Selvaragavan | Suriya, Sai Pallavi, Rakul Preet Singh | 2019 | Political Action Thriller
Nandha Gopala Kumaran (NGK) one of the most anticipated films of the year. The reasons being Suriya – Selva – Yuvan combo, a movie after a six-year gap hitting big screens in Selva’s filmography, a grippy political genre with raw and brutal reality. Right from the first look of the film that resembled communism ideology and Che Guevara to the final promo each segment bluntly showed us what the film has and what sort of an expectation the audience have from this dream combo. To a greater extent everything went on the right path. Obviously the film would flood with mixed reviews towards both the extremes, but director Selvaragavan’s track records has always been so, his films have always ended up with mixed reviews and turned into milestones and masterpieces after years when we look back, that simply shows how futuristic the film maker is in terms of writing and his habit of sticking to reality than commercialising it. same with NGK, it’s a film with a lot of open endings and the really success if when we revisit and understand the climax connect.
Selvaragavan’s first political thriller that too Suriya in lead. The film had everything on the right place. A versatile director’s actor joining with a weird and unique film maker would definitely excite both cinema and general audience. As usual plot execution Selva has gone through a completely different treatment, he has set up the rage in the story and has implemented it on the characters and the instances around it. Selvas’s speciality is his portrayal and his mind game with the audience. As K’Town cinema audience our expectations have a certain meter and Selva has always been a out of the box thinker and has done all those boldly. His trust and conviction to bring out reality as it is thought his story to the actors who give life to characters is definitely impressive. Although Selva had never given us blockbuster films in terms of box office, he always gives us genres and films that challenge time and create magic when seen in the later part of Cinema evolutions. Setting examples as to how to genuinely bring out reality though the genre and establishing the rawness in it is just a Selvaragavan thing.
Suriya, Mr. Nandha Gopala Kumaran, the whole story revolves around him and the character arc set thought him which is somewhat new to the genre as our political films have always focused on the events and incidents that leads to the progress in screenplay creating the much needed conflict unlike NGK which evolves around the character arc and making it different from the existing ones. Suriya was seen as Selvaragavan in NGK, a vision and a dual version of the film maker. In lot many scenes Kumaran’s life portrayed the Selva in him showing us how mature and versatile actor Suriya is. Mannerism, attitude and few shot references to established politicians created the much-needed route for the character growth. For all Suriya fans NGK is literally a 18 month wait since he played his last Silver Screen appearance, with such aa fantastic crew the craze has gone really high and the actor has satisfied it by redefining his capacity.
On the other hand, Geetha aka Sai pallavi boldly took us this role and has acted without any makeup setting example for her co-actress in the industry, breaking the stereotypical glamorous female roles mindset of audience. She has unleashed the beast actress inside her, pulling off the emotions in the least seen way from her. Rakul Preet actually gets a playground to express the actress in her which not many of her Co-actresses K’Town usually get and did a pretty good job that her character demanded. Acting wise Selva has drained each character and has given us the best from them and justified the character. DOP and Lighting are few things that makes Selva moves different from the other ones, usage of green, red, blue and yellow lights to portray the emotions and long continuous shots to establish originality have worked out really well as his earlier ones, Art department has pulled out a clean job by setting up Sruvilliputtur to its at most perfection. Yuvan Selva combo has a separate fanbase, and Yuvan has fulfilled the expectations and hype. Musically Thandalkaaran and Podhachalum songs were on point in conveying the emotions and Kumaran’s feelings. Through his background score he stole the show, BGMs elevated intense scenes and NGK’s rage in the second half and did justice to the film maker’s vision. On a whole NGK will be a film with mixed opinions but down the lane in five or seven years will end up as standard for the genre and Suriya’s acting. NGK – A Selvaragavan’s game
M S ASHWIN BALAJI 