Seriously! I am still in some bewilderment after watching this film. One burning question remains: what in the actual nonsense were all those amazing set pieces for?! Did someone just win a "most elaborate waste of resources" award?
Now, don't get me wrong, I actually liked "Vidiyum Munn" (2013). It still holds up as one of the genuinely good attempt from Tamil. So, when the buzz started building around this Peter director's "Kolai," especially with those intriguing trailers, my hopes flickered. It looked pretty promising! Then came the deluge of Peter director interviews, plastered across every channel, and my expectations plummeted. This guy was spouting mainstream cinema jargon and talking about timelines, I knew right then and there that the film was going to reek of artificiality, and boy, was I tragically correct. It was so mind-numbingly bland, such an unmitigated disaster, that the very style they were trying to push - the supposed driving force - turned out to be an unsurprising and utterly nauseating overdose.
I swear, the languid expectation of the trailers was replaced by disappointment. Okay, fine, the art direction and cinematography deserve a reluctant nod. There were indeed many fascinating sets, a visual feast for the eyes, I'll give them that. Otherwise, this film would have vanished from my memory faster.
In closing, the insultingly basic, plot is too basic and the treatment was so atrocious for an whodunit. Honestly, this whole convoluted mess could have been a decent 30-minute short film. My advice? Avoid this pretentious. Go spend your precious time and money on something worthwhile, like "Oppenheimer" or even "Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare" this weekend. Trust me on this one.
