Monday, 29 August 2016

#31 Sura (Wes)



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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