<i>Manikyam 420</i> Review

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The ill-effects of easy money

These days the youth are looking for easy money. The crime rate is also going up day by day due to this attitude. Especially during their childhood, if the children find that their parents are corrupt and are earning easy money instead of working hard, they too believe that they should also earn money without any hassles. This kind of attitude is dangerous. The director tried to mould this on the celluloid and to give a message that their approach is wrong, he added love element to the story through which he wanted to correct it. The film is the dubbed version of Tirutti Paile, a Tamil film.

Manikyam (Jeevan) is basically a good boy. But, he becomes adamant on learning that his father is corrupt and is earning easy money. He gets spoiled by spending the money from the bribes his father gets from various sources. He goes to the level of demanding money from the parties, who generally give bribes to his father. So, a bright student up to Class V, he becomes a vagabond. Everyone start scolding him that he would be a useless fellow and he can't earn even a single rupee. He turns perverted and behaves like hysteric at times. Once he beats his younger brother with a bottle and his mother throws him out of house. Then he reaches his uncle's house, who was a police officer.

On the other side, there is a millionaire (Manoj Jain). His wife Rupini (Malavika) is a beautiful lady. She moves freely with her husband's friend (Abbas) and that leads to extra-marital relationship. They move closer and used to enjoy life in the golf grounds. Manikyam accidentally notices this. The watchman of the golf club videographs their relationship and Manikyam grabs the videotape. Then Manikyam starts blackmailing Rupini. He enjoys her money along with his friends. Once Manikyam plans a tour abroad with his friends. Rupini hatches a plan and sends Saranya (Sonia Agarwal) and makes her befriend with Manikyam. As Manikyam develops fascination towards Saranya, Rupini tries to make use of his love demanding the video cassette. The power of love is so strong that he returns the videocassette to take the hand of Saranya. Rupini starts ignoring him as she got the videocassette back. In order to lead a happy life, Manikyam demands Rs 1 crore and threatens that he has 30 copies of that video cassette. Out of fear, Rupini arranges Rs 50 lakh and her boyfriend gives it to some goons to first give him that money and later finish him. Meanwhile, Rupini's husband who doubts that his wife is in trouble takes the help of a private detective and learns that it is his friend who is behind her worries and kills him. He also gets Manikyam murdered because he is the only person who has the knowledge of his family secret. The film ends there.

Plus:
The performance all the three lead characters is good. The maintenance of suspense in the detective episode is also good. The killing of Abbas was also shot well. The glamour of Sonia Agarwal and the romantic scenes with Malavika are sizzling and could attract the youth. Performance by Vivek, the comedian is another plus point. Once again, Vivek proved that he is a seasoned comedian. The climax is another plus point. Especially, the running episode in Race Course and the subsequent fight is a nice idea.

Minus:
The director forgot to show how Manikyam was able to grab the videocassette from the golf club watchman who videographed it or the editor might have mistakenly cut the scene. The killing of the watchman in the overhead tank is also not convincing. It is also absurd why and how a woman was able to pay lakhs of rupees to a blackmailer. However, the haphazard and slow run of the film make the audiences leave the theatre in the middle thereby making them lose the real crux of the film in the second half.

Remarks:
The film is a little boring in the first half. But the slow pace of movement picks up momentum after the first half and the director got a good grip over the subject in the second half and made the audiences bait their nails with good suspense. Had the hero was not killed in the end, it would have been further better.

Cast: Jeevan, Abbas, Manoj Jain, Vivek, Malavika, Sonia Agarwal and others.

Credits:
Dialogues - Sriramakrishna
Cinematography - Ravishankar
Editing - Sunil
Presents - AGS Entertainment
Music - Bharadwaj
Action - Sakthivel
Co-producer - Mallikarjun
Executive Producer - Muppa Ankamma Rao
Producer - Aravind Vannala
Story, Screenplay and Direction - Sushi Ganeshan
Banner - VAK Corporation
Released on - November 24, 2006

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