Movie review 'Manja Pai': Is watchable for its clean content and sincere efforts

Direction: Raghavan

Rating: **1/2

The movie opens in a village with a song that depicts the close bond shared between a grandfather Venkatasamy (Raj Kiran) and his grandchild Tamizh who loses his parents in an accident. Fast forward 25 years, now Tamizh (Vemal) is an IT professional in the city enjoying an upper class life style. He meets Karthika (Lakshmi Menon) a medical student and the inevitable happen- romance blooms. After few initial mix-ups, she starts reciprocating his love.

Tamizh always dreams of settling in US and he gets an offer for an onsite project. While he has three more months to leave, Tamizh decides to bring his dear ‘thattha’ and spend quality time with him in the city. The simple and innocent old man finds everything in the city odd- from its culture to urbane life style. His well intentioned deeds bring about problems to all including Tamizh and it goes to the extent of the latter losing his foreign assignment and also alienating him from Karthika.

Raj Kiran’s role is the soul of the film and the veteran who on his comeback mode has transformed into a fine character artiste and does it with aplomb. Though at times he goes overboard and one wonders if the villagers of present generation behave like how he does, it is not Raj Kiran’s fault, he just did what the script demanded, rather plays it according to the director’s vision.

Vemal looks cool and has given a solid performance. Lakshmi Menon could have taken care of her makeup. Acting wise, she pulls it off, though her character at times looks incoherent. Though Rahnandan’s songs are good with Agasa Nilave by ace SPB is the pick of the lot, one cannot but help reminded of Ilayaraja’s old classics. The first half is quite entertaining with Raj Kiran’s funny escapades. The emotional scenes are highly predictable which we have seen in umpteen numbers of films.

The movie is watchable for its clean content and sincere effort by debutant director Raghavan which is backed by director Lingusamy’s home banner Thirrupathi Brothers and Sargunam Cinemas.