After a series of action-dramas featuring rowdies, we seem to be in for comedies featuring rowdies. After Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015), we now have director Sam Anton’s Enakku Innoru Per Irukku . The film revolves around the power games in Royapuram, where the godfather is called “Naaina”. G.V. Prakash Kumar (sporting a beard that seems to weigh almost as much as he does) plays Johnny, a young man with a phobia that makes him freeze at the sight of blood: not just the blood dripping from a sickle that’s just carved up a man, but also the blood on his mother’s (Nirosha) finger which she cuts while slicing vegetables. The film, throughout, invites us to snicker while we ponder this question: Can you see this man as a rowdy, let alone a candidate for godfather, lording over all the rowdies in Royapuram?
We’re actually not meant to care about the plot. Otherwise we would start asking questions. Why does Johnny, at first, decide to become a priest, of all things? (Though one must admit that becoming a man of God is a step up for Prakash. In his earlier film, Trisha Illana Nayanthara , he was only interested in the sequence of events that would make him a… father.) And just like that, after setting eyes on Hema (Anandhi), he gives up the idea? And who is Husain Bhai? We get a tense sequence where this man is murdered. It was news to me that someone named Husain Bhai existed. So, along with plot, we’re not meant to care about characters either. Or tone. We’re in a comedy, and yet we get the intense scene of a man hacked to death. But the audience around me, mostly very young people, didn’t seem to care. They roared at the masturbation jokes. And when Johnny called married women “post-paid” and sighed in relief that Hema was “pre-paid”. Prakash’s reuse of his “virgin pasanga ” line from Trisha… brought the roof down. There were also claps at this poignantly feminist juncture. Before Hema, Johnny was seeing this girl who sweet-talked him into buying her an iPhone and a Scooty. One day, she hands him a wedding invitation and calls him anna (elder brother). On the day of her wedding, a friend asks the heartbroken Johnny why the girl dumped him. Johnny replies, “Adhaan machan ponnunga (That’s how girls are buddy).” Then he laughs a laugh that suggests life will go on as long he has his male friends. Why? Because, “ Adhaan machan pasanga (That’s how boys are buddy).” If these films are anything to go by, the mind of the average Tamilian youngster could be the setting for The Conjuring 3 .
But many gags do work. I’m always partial to jokes about cuckolded husbands. And the director has clever ideas. He positions the search for the new godfather as a reality game show: Ungalil Yaar Adutha Naina ? (who among you will be the next godfather?). Yogi Babu, as the emcee, is a riot. Karuna and V.T.V. Ganesh are also in good form. And he punctures the pompousness of a big fight scene by labelling the factions “Kodambakkam Knight Riders” and “Vyasarpadi Challengers.” But this looniness comes and goes. Also, for a comedy targeted at today’s “youth,” there’s far too much nostalgia.
Enakku Innoru Per Irukku (Tamil)
Director: Sam Anton
Starring: G.V. Prakash Kumar, Anandhi, Yogi Babu
Run time: 130 minutes
