Kalloori – A Big disappointment

I watched Kalloori, a Tamil film directed by Balaji Shakthivel and produced under the Shankar banner. After the director’s earlier movies ‘Samurai’ and ‘Kadhal’, I had lot of expectations for the movie but it was very disappointing to see a movie like that from a very good director Balaji and a good producer Shankar.

Plot:

It is the same old story of a college love between a poor guy and a higher class heroine. The film begins in a bus that has a lot of college students heading towards Government Arts College in a small town. A set of friends are introduced as long term friends. There is a small build up to the introduction of the hero (Muthu played by newcomer Akil), who is part and parcel of the circle. All are studying in the same class. They enter into the college for the first time.
In the class room they see a new girl (Shobhana played by Tamanna), who is strikingly different from the lot. She looks fair. She looks sad. She is aloof. The group sympathizes for her and brings her into its fold. The girl soon becomes part and parcel of the group. It is very obvious from the starting that she is going to fall in love with any one of her friends. And to add to this there is a cameo by Visu where there is a Arattai Arangam kind of discussion about the friendship during college life. One girl from the group vows that they will definitely remain friends till the end of their college tenure.

The movie goes on to narrate the college life with very less fun and colour. It shows the strength of the friendship besides showing the backgrounds of the friends. Most of them are from poor background. The hero has an aim in his life. Being an athlete, he wants to excel in sports and get a good job through sports quota to give his poor family a new lease of life.

Shobhana, a rich girl from an upper caste feels for the boy and helps him achieve his goal. In fact every friend does the same thing but Shobhana does it with some sort of special attachment. Slowly the love develops in the minds of both but they chose to put it on the back seat for the sake of the larger friendship they share with the group. In fact the poor lovers don’t even share their feelings. The story moves on to a point when they are compelled by the circumstances to come out with their feelings but life has some other designs.

Analysis:

After I watched the movie I felt that there were lot many mistakes in the story and screenplay. It was not a usual happy college gang which we are used to see on screens. There were very little comedy scenes to enjoy. The movie was so real and obvious that it was almost watching a known story. The casting was not that good except for the heroine Tamanna who has done her role very well. The songs are not that great and they don’t stick to your heart. And the climax was very bad. It didn’t create the effect which the Kadhal climax created. It was a tragic end to the story but the director should have thought whether it was needed for the movie. I strongly feel that the director intentionally made the climax so tragic and it doesn’t fit with the story at all. The climax was very bad and it was very abrupt end to the story. Overall it was a very big disappointment from 2 very good Film makers.