I am a huge fan of Mani Rathnam and it is normal for me to watch his movies more than once, usually there are more than one element that requires a second watch to cherish -- music, cinematography, abstract narration, short yet sharp dialogues, rather bold characters etc. I wanted to get out of the theater during the intermission on kadal. Mani Rathnam, to me, is great at telling white collar perspective stories-- mounaragam, roja, uiyre, bombay, Kannathil Mutham Ittal etc or at telling the story of the under dog -- dalapathi, nayakan etc. He sucks at capturing the slum atmosphere -- or may he depicts it to perfection that you cannot enjoy it. This movie to me fell under the category, it failed miserably to get me excited about the characters or the story line. Sujatha was badly missed, apparently the crisp dialogues was his contribution and was missing completely. I have a sad feeling that Mani Rathnam might be heading for spiral down like Barathyraja in his latter days. I hope I am terribly wrong.
Review of Kadal
