This is an original article written and edited by Anoop Prathapan and first published on Facebook on the 28th of July 2022.
Arul Saravanan, the illustrious businessman from Tamil Nadu has launched himself as a hero in the Tamil filmdom through his maiden acting/producing venture, “The Legend”. The movie was released in five languages including Tamil, directed by twin directors JD and Jerry who do not have even one successful directorial venture to boast about. They have been the production designers of Sankar’s super hit “Sivaji” movie – the only big movie they have ever been associated with, to date.
With that Sivaji experience, and following the same pattern, they have directed “The Legend” which is a directorial holocaust with a miserable screenplay. They have engaged the same second hero, and same villain and have worked out a comparable plot.
Saravanan (played by newbie actor Arul Saravanan) is a world-famous scientist who wishes to spend the rest of his life in his hometown utilizing his scientific knowledge for his kinsmen. Following the unfortunate death of his chronic diabetic friend whose entire family including children are on insulins, he develops a medicine that could multiply active beta cells in the pancreas thereby eliminating the need for any anti-diabetic medication for the patient thereafter. But the nefarious drug mafia led by Suman laid hindrances to the noble cause. How the scientist gets over those and launches the drug forms the rest of the story.
The plot as a one-liner would have sounded good in the first place but it was not developed properly. Prabhu as Saravanan’s elder brother, looked good on screen after his misadventure in the Malayalam catastrophe “Maraykkar”, released last year. It was entertaining and heartbreaking at the same time to see master comedian Vivek for one last time on the big screen. I think he could not dub for this movie completely – sync sound has been used for his voice in 90% of his scenes which was audible only in parts.
The inexperience of the directors is obvious right from frame 1 to n. Editing by Ruben was too lazy. 2 hours and 41 minutes of running time for this fiasco felt a bit too much. However, the cinematographer looked promising with the scenes shot rich and colourful. Infact, he has shot a 161-minute colourful advertisement for Arul “Legend” Saravanan.
Despite all this, the only reason which made me go to the movie on this very first day is Harris Jayaraj. I just love the man for his music and after half a decade of Anirudh’s extra-loud musical diarrhoea, it felt so refreshing to listen to the ace musician cum sound engineer in multi-track Dolby Atmos. He has churned out some melodious tunes, long three years after "Kappaan" which was his last release before this. The re-recording also was good. The female voice in the "Po Po Po" song in the film soundtrack was not the one in the music album - maybe it was a previous track that Harris recorded earlier. (was that Yohani? that new voice sounded so familiar)
To summarise, this is a movie that Arul Saravanan made to brand himself. No one can complain – as he produced the movie himself – so the losses if any- are only his. His acting is also as good as any newbie - not a penny more not a penny less.
To all those Malayalis who mock Arul Saravanan for this movie – may I ask you this – isn’t this a better entertaining watch than Maraykkar, or Araattu, or Shylock – all of which had either the so-called complete-actor or the mega-star who are supposedly acting legends, but still were unendurable disasters?
This movie might not be even a quarter of any recent Tamil movie you might have enjoyed recently. So, watch it (just) to listen to J. Harris Jarayaj in professional theatre speakers, just as I did.
My rating 5/10
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