Synopsis: An amateur film maker and a real life gangster collaborate to make a movie for their personal gains. However, a few changes of events make them realize their lives have a greater purpose and they decide to make a meaningful impact through ‘Art’.
Review:
We know Jigarthanda Double X is a successor to the award winning ‘Jigarthanda’. They fall under the same genre. They share the same style of humor & violence; they both feature a movie-in-movie concept; they explore the lives of underworld gangsters in southern parts of India. All the characters perform well in either of the films, and this list never ends. But one thing that separates Double X from its predecessor is the characterization, and that makes the movie appear larger and more interesting.
The film is set in the 1970’s and it kicks off by introducing Kirubai Arokiaraj (S.J. Surya). We get to know that he is a timid guy who wishes to become a police officer like his father. However, he is falsely accused of a murder and thrown behind the bars. He’s then called up by a police officer, Rathna Kumar (Naveen Chandra) for a secret mission to assassinate a notorious gangster, Alliyan Caesar (Raghava Lawrence).
Rathna Kumar is known for his ruthless nature and it is quite easy for us to sense that he’s the ‘bad guy’ in the film. He convinces Kirubai Arokiaraj that he’ll become a freeman once he successfully completes the mission. We see the desperation in Kirubai’s face to escape prison life,thanks to S.J’s acting skills, and it comes as no surprise when he agrees to execute the mission.
Meanwhile, Alliyan Caesar has a typical heroic introduction but the good thing is, it has various satirical elements in almost every scene, which is refreshing to watch. He’s the leader of ‘Madurai Jigarthanda Sambavam club’; he has a weird chair with a pair of elephant trunks on it. Caesar takes the other bad guys to his very own theater to brutally dispatch them in a ‘Clint Eastwood’ style, highlighting the love he has towards movies and Western Flicks.
But his love for cinema becomes even stronger when one of the lads in his gang mocks him for his color,”If he were as fair as me, he could’ve become a hero. But it’s so sad that Caesar is dark-skinned.” Triggered, Caesar then decides to become the first dark-skinned hero (a Rajinikanth reference), not just in Tamil cinema but at a ‘Pan-India’ level. It actually leaves us in laughter when Caesar mentions ‘Pan-India’ as ‘Pandyaa.’
Caesar proceeds further to hunt for a director for his movie and this news reaches Kirubai Arokiaraj. He decides to be an ‘undercover director’ and proceeds to convince Caesar why he’s the right director for him. Kirubai uses a fake identity and claims that he has been part of Satyajit Ray’s troupe: the scene which highlights director’s (K.Subburaj) immense love towards cinema.
Unaware of Kirubai’s drama, poor Caesar hires him and they both decide to make a movie that’s more like Caesar’s biopic.
Now, if we compare the ‘characterization’ of Kirubai-Caesar with Karthik-Assault Sethu in Jigarthanda, it is the opposite. (If you don’t know, Sidhdharth plays as Karthik, the film director and Bobby Simha plays the role of a Gangster called Assault Sethu.)
( Karthik & Assault Sethu from Jigarthanda )
Unlike Kirubai, Karthik is an ambitious director who is looking to make a Gangster flick based on real events. In the other hand, Sethu does not have any love towards cinema like Caesar and the only thing common between them is being heartless gangsters. There is also a difference in how these characters (Karthik-Sethu) meet each other for the first time.
Karthik closely follows Sethu without his knowledge to develop a script based on his life, and one day Sethu catches him red-handed. When Karthik tells the reason behind his actions, Sethu no longer feels suspicious and agrees to reveal his life history to him. But complications arise for Karthik when Sethu insists on being cast as the hero in his biopic.
Karthik feels that it is a disgrace to cinema to cast someone like Sethu, but he has no choice other than saying yes to the violent man. Later, we discover that Karthik has manipulated Sethu, leading him to believe that he is making a movie that glorifies his life. He creates something that ridicules and makes fun of Sethu’s life and gangsterism.
Presenting the movie in a comical way, Karthik makes a powerful statement,“People are scared of murderers and killers; I wanted to make a movie of such a violent man and make everyone laugh. In fact most of these rogues are jokers in real life.”
Sethu feels betrayed and decides to seek revenge on him until the point where he realizes that Karthik has done something good for him through cinema.
Since childhood, Sethu has hated people who laugh at him. In fact, we can say that this generalized attitude has made him merciless. He loves people respecting him not on humanitarian grounds but out of fear. But the point where he starts to doubt his choice of being a violent man is when an innocent child applauds him for his performance in the movie. This child happens to be the daughter of one of his previous victims whom he had killed.
Sethu’s doubt just doesn’t stop there. He also starts noticing a change in people’s behavior towards him and for the very first time, he sees people approaching him with affection instead of fear. This experience is very new for Sethu – the love. He feels that this wouldn’t have happened if Karthik hadn’t made his biopic a mockery.
Concluding, just like Charlie Chaplin in ‘The Great Dictator’, Karthik has chosen a powerful medium (cinema) to expose Sethu’s involvement in Gangsterism, and eventually the satire leaves Sethu kind-hearted.
Returning to Double X…As the film proceeds, we will see many events influencing the decisions of the characters. We will slowly start noticing a change in the nature of two self centered characters, Kirubai & Ceaser.
Caeser, who happens to be a tribal man, a person who resides apart from his community, begins to live with them. Unbeknownst to him, he fights alongside his people who have already been fighting against the state to survive. On the other hand, Kirubai feels the first pang of guilt when Malaiyarasi (a noticeable role played by Nimisha) converses with him, describing how his camera has started to make an impact on their lives.
She says, “We have only seen people use different kinds of weapons to kill our people, but the weapon you are holding is the first one that doesn’t kill and gives us hope…My husband wouldn’t be here without it.”
Unlike the character Karthik in the predecessor, who consciously chooses cinema, we realize that it’s the art of cinema that drives Kirubai and Caesar to stand up for something good. The subsequent events involving Caesar, Kirubai,his Camera, and the tribal people form the crux of the movie.
At the end, as viewers, we’ll be left with a feeling of having a Madurai poratta with an authentic Jigarthanda, albeit with some tears of empathy.
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