Pongadi Neengalum Unga Kaadhalum

You wouldn't expect a movie with an in-your-face title like Pongadi Neengalum Unga Kaadhalum to have sensitivity but shouldn't it at least be sensible? What we get is a crass fest that revels in MCP-isms and also has the gall to try and wash away all of that with a preachifying scene that is a half-baked take-off from the superbly written scene in Pasanga. While the latter drove home the message that a little praise can go a long way in keeping everyone happy, this film tells us that it is in the nature of women to expect praise and failure to do so by the men is what leads them to go astray.

The first half has very little in terms of plot development. All we get are two strands of plot. A young woman is date raped and captured on camera by her boyfriends, and so, she commits suicide. Her dad, a police commissioner, is desperate to catch the culprits, whose identity he doesn't know. Meanwhile, Divya, who is from an affluent family, woos the hero, a petty thief, with a vengeance, quite literally. Why is she after him and how do these two storylines meet? If the former is too abstract and involves a needlessly long party scene, the latter is an overdose of bad behaviour, the likes of which we have seen handled in Paruthiveeran with much finesse. Sample this: the hero asks the heroine to kiss him — in the middle of the road, in broad daylight — to prove that she truly loves him and when she is about to do so, he stops her, calls out to everyone on the street and then tells her to kiss him. And, that is not all, as right when she is about to kiss, he turns his head so that she is forced to kiss him on the lips!

In scene after scene, the female characters are portrayed in a demeaning way, sometimes in the name of humour and many times in the name of realism. A college girl is shown telling her friends to let the boys wait longer before making their move; a young woman is shown exploiting a married man who gifts her a costly phone, which she gifts to her other boyfriend. And, when the heroine and her friend come to meet the hero, he visualizes himself dancing with the friend to Appadi Podu and proudly boasts that he is doing something different, following which his sidekick asks him if he will get a duet with the heroine. Our only consolation is a couple of scenes set inside a police station where Sendrayan, Imman Annachi and Swaminathan make us break into a smile with kadi jokes like this one — "Veetla unna eppidi koopiduvanga?" "Kitta irundha mella koopiduvanga, dhoorma irundha saththama koopiduvanga"!

Given that the pre-interval portions are abysmal, the second half feels a little better, though this is only because the film finally gets down to tell the story. We learn why the heroine wants to destroy the hero's life forever and get a follow-up on the commissioner's storyline, which includes cliches like a corrupt cop and a politician's brother. But how dare a Tamil movie show the hero in the wrong? So, we get a convoluted climatic twist by way of linking the two plotlines together and one character is turned into a villain, changing the equation entirely. In an instant, the hero becomes a man to be sympathized with while the heroine turns into a heartless b**ch. And, all you can do is helplessly wait for the ordeal to end.