Lowered Expectations

Lowered Expectations

Don Muthu Swami :A movie review

They say that the path of excess leads to wisdom.Is too many movies
the reason for all of this?

I dread watching movies these days.They seem hollow and empty.
The dialogues are woefully worn out,have characters with lesser
substance than cardboard, weak and waifish plots and predictable
twists.
Perhaps I'm numb.
Movies don't stimulate me the way they used to before.
Before watching a movie I dread all the wasted time if I found the
movie unsatisfactory.So much wasted time that could have been used for
something better-reading a book,exercising,meditating,talking to
friends,writing, and all other activities that I value more than a
poorly made movie.
I watch the movie with a twitchy finger on the FF button.Twitchy
fingers shoot faster.

The solution I've found is strict media fasting.Extended periods of
time spent without getting involved with mainstream media.Delayed
gratification to increase sensitivity.

So it was a long time since I had watched a movie.I thought, why not
watch the worst of the lot?
I had two options.
Deshdrohi and Don Muthuswamy.

I chose Don Muthuswamy, because I had to brush up on my south indian
hindi accent.

Ayyo Rama, tum kya karta jee?

Idli sambhar lelo swami...ayyo rama!
I do an excellent Bollywood south Indian accent, sometimes just to
convince people that I am actually from South India.(Somehow I have
acquired a faux punjabi accent)

Have you noticed something?
Bollywood movies exist solely on Punjabiland.Everything is
punjabified.Right from the mehendi ceremony to the obligatory balle
balle shava shava song number.

South Indians rarely exist in hindi movies, and if they do, then only
as gross caricatures, who repeatedly spout inanities.

Ayyo muruga!

Ayyo Rama!

For the record, I've never heard anyone in my city speak like that.I
come from a south indian city.

Don Muthuswamy, as the name suggests is the story of a south indian
don named Muthuswamy, played by Mithun Chakraborty, who can only be
called a south indian because he owns hotels in kodaicanal.(and has
married a south indian actress)
Would a real south indian play this role.My initial answer would be
No, but given enough money, even I would have played that role.After
all , I do have a killer bollywood south indian accent!

Don Muthuswamy can be summed up in a few words.Here it goes.
Don Muthuswamy:Poor man's 'Singh is Kingg'.
Surprisingly, although Don Muthuswamy has poorer production values,
and a less than stellar cast, is a better movie than Singh is Kingg.
Agreed that Don Muthuswamy does not have exotic locales, or a leggy
katrina kaif, or even Akshay Kumar's comic timing, but it does better
in a better layered storyline.

Don Muthuswamy is a B grade Singh is Kingg.They both have the same
grating sense of humour.They both have implausible plots (Mafioso
turning over a new leaf and the subsequent hilarious consequences),
but Don Muthuswamy is marred by lack of mass appeal.
If the Don was Baljit Singh and said 'Chakde Phatte' every now an
then, maybe it would have garnered wider interest.

Oh yes,Don muthuswamy is married and has a twenty-something daughter
(played by poor Hrishita Bhatt,she is reduced to D-list celebrity )
So both movies have the Love angle.

Even though I had lowered my expectations for Don Muthuswamy, I ended
enjoying the movie, and also brushed up on my bollywood south indian
accent!


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