Nayagan (Mani Ratnam)

Some movies are made just for commercial purposes. Some movies are made to fulfil the craeativity of a person. Nayagan is a very good example of the latter.
Basically its the story of a man who becomes a gangster by chance and not by choice. Its the story of Velu Nayakar whose circumstances force him to take the wrong albeit easier path in life.
Though its shown pretty clearly right from the beginning of the film that Velu has a violent streak and can go any length to get things done, He is shown to have a heart of gold. Take the scene where he threatens a doctor and then apologises for threatening him. These are the scenes which lift the film to dizzying heights. The one thing that really impressed me about this film was that though violence is glorified initially in the film, Mani Ratnam has subtly shown through the course of the film that though violence is glamourous, It brings you more bad than good. This is a very good piece of advice for the people who watch the movie.
Since the movie is adapted from a real life story, Mani Ratnam has the luxury of moulding each and every character with a reference point. That could be one reason for the extremely realistic character sketch. Though there are a lot of cliches in the screenplay, the characters are not at all cliched. Another strong point of the movie is the haunting musical score given by Ilayaraja.
All said and done, Nayagan is by no means without its share of flaws. As i have mentioned before, the story is very cliched and by the 2nd half we can guess whats going to happen next. Even the ending though very well executed is somewhat expected. It doesnt really shock you.
Where Nayagan really scores is the execution of the subject material. Mani Ratnam is very fortunate to find an actor as great as Kamal hassan for this movie. Kamal literally lives as Velu. No wonder he won the National award. Amazing screen presence, superb dialogue delivery.
Nayagan was a pathbreaking film when it was released and it still gives you goosebumps when you watch it. Maybe i am a little less impressed because i have watched some of the classic Hollywood gangster movies like goodfellas and set the bar too high..
Watch the movie for its extremely realistic treatment,Haunting Musical score and of course for Kamal's amazing performance.
p.s If you are into gangster movies, Watch American Gangster. Superb movie with a lot of similarities with Nayagan.