Sura
It was going to happen
again. We was going to have sub another one of our movies as we couldn’t find a
copy of The Tony Blair Witch Project after over a month of searching. I didn’t
relish the idea of having to watch an extra movie, so I decided to try and
track down some of the other movies we’d had trouble finding before. I ran into
many of the same problems as before, but eventually managed to overcome one of
these by finding a separate subtitle file for a Tamil language movie that was
on Dailymotion: Sura (English: Shark). Was this effort worth it? There was only
one way to find out…
The villagers of Yaazh Nagar are worried because one of their fishermen, Sura
(Vijay), has been lost at sea. However it isn’t long until Sura is swimming to
land, leaping from the water like a dolphin or perhaps an anti-Tom Daley and
showing everybody what an amazing guy he is. Soon Sura meets Poormina
(Tamannaah) who is distraught over the loss of her dog and wants to commit
suicide by drowning. Sura talks her out of it, and they start dating. Whilst
all may seem idyllic in Sura’s village, Minister Samuthira Raja (Dev Gill)
wants to take the land away from the villagers to build a theme park. Raja will
go to any lengths to get the land, including attempting to kill Sura by burning
down the village. But Sura, with help from Poormina and his best friend
Umbrella (Vadivelu) resist every attempt by the corrupt Raja. Will Sura save the
day and rebuild the village? Actually is there anything Sura can’t do? Can
anyone actually explain to me why everyone breaks into song and dance at random
points in the movie? Does anybody know a good cure for a numb arse?
The main problem with
Sura is its length. At nearly three hours long it really struggles to hold your
attention. It could have been easily been half the length and still told the
same story. Actually the story could have been told in half an hour as so much
of the movie is taken up with songs, pointless scenes with Umbrella and scenes
that repeatedly show how good and wise Sura is (thrill as Sura takes on corrupt
money lenders who are exploiting poor people and allowing them to starve. Marvel
as Sura stops Poornima drowning herself. Watch in astonishment as Sura buys
pens from a beggar. Bang your head repeatedly against the screen as Vijay’s ego
starts to grow so big it actually eclipses the sun and the world is plunged
into never-ending darkness). Seriously it takes nearly an hour and a half for
the story itself to actually start. Before that it’s mostly a film about
wonderful Sura is, and how much everyone loves him.
The plot itself (when
it finally appears) doesn’t make much sense to me. The villainous Raja spends a
lot of money and effort to obtain the land the village stands on, without
seemingly just going to the village and offering the villagers the money to
just buy the land from them in the first place. I guess that they may not take
his money, as I’m sure the village is where their families have always lived,
and they have emotional ties to it, but he doesn’t even try. He reminds me of
Dick Dastardly in Wacky Races (and it’s not just his cartoonish villainy). He
wastes so much time and energy doing things the hard way, determined to cheat
his way to winning, that you just think if he tried the honest way he’d have a
lot more success (I know this is off topic, but Dick Dastardly must have had
quite a lead in each race to have time to set up each elaborate trap, why not
just take that lead and win the race? IT MAKES NO SENSE!).
I actually quite liked
the character Sura. He is totally absurd, being like a cross between Jesus,
Shaft and Neo from The Matrix, but Vijay plays him with a certain cheeky charm
that makes you enjoy his performance. Umbrella seems to be in the movie for
nothing more than just to have some completely unrelated comedy scenes, which
are all very hit or miss, but Vadivelu again is quite a fun actor which
translates well into his character. Dev Gill plays Raja almost like a Disney
villain and you begin to suspect that Poormina’s dog was killed and skinned by
him to make a very small coat, but ultimately he is entertaining. Lastly Tamannaah as Poormina seems to have little to do in this movie other
than look pretty, as she really gets nothing else to do except for fawning over
Vijay and occasionally singing.
As for the song and
dance numbers, I quite enjoyed them. I have nothing to really compare them too,
so can’t judge whether they are good by the usual standards of any Kollywood or
Bollywood movies, but for once in our list, the dancers were in time with each
other, the choreography was good and the music was fun and upbeat. I was quite
confused as to why the songs were even in the film though, as the scenes with
them in have nothing to do with the film itself and are just like cheap music
videos randomly inserted into the movie.
Even though three
hours was a trial to sit through, I actually didn’t mind Sura. I just wouldn’t
recommend that anyone ever watch this movie unless they have a penchant for
sitting down for three hours to watch not a lot happen (so maybe cricket fans or
anyone who thought that Lord of the Rings: Return of the King needed more cut footage added to the
end of the movie). Perhaps “Shark” is a bit of a misleading name for this movie
though, as it has no real bite and is absurdly long. What’s the Tamil word for “eel”?
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