Apart from Vijayakanth, who made a strong comeback with Vaanathai
Pola and then Vallarasu , Satyaraj too had a good year
in 2000. His Ennammaa Kannu was a surprise hit and a shot
in the arm for the actor who was no longer a star to reckon with after his long string
of flops. Knowing the habit in Tamil cinema of following trends, Looty was
bound to happen. It attempts to give Satyaraj a similar, wise-cracking character but
with a ridiculously silly story and cheap comedy, all it does is erase any gains
Satyaraj may have made with Ennammaa Kannu.
Rasappa(Satyaraj) and Velappa(Vadivelu) have been thick friends since their younger days.
Rasappa marries Geetha(Roja), who has personally experienced the cruelty of a
stepmother who drove her own mother out of the house. When Rasappa finds a small
baby in his car one day, the childless couple adopt it and raise it as their own.
But Geetha continues to have her own doubts about Rasappa being the father of the
baby. Her suspicions are confirmed when their son(Satyaraj) returns from abroad
looking exactly like her husband and she decides to divorce him.
Infidelity is not really a funny issue and having picked that as the crux of his movie,
which he has decided will be a comedy, the director is troubled throughout
the movie. Most of the movie is based on Roja's doubts about Satyaraj's faithfulness
which leads her as far as initiating divorce proceedings. But in order to let
Satyaraj utter 'nakkal' lines and maintain the movie as a comedy, the director
tries to lighten the heavy issue and it never works. Roja's frequent questions
to her husband about the boy's genes illustrate this confusion the best. She
struggles to hit the right note between seriousness and comedy and they become
downright silly. The only places where the movie gets it right are when it goes for
straight comedy as when Vadivelu suspects an affair between his wife and a
cross-dressed Roja.
And it is not just the story that is badly thought out and executed. The conclusion of
the whole mess is through one of the most silly but convoluted explanations
in recent times. By introducing a third Satyaraj, the director throws timelines completely
out of whack. Here again he tries introduce a solution that maintains the comic
momentum but fails miserably due to the distasteful nature of the solution itself and
the dislikeable character of Satyaraj. Things become more ridiculous with a climax
that features a poorly-generated, special effects dinosaur and a virtual MGR helping out
Satyaraj. He must be turning in his grave!
Vivek decisively proves that a comedian is only as good as the lines he is given. The actor,
who has had an amazing hit ratio(as far as his comedy routines are considered) in his
recent movies, struggles to raise laughs. His role as a distributor of pirated VCDs
is ripe for comedy(as he proves with a couple of lines at various places) but he
fails in generating even a few chuckles most of the time. His villainous intentions do
not add any strength to his comedy. Vadivelu joins him but this has the effect
of halving the laughs rather than doubling it. Vadivelu mistakenly taking tablets
for constipation instead of Viagra is what passes(no pun intended!) for comedy and
these sequences are cheap and vulgar. Vivek and Vadivelu also have a song for
themselves.
Satyaraj looks jaded and without many good lines, his dialog delivery doesn't really
do anything to improve the movie. Roja has some fun with her disguise as a man when she
goes to work in Satyaraj's house. But it is not as impressive as all the hype made it
out to be. Mumtaj comes and goes though her costumes in the duet with Satyaraj would put
even 'Silk' Smitha to shame. Kalpana's unique dialog delivery makes for some funny lines.
Visu is lost in the loud proceedings. Deva's songs fit the quality of the movie.
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