Movie Review: Mankatha




Vinayak(Ajith Kumar) is suspended from the police force for shooting a fellow officer while aiding a criminal Faizal(Aravind Akash) to escape from an encounter team. Currently, he lives in Mumbai with no purpose other and partying hard every night. He is also dating Sanjana(Trisha) who is the daughter of Arumuga Chettiyar(Jayaprakash). Chettiyar runs a gambling den in a run down theater. Meanwhile, the government is cracking down on bookies. Prithviraj(Arjun) is in charge of this operation. He is fast making progress in his mission. His aim is to stop the influx of money to be used by bookies before the IPL season begins.

At Chettiyar’s house, Vinayak notices two people – Sumanth(Vaibhav) and Inspector Ganesh(Ashwin Kakumanu). Sumanth has been with Chettiyar since his childhood days and is now the latter’s right hand man. Ganesh is the local law enforcement officer who tips Chettiyar on police moves. Vinayak starts following these two people. Soon, he finds out there are two more people associated with Sumanth and Ganesh. They are Mahat(Mahat Raghavendra) a local bar owner and Prem(Premji Amaren) a IIT computer graduate. The four of them are planning to rob the money that is due to arrive at Chettiyar’s gambling den.

When the four get ready to rob the money, Vinayak stops them. The foursome were planning to rob the wrong place. Vinayak convinces them to do this job together. But Vinayak is not a thief with good heart. He doesn’t intend to share the loot. But all plans go haywire when everyone has plans of their own. With a vengeful Chettiyar and a resourceful Prithviraj, will anyone get to enjoy the loot? The rest of the movie tells you this.

Venkat Prabhu scripts and directs this thriller which is engaging at times. This is  also incidentally Ajith Kumar’s 50th movie. Venkat’s script plays to the gallery. It also tries to showcase the personality of Ajith Kumar. On the flip side, the movie has a weak first act. The engaging parts are in the final act where Venkat makes the audience in grips. Luckily for the director, his band of boys(Premji, Vaibhav, Ashwin and Mahat) save the day with their antics. Venkat is also backed by a good technical team which tries to quicken the pace in every which way they can.

As for the performances, Ajith Kumar is the weakest link in this movie. He has a perfectly written role to showcase his histrionics. But he loses out on a golden opportunity and lets his personality overshadow his acting. Ajith tries to redeem himself towards the end of the movie. The supporting cast of Vaibhav, Premji, Ashwin, Arjun and Jayaprakash make their presence felt. The girls, Trisha, Andrea Jeremiah and Lakshmi Rai, are completely wasted in miniscule roles.

If you are nothing else to do, then you can go for this. As for Thalai fans, is there a way I can stop you?

Language: Tamil

Genre: Thriller

Rating: **

Comments

  1. Ajith is not getting the roles that can tap his potential fully.

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  2. @Harish - I think otherwise. He doesn't take any efforts.

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  3. He is good looking .I have not seen any of his movies so far .I do catch up on on regional movies (particularly from South) shown on Zee channel as i find them much more entertaining than some of the Bollywood movies.

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  4. @Kavita - :) I guess his female fan following went up by 1. He is very popular and has a huge devoted fan base who will see his movie regardless of the quality. Personally, I think he is over hyped. Yes, you are right. Some of the movies from south are very entertaining.

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