ITS JUST A UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE MOVIE

One has to understand what is meant by chaos theory and randomness. Now in simple terms, chaos in mathematical sense means a small change in the initial condition which will cause a major difference in the outcome after a particular period of time. A very good example is when a butterfly flaps its wings, the flapping of the wings represents a small change in the initial conditions of the system which can cause a chain of events, leading to large scale phenomena like tornado, etc (thanks, wikipedia).

Now, how Kamal has used this in his movie explains why he shows a small story in the 12th century. Kamal as Rangarajan Nambi is drowned into the sea along with the Lord Vishnu idol, this explains the small change to the natural system as in chaos theory. After a long period of time, this initial change causes a big tsunami at the end of the movie. This may sound very crazy but scientifically this is totally acceptable.

Lets look at the second part called randomness. Randomness is part of chaos theory. Now this is where Kamal falters big time. His screenplay, in order to explain the whole random interaction of his 10 characters lacks imagination. Kamal's idea is innovative and his aim is to bring all the random characters he portrayed into a linear script is a very challenging task and that's exactly where Kamal and his crew forgot about the script and concentrated totally on technical stuff and his makeup. Let's say this is a simple movie with just one Kamal. Even then it is a challenging task to script and with 10 Kamal characters involved, technical difficulties, make up, the crew restricted themselves to a mediocre script which in the end does not explain clearly the main intent of the movie which is about chaos and randomness. Now when the movie starts, Kamal explains this briefly but for a regular movie buff, that is not enough. He should have explained his intent more clearly.

The plot is very complicated, simply because 10 roles are done by Kamal. Now lot of people are asking why is it necessary to do 10 roles, since some of them have very little screen time. Also, there were unnecessary interactions between different characters. Unless you understand the whole movie is based on randomness, many are going to think this illogical.

The way these interactions were carried out are pretty amateurish. The script is weak here. None of the 10 get a chance to develop their character. Take the movie Babel for example and you will understand what I mean by randomness and how it connects different people living in different parts of the world with a brilliant script which won multiple awards. Again the only thing that needs to be appreciated is the boldness to carry out the challenging task of 10 roles and their interactions. Even if the end result is not satisfactory the effort needs be appreciated. But most of the times, even with great effort we have seen movies biting the dust. As far as acting is concerned, Kamal carries the whole movie and if there is any reason to watch the movie, it’s KAMAL.

Out of his ten characters, Balram Naidu is the best with fantastic dialogue delivery and next comes Fletcher as an ruthless ex-CIA officer who will do anything to get the virus (Surprisingly this character was never mentioned in any of the reviews, though Kamal as Fletcher with an American accent did a fine job). The above two characters along with Govind get most of the screen time. He has also done an excellent job with other characters but with a weak script it may go unnoticed. Other than Kamal, Asin takes most of the screen time. She starts good but later gets irritating and annoying.

Coming to the technical part of the movie, it is above average. You can see there is a lot of patch up work done in some places and graphics are adequate considering Indian standards. The final tsunami scene is not without flaws, but good enough for an Indian movie. Technically this movie is a milestone as the whole movie needs computer graphics with various character interacting. Dialogues are okay with most of the stupid ones going to George Bush. K.S. Ravikumar is not the right person for this movie. The opportunity was there but was not executed perfectly. Make up for couple of roles look odd, but with so many Kamals, its not going to be easy to come up with flawless makeup. Music is a big disappointment. Himesh is not a good fit for a Tamil movie and Devi Sri Prasad's background score was good.

Now here is the question, is this a good movie? No, its not a good movie but its not a bad one either. One can definitely watch it once for Kamal's fantastic effort. The way he has carried out his ten roles with ease will amaze you. It's not the first time we have seen Kamal disappoint us with his over hyped movies. I really do not blame the hype as it is purely generated by these news hungry media. What I find problematic is that Kamal has all the time in the world to give a movie fans what they would like but somehow finds a way to do exactly the opposite. Frankly, everyone want to like Kamal movies but he just does not get it right. I think it high time he gives up selling his atheist ideas in most of his movies. He takes a complicated subject in Dasavatharam but in the end argues about the existence of God.

In the end Asin asks Kamal 'Are you saying there is no God', for which Kamal says " I am not saying there is no god, what I am saying is if there was one, it would be good". This has been the microcosm (arguing God's existence) of most his recent movies and with his fans losing their patience, it’s high time he starts to give them something different. In Dasa, Kamal fails himself, his bad screen writing almost negates his brilliant acting.