Kappal – A Rather Smooth Sail with Enough Turbulence of Laughter

Bharath Vijayakumar

Kappal sets the ball rolling straightaway with an innovative introductory scene. You get the basic idea about the characters and what the movie is all about. Five buddies vow not to get married and what happens when one of them gets a call from cupid is Kappal in short.

Cast:

Vaibhav is extremely good as the reluctant partner of the wolf pack. It is actually a difficult role to play. He yearns for girls and is always looking to score. Yet he has to look gullible and naïve. A rather difficult mix and Vaibhav does it extremely well. This is a film that utilizes VTV Ganesh properly. As the love guru who has to put up with the madness of Vaibhav and his friends he scores. Karuna,Arjunan and Venkat are good in their own ways. They seem to be a little restrained than usual. And you really wonder why so in a film like this. A little more flamboyance would have not hurt. The heroine Sonam Bajwa with her hourglass figure is always in the tightest of costumes be it outdoors or indoors.

Few scenes are rollicking fun. In fact the first 20 minutes sets the bar very high that we really do not experience such a stretch again in the entire film apart from the bursts of laughter now and then. The film is a tad too long at 156 minutes. There is overindulgence at few places. The foul-mouthed wrestling goes on for too long and was it really necessary to have the ‘Oora Vittu’ song in it’s full form. It is distasteful see the hero well into his twenties trying to find his match in the midst of school girls.This film again takes the convenient template of showing the groom of the heroine as a total nut. Even that is acceptable as he is shown as such a person from the beginning. But both his' and the heroine’s father also behaving in the same manner in the climax in order to manufacture laughter sorely sticks out.

Bottomline:

Kappal lays low at a few places and goes over the top at a few. Had it been able to maintain that perfect balance that it achieved at the start of the film throughout, this would have been one hell of a ride. Nevertheless it offers a smooth sail with enough bursts of laughter.

Rating:2.75/5