blocks for his growth.
As a politician I have never supported Rajinikanth because I feel he is not qualified to be a politician but as an entertainer I like him and want him to do more movies. He sees a movie and if he likes a movie very much he gives a chance and that is how Ranjith, Karthik Subbhu raj and Siva got chances. I am pretty sure after seeing Maanadu he might consider Venkat Prabhu, people like Lokesh Kanagaraj, Vetri maaran, Pandiraj, Karthik Naren, Mari selvaraj, Nalan Kumarasamy all stand a chance to direct him in future. I hope directors acknowledge his age and give him nice character driven roles which both extracts his acting talent as well as give audience meaningful cinema. End of the day we love Thalaivar as an entertainer and we want to see him on big screen time and again and enjoy all the euphoria and excitement for many more years to come.
Next Blog: How Drahma Unfolds !!
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