Gorilla Movie Review Rating 2.5/5
Production: All In Pictures Cast: Jiiva, Motta Rajendran, Munish Kanth, Radha Ravi, Shalini Pandey Direction: Don Sandy Screenplay: Don Sandy Story: Don Sandy Music: Sam C.S Background score: Sam C.S Cinematography: Vetrivel Mahendran Editing: Ruben PRO: Yuvraaj
orilla as hyped by the makers in the promotional campaign is Kong, the trained chimpanzee. And to a large extent, Kong remains the saving grace of an otherwise run-of-the mill Kollywood entertainer from writer-director Don Sandy. The chimpanzee plays a key role in a comedy heist drama which has hardly anything new to offer.
The title card explains how Jeeva (Jiiva), a conman, has an emotional connection with his buddy Kong. In one of the scenes, he meets up with some disgruntled youths who have an axe to grind with society for treating them shabbily. Looking to make big bucks, they team up with Jiiva and decide to rob a van which they think is carrying cash to be ultimately deposited in the ATMs in the suburbs. Using Kong to ambush those inside the van, they stop the vehicle only to find it empty.
The bank robbery and the events that follow border on the absurd, but Sandy dives into it gleefully and uses comedy effectively to make us overlook the lack of logic. And like many filmmakers these days, he uses issues from the near past – from 15 lakh being credited into every citizen’s account to Hindi speakers being appointed in govt jobs in Tamil Nadu, hospital footage, Aadhaar card, Digital India, Vijay Mallaya, fishermen shootings, Marina protests – to offer crowdpleasing political commentary. The main issue that he focuses on is the one involving the plight of farmers, and this is where the film feels exploitative, especially with dialogues that talk about how banks are trusting beer company owner more than ‘naattukke soru podra vivasaayi’ when issuing loans. There are times when the film comes dangerously close to being melodramatic and ruining the farcical nature of the plot. Thankfully, the cast ensure that things don’t turn too serious, cracking a joke or two to lighten the mood.
The storytelling becomes unfocused at this point. To justify the amorality associated with the genre of heist films, a subplot involving farmer’s plight is force-fed into the film. Serious issues like these must be treated and portrayed with sensitivity, whereas here, the whole theme seems to have highlighted in a jingoistic manner. The subplot sticks out like a sore thumb
The lack of interesting and engaging factor in the storytelling is evident when we see the film cashing too much on adult comedy and the rehash of clichés thrown at us throughout the narrative. Even in terms of form, the film is amateurishly staged, particularly during the bank robbery sequences, where one doesn’t feel the risk factor at all. The chimpanzee’s presence does not help the film either, except for a few crotch jokes. The storytelling lacked grip, interest factor that made Gorilla less engaging.
