Nayakan

this film is an out an out kamal hassan and Mani ratnam film, without Mani ratnam kamal would not have been able to display his magic, and without kamal, Mani would not have been able to show his magic. velu is a boy living in Tamil nadu. his father a labor leader is murdered by a ruthless police officer. velu decides to take revenge, and is supported by his friend, Sela(janagaraj). they both kill the police officer, and escape to Bombay, where they get shelter in a Muslim house hold. kamal naturally treats "Abba" the Muslim man, who is into smuggling. when he gets old he hands the small business to velu, who extracts more money for goods than his precede ever did. the rival parties get angry and pay bribe to a police man to get Abba killed. when velu gets to know this, he tracks down the police officer tactically. i must stop here to mention the marvellous sequence . great background score, Mani ratnam at his best, and kamal looking totally angry. he kills the police officer in front of everybody. the police officer though married used to molest women. the police came inquiring, but no one opened their mouth. from that day onwards velu became 'velu nayagan'. he became the ultimate don in Bombay, supporting the poor's cause, and going to any extent to fulfill it. he even got a poor child treatment in one of the best hospitals in Bombay for free. you must watch the movie, i can't spell its magic here, you have to watch it!

The film draws heavily upon Mario Puzo's Godfather, however, the Indian adaptation of the well known story is simply superb. Manirathnam has done a wonderful job in re-creating the life and times of a local mafioso in the slums of Bombay. The art direction is flawless, and captures the time period perfectly. The music by Illayaraja is haunting, and reflects the nostalgic music of the early 70s. However, the high point of the movie is the excellent performance of Kamal Hassan. His potrayal of Velu-Nayakan is by far the best I have seen in Indian movies. The Hindi remake of this movie is sub-standard and poor. I highly recommend this movie to someone who has never seen it before.

It is really difficult to express the experience of watching nayakan in words, the real life story about the transformation of a boy into a rebel and then a don, brilliantly portrayed by one of the greatest actors alive today, Kamal Hassan.

While the film draws little inspiration from "The Godfather trilogy", the emotions and trauma associated with many events , along with ilayaraja's rendition of 'thenpandi seemayile' , really does make this movie very special!, nothing to beat this one, among the best movies i have ever seen. I can rate it along with American beauty, shawshank redemption or even amelie.

Mani Ratnam rose to fame with this superb, Godfather-inspired, crime story. Kamal Hassan, in a National Award-winning role, is the highlight of this film. WAtch out for the scene where he says "Naa adichcha nee sethuruve (You will die if I hit you)" to a police officer. Based on a real-life don, Varadarajan Mudaliar, Nayagan was praised by critics and audience alike, a rarity in India. Illayaraja's music is haunting. "Tenpaandi Cheemayile", sung by Kamal Hassan, is a classic. Photography is brilliant. Mani Ratnam is top-of-the-pops. Sign of things to come? Janakaraj as the gangster's friend is an inspired selection. This is as good as it gets for bridge cinema.

Even though Nayagan seems like a compressed version of The Godfather series and despite the fact that a lot of the scences in the movie give you sense of deja vu(after you've watched Godfather. Nayagan is probably one of the best movies made in Tamil(and may be in any Indian language). Apart from changing the very face of movie making in India, it had send so many refreshing trends.

Nayagan is the story of a boy(Velu), who loses his father(a Trade Union leader) and runs away to Bombay, after assualting the Police who kills his father. In Bombay he is brought up by a pious Muslim fisherman. By turn of events, Velu is pulled into committing Crime(and fighting too). Velu grows into a Don and slowly the power of it takes him to a different world, where he is the command, but he slowly losses his dear ones and it finally ends with his death at an old age, with a moral message that one who lives by the sword(gun), dies by it.

Kamal had given one of his best performances in this movie, for which he rightfully won the National Award for Best Actor. The Music of Illayaraja, Photography of P C Sreeram and the Art of Thotta Tharani were other High points of the movie, not to mention the magical touch of Manirathnam, who made a permanent name for himself after making Nayagan.

A must watch movie, for anyone who hasn't seen it.