Naan Ee

                                                                                Naan Ee

What would you call a trilingual movie with a Kannada superstar playing negative role, a heroine who is trying to establish herself in Kollywood, a Hero who is a relatively a new comer, directed by an established director whose last movie was a chartbuster, playing to packed houses in theaters  on a weekday night show? A hit, a super hit or a super duper hit? That is Nan E for you.. Add to it the fact that this is just a day before the release of one of the region’s most expected movie with a big league star.

This movie has been reeking the moolah silently, it’s still running to packed houses even after Billa 2 is released. I saw this movie on Thursday night (the night before Billa was releasing), only because I thought all the big screen theaters would take it off once Billa releases and move it to unconventional shows or small screens. But, to my surprise the movie was still playing in big screens, to packed houses competing head on with Ajith over the weekend. The “Ee (Housefly)” is buzzing around and could be a potential threat to Ajith. This is one movie which my family (especially my 5 yr old daughter) and I wanted to watch again in a theater and could also be a part of the DVD collection at home.

Now to get to the crux of the movie, the film is all about 3 main characters, Sudeep (Sudeep) a rich womanizer who believes he can get any women to bed with his charms and money, Bindu (Samantha) a micro artist who also runs a nonprofit organization and Nani (Nani) a fire cracker expert. Nani is head over-heels in love with Bindu and she is aware of this, but is playing along. In the mean time, Sudeep falls for Bindu when she visits him to seek donation for her charity work. Sudeep gives her a hefty check of 15 lakhs in order to be able to spend more time with her. It’s at this stage that Sudeep comes to know that Bindu is attracted to Nani and kills him.

                Coincidentally just as Nani was dying Bindu sent him the magical three word message and thus his soul migrates to a Pupa. From now onwards the movie goes in to Graphic pace, a house fly is born out of the pupa and accidentally the fly flies in to Sudeep’s house, on seeing Sudeep it remembers its past and that’s when the fun starts. The fly decides to eliminate Sudeep and starts hunting and haunting him buzzing in his ears. He almost gets Sudeep killed in a car crash and also declares his intentions to Sudeep by writing “I will Kill YOU” on a muddy wind shade. The fly later convinces Bindu that he is Nani and he was killed by Sudeep and they join hands to get rid of Sudeep, how they do it forms the rest of the story.

                Director SS Rajamouli is renowned for his fictional story and his dependence on graphics to convince viewers to believe his story is a possibility and Naan Ee is no different. It’s a golden feather in his cap yet again and his second successful attempt at proving his earlier critics wrong. Sudeep is a talent unearthed by the director (to viewers beyond sandalwood) and this movie does a world of good to his credentials, he is already a super star in Sandalwood and this ‘Ee’ will fly him places. It’s difficult to emote in front of the camera, and it’s even more difficult to act as though you are being tormented by the fly consistently. Heroine Samantha can be a relief when compared to the industry’s supposedly leading heroines who can’t act to save their lives. And, Nani is smart, can act well as well.

                I wonder why the director decided to use Santhanam’s help to bring in Tamil audiences to the theater (guess he was advised by some Tamil directors who use that technique). Though Santhanam is shown only in one scene during the course of the movie, his character is well established during the end credits. The soundtrack and BG are good; the songs are a good attempt by the music director MM Keeravaani. The credit of the movie partly goes to its cameraman K.K. Senthil Kumar and Editor Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao.

Now to talk about the real hero of the movie the “Fly”, it makes this movie on par with the animation graphic movies of Hollywood. This fly can do anything it wants right from making its own ammunition with the micro artist’s support to groovy dance steps which would shame some of the industry’s top dancers. The production team could have contemplated the idea of releasing a 3D version of it as well as is the trend in Hollywood

This is one fly you will never want to miss. I will go out with 4/5 as this movie is a complete family entertainer. Do take your kids to the theaters to enjoy this movie and then wait for the original DVD to enjoy it in the comfort of your digital home theater.