Cast: Vaibhav Reddy, Nandita Swetha, Hareesh Peradi, Yogi Babu, Pandiarajan, Uma Padmanabhan
Director: Yuvaraj Subramani
Music: Vishal Chandrasekhar
I’ve reached this point, all credit to Kollywood, where I’m willing to watch multiple movies with a mainstream story instead of a movie that begins interestingly with a different idea, but ends up being something else altogether. At least mainstream content, although typical, will not build up your expectations and leave you hanging. It’s exactly what it’s touted to be unlike these films. While last month Kathir starrer Jada walked that path, this month Taana decided to follow. Though the film had all the scope to turn out to be a wonderful entertainer, it did just the opposite.
Sakthi (Vaibhav) does not want to serve as a policeman for keeping up the temple tradition his ‘Taana’ family held for many years owing to the change in the tone of his voice when he goes through extreme emotions. When the government decides to procure the temple land of the Vallimalai village, the grandmother (Kalairani) of the ‘Taana’ family prevents them from doing so by immolating herself. Affected by this, Sakthi turns cop for the purpose of maintaining the tradition after several struggles. While I was wondering why most of the scenes in the first half have no connection to the plot, I realised the idea that took up the entire first half has no relevance to the second half. They brought up several ideas but incorporated them however least they could. There’s Puberphonia, talks about data transfer, and exploitation through banking loans, but none of it dealt properly.
Taana Movie Stills Starring Vaibhav
The second half dwells on how Sakthi tracks down fraudsters-cum-murderers while not serving the police department. He loses his feminine voice throughout the second-half but conveniently never realises it at any point until the climax where he’s made to speak to the press. We find the same plot point Rajini used in Darbar to solve the confusion around the three antagonists. While there it’s a silly bike conversation, here it’s an acceptable cyclone conversation. Though the connection established was plausible and interesting, there was no point in keeping all of this towards the end of the film. They already lost me after a tiresome bunch of scenes in the beginning. Turning serious only towards the end after acting all humourous in the beginning just didn’t work.
*Spoiler begins*
To track down the death of a pregnant lady Anitha, Sakthi uses a spot of blood he finds on the forehead of a Barbie doll in her house. Somehow the blood is exactly in the shape of a bindi, which makes him curious as to how those dolls have bindis.
Later they show us how her head went through a nail and resulted in her death. Anyone with common sense would know how much blood could splatter from that. I’m still figuring out how it turned out to be a tiny spot of blood on the forehead of the doll with absolutely no sign of blood anywhere else. Someone, please teach me also the ways of this director.
*Spoiler Ends*
There were instances where I felt Yogi Babu (Dooma in the film) was headlining the film. He even had a better introduction scene than Vaibhav and managed to garner laughs here and there. He was, in fact, the only reason I could sit through the boring first half. Vaibhav showed no interest in any scene. After watching him perform in films like Mangaatha, Kappal, and Sixer, every scene of this film was a disappointment. He failed to emote or even match the emotion his female dubbing artist exuded during some scenes. Nandita Swetha doesn’t help much with the romance parts let alone the plot. Hareesh Peradi is his usual self in this film too.
Taana Movie Stills Starring Vaibhav, Yogi Babu
Owing to a lack of songs, which I don’t regret, no opinion could be formed of Vishal Chandrasekhar’s album. The only song to feature was an atrocious forest song involving witchcraft. Shiva’s camera work was flat and Prasanna GK’s editing didn’t help either. A wonderful opportunity wasted, that’s Taana is for you.
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The Taana review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.
