Muni Review

By: Settu Shankar
Monday, March 26, 2007
In this world of science, there are still some people who have faith in supernatural things such as ghosts, and believes in exorcism and poojas to control such forces. Ragava Lawrence, the director- cum- hero of the film Muni, also seems to be one such guy! Lawrence should know one thing. There is only one Rajinikanth in the industry. Aping or cloning the superstar is not going to help a growing actor like Lawrence. His excellent dancing and acting skills went in vain in this film due to his wrong story selection. Compared to his earlier hero roles in Tamil, Muni is tolerable to a certain extent. But as a full- fledged action hero and director in Tamil, we should say a big 'NO' to Lawrence. We are not saying this to upset him, but for the sake of his career.

The story is a mere Xerox copy the Malayalam film Pappan Priyapeta Pappan. Lawrence is a weak but mischievous fellow. To keep him within his limits, his father Vinu Chakkaravarty always tells him some ghost stories. After his marriage, they rent a house without knowing its haunted background .

Dhandapani, the owner of the house is an MLA and the villain of the film, who kills his friend Muni (Raj Kiran) brutally. Muni's soul haunts the house. One fine day, Mini's soul enters the body of Lawrence and wants to take revenge on Dandapani&co.The hero's parents arrange an exorcist (Naser) to control the soul of Muni. But Muni's soul tells about its past mournfully and convinces both the exorcist and the hero to retain it in his body until the revenge. It promises to vacate the body after the fulfillment of its goal.

He kills the villain's henchmen and gets ready to kill Dandapani. The villain gets to know about this and calls in another exorcist, Masthan (Rahuldev) to tame Ganesh and prevent him from taking revenge. The villain finally admits to his crime and seeks pardon only to go back on his promise.

This leaves our hero with no option but to kill the villain. With this the film comes to a happy ending. While the entire village believes that it was Muni's soul that killed Dandapani, only the exorcist knows that truth - that it was Ganesh and not Muni's soul that killed Dandapani .

Muni is entertaining in parts with enough doses of comedy, songs, glamour and stunts. But at times it tests your patience, with its insipid story line, over-the-top performance of Raj Kiran in a bit role, Lawrence's unbelievable stunt scenes and the manner in which he acts, talks and copies every mannerism and style of Rajnikanth! The audience at the theatre start hooting and turn abusive when he tries to enact the ghost scene dialogues of Chandramukhi! There is nothing much to write about the star cast, since Lawrence appears in every scene right from the beginning. All the stars, including Rajkiran become inconspicuous in the film due to this unwanted domination of Lawrence.

Vedika is there for the songs, dance and glamour. Another new Vadivelu look alike, does it exactly like the original actor did in Chandramukhi! But it turns out to be a real test to our patience. The music of Bhardwaj is nothing much to write about. It is amazing as to why a talented Director like Saran chose a story and a script like this , which has been produced in such a lavish manner.

Horrible experience!

Movie : Muni
Music : Bharathwaj
Director : Ragava Lawrence
Producer : Gemini Film Circuite (P) Ltd (Saran)
Star cast : Ragava Lawrence, Raj Kiran, Vedika, Kovai Sarala and Vinu Chakravarthy.
Genre : Supernatural thriller or in other words 'Buruda'!