Udhaynidhi Stalin no wooden actor - But Nenjukku Needhi hits a box office low

 For the first time, I felt that Udhaynidhi Stalin was not wasting his time in Kollywood trying to be an actor. Now after the good news that Udhaynidhi has finally come out of the list of wooden actors of Kollywood , comes the bad news. At the box office, movie tanked so badly that on day one the collection was Rs 1.3 crores in Tamil Nadu primarily. Slightly climbed by a few thousands on day two and today one has to wait . He was successful as a producer- distributor and Red Giant  banner is big time . So you cannot win on both fronts. Even DMK Kanmanis are not gung-ho about their Chepauk Che Guevara .

All those who take film viewing as serious business and want to compare the film with Hindi film Article 15 , original source of this Nenjuku Neethi, you can rest at home. This film is no patch on Article 15 and Udhaynidhi is no  Ayushman Khurana.. Nor is Arunraja  Kamaraj competent to remake the film directed by Anubhuv Sinha  by transplanting it to the Tamil Nadu milieu and pruning it to suit the audience.

I ,for one decided to not revisit  Art 15 in the OTT platform and see Tamil film it for what it was worth. The start was promising of the manual  scavenger scene and expected more. What did I get instead ? A doctor named Anitha ( remember NEET suicide ?_,  Only Hindi speaking CBI officer  ( lecture on Hindi imposition) and so on that it was contrived. We get shots of Udhaynidhi with the rising sun in the background. As expected, the famous scene in which Ayushman has a heart to heart talk with his colleagues to know their caste was watered down since it could trigger a backlash , especially among the Priyarists.

Udhyanidhi delivers and in ample measure. Tanya is about ok and Suresh Chakravarthy ( Bigg Boss) a scene stealer. Coming to Aari ( another Bigg Boss fame), it cannot be said the same. The fault lies in sketching of the role. Thamizharasan dialogues are punchy but yet sounds like political statements.  Coming to music and cinematography, I think Thomas musical score was far better than Article 15. Same cannot be said about Dinesh's camerawork. Visuals were more glossy than needed.

You get the feeling that director had a compulsion to fit in the DMK manifesto into the plot. Despite all this handicaps, Udhaynidhi's role was not made into a MASS one and thanks to Udhaynidhi for it. But as a distributor- producer, he might be feeling now that a DADA cop mouthing DMK propaganda might have got him more money .