I Movie Review

Put yourself in my shoes for a while. Imagine living far away from your hometown for a very longish period of time. Imagine missing your family and friends whenever you celebrate a festival. Imagine things falling in place suddenly and you are about to visit your hometown for Diwali! And then, it pours cats and dogs right from the time you land in your hometown (it’s anyway Northeast monsoon season in Chennai during Diwali)! Thanks to the rains, imagine being forced to stay indoors, not being able to meet all your friends and ending up celebrating Diwali minus the crackers!! This is exactly how I felt watching Shankar’s much awaited “I”!! It has everything you expect out of a Shankar film, wonderfully shot songs, a brisk screenplay, amazing performances, yet, fails to fulfill your craving!

Credit to director Shankar for his screenplay that keeps you engrossed, though the storyline is a simple true-love-always-triumphs. It is pretty easy to guess what’s going to happen next, but he maintains the tempo and manages to keep your attention focused on the screen. As you can expect in a Shankar film, the songs have been shot/choreographed too well. The action sequences have also been shot pretty well, especially the one involving bicycles, shot on a rooftop! This action sequence will be remembered for a long time.

No praise will be too high for the kind of stuff Vikram has come up with!! Be it as a body builder, be it as a star-struck fan of the heroine Amy Jackson or be it as a hunchback extracting revenge, he comes up aces with his performance. To come up with such a brilliant performance with so much of prosthetics (as a hunchback) is no mean achievement. Be ready to see his name being called out at most of the award ceremonies next year!!

Amy Jackson’s role in this film isn’t the routine sing-and-dance-with-the-hero kind of stuff. She fits into the role of a leading model to the T. After a brief period of sounding monotonous, Santhanam tickles the funny bone in this movie. Special mention to PC Sreeram, whose photography was a treat to the eyes, especially the song sequences shot in China. AR Rahman’s background score was a treat, especially in the bicycle action sequence, his re-recording added to the effect.

Coming back to where I started this post, though the plans to celebrate Diwali didn’t go exactly the way you wanted it to be, you’ll anyway be happy for having visited your hometown after a long time. Same is the feeling with “I” too! Though it lacks the all-important Shankar “punch”, it has the complete quota of the Shankar “touch”. It is definitely worth your time and money if you disagree with a famous film critic’s view that “Shankar’s niche is now a cliché”!!