Rancho speaks in Tamil, and how!

When the recipes of Gobi Manchurian and Chicken Tikka can transcend national barriers and become a rage elsewhere, can’t we have different versions of an intra-national rage: a remake of a suc
Rancho speaks in Tamil, and how!

When the recipes of Gobi Manchurian and Chicken Tikka can transcend national barriers and become a rage elsewhere, can’t we have different versions of an intra-national rage: a remake of a successful Bollywood movie in another language, for instance? Director Shankar answers the question with Nanban (friend), a faithful reproduction, nay a spitting image, of its original, the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots.

The flaws in higher education system and campus life unite to form a heady theme, with Vijay, reprising Aamir Khan’s cool dude-cum-Buddha- like role in the original, offering ingenuous solutions to many a conundrum.

Did he levitate on screen? I don’t know; however, I am not willing to bet against it.

Jeeva and Srikanth (after a hiatus), portraying Sharman Joshi and Madhavan’s roles in the original respectively, are his perennially flabbergasted classmates who always seek his gyaan.

It is the movie’s antagonists, though - Satyaraj, as Virumandi Santhanam or Virus, the college principal with his fetish for perfection, a n d Satyan, as ‘Silencer’ Srivatsan, who swears by learning by rote - who come up with brilliant performances.

The visionary that he is, Panchavan Parivendhan (Vijay), a mechanical engineering student, unwittingly rubs his teachers the wrong way with his ideals.

He is also an agony aunt to his chums, Venkatakrishnan ( S r i k a n t h ) a n d Sevalkodi Senthil (Jeeva).

Panchavan, by helping his friend recover from paralysis, also gets to experience an Awakeninglike Robin Williams moment.

Riya (Ileana), as Satyaraj’s daughter and a student of medicine, plays Vijay’s love-interest.

In the end, will standardised education or unconventional thinking with that extra bit of passion win? That’s for anybody’s guess to make.

The infectiously humorous scenes that characterised the original - the recitation of a wrongly-memorised welcome address, the banker-groom obsessed with brands — make its way into the remake as well.

Vijay puts in a restrained performance, a welcome change from some of his recent outings.

One wishes that the remake had done away with some illogical, emotion-sloshed scenes that almost threatened to derail the original.

Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography stands out - be it the breathtaking shots of the Pamban Bridge in Rameswaram or Ootacamund; Harris Jayaraj seems to have finally got his act back with a memorable music score.

Shankar decides to stick to the original and has come up trumps in the process.

This Nanban will be one friendly theatrical outing!

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com