Muthina Kathirika (Overripe Brinjal) is a gender neutral term to refer to someone who is past his or her ‘prime’, and still unmarried. Sundar C plays the ‘vegetable’, Muthupandi, a 40-something minor politician, whose chances at marriage is as bleak as his career in politics. A remake of the 2014 Malayalam film Vellimoonga, Muthina Karthirika goes on to be everything the original wasn’t — loud, flashy, and sleazy.
*****
Muthipandi doesn’t want to marry a woman who is older than 25. “Because,” he explains, “if a woman isn’t married by then, there’s something’s wrong with her.” This from the man whose only achievement in life is arguably that he bought his own Ray-Ban sunglasses, the ones he wears everywhere. He sees Maya (the second-most generic Kollywood heroine name, after Priya) at a temple, and for him, it is love at first sight. She is conveniently 24 and attractive. She also happens to be the daughter of Muthupandi’s girlfriend, during his school days.
Forget the baffling numbers game, we even have dialogues like ‘Ponna vida Amma super‘ (The mother looks more attractive than the daughter).
If this wasn’t crass enough, they also have ‘comedians’ like VTV Ganesh and Singampuli who play brothers. Their only role in the film is to dish out long, annoying dialogues. Sathish tries his best to be a one-liner vending machine. Then there’s Yogi Babu as an attempted funny don.
Everyone tries. Most of all, the script writer who wrote an absurd election story, where losing an MLA election means getting an opportunity to become a Rajya Sabha MP, that too, through Assam!
Just when we think it’s finally over, the film throws up a ‘comedy scene’ like no other: Maya embraces the ‘Muthupandi’ and jerks back because something was ‘poking her’. He then whips out a police siren he has been hiding under his veshti.
*****
Recommended
Muthina Kathirika is more of the age-old Tamil ‘commercial’ cinema comedy, where the audience is presumed to have a juvenile sensibility. The film, like its protagonist, draws abundantly on absurd logic and sleazy scenes to unsuccessfully woo its audience.
*****
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