Time was around 4.30pm. All four of us just got down from the vaigai express.
We just returned from our visit to Madurai. As we were going from the railway station to the bus stand to get into a bus to Neyveli,appa was reading a copy of Kumudham (a tamil magazine).
There was this new movie called GHILLI which was making waves around TN. Note that this was a time when neither Vijay or Trisha were big stars,so the hype was not that big.
Appa read the review of the movie and asked if we can go to the movie directly. We reached our home in block-12, threw our bags inside our home and went directly to Sri Nithiratna(The only decent theatre in Neyveli FYI) for the 6.30pm show.
Basic plot of the movie: A kabaddi player who’s not that good at studies goes to Madurai from Chennai,where he enters into a brawl with the villain who is forcing the heroine to marry him.
The hero beats up the villain, takes the heroine back to Chennai.
Rest of the plot involves how he defeats the villain and how he unites with the heroine.
Feel the plot is cliched and predictable?..
Yep the movie is the quintessential masala movie which had fights,love,songs and comedy.
Yep the movie’s plot is more predictable than Atlee movies(God I hate his movies:p)
Then what made GHILLI a classic and should I say, a masterpiece in it’s own right?
Hi CHELLAM!!!
A villain who oscillates between menacing to cute to downright silly. Prakash Raj made the character of Muthuppandi believable and made us hate him.
A good movie should make us feel in someway during the course of the movie. The feeling can be a laugh,tears or in this case our wish to see Prakash Raj get beaten up.
Prakash Raj had played the character in the Telugu original as well(Okkadu which released an year earlier had Mahesh Babu and Bhoomika playing the lead roles).
His understanding of the character translates directly into the electrifying performance on-screen.
When Muthuppandi gets beaten up by Vijay in the climax we can’t but feel that the character got what he deserved.
நரி டா,ஓட்டேரி நரி!!!
Dhamu, the actor who played the character is in my view one of the most underrated and underused comedians in Tamil Cinema.
Be it his fleeting performance in Baasha, or his appearances in Saran’s movies,Dhamu never got his due in Tamil cinema.
GHILLI will remain his most notable performance till date.
His character Nari, evokes laughter at the most unexpected of moments in the movie (his hilarious reaction in the climax when his 2 plaits are seen shaking in the air after they win the Kabaddi finals remains the most satisfying moment in the movie for me :p) and takes the cake at many places in the movie.
அப்படி போடு போடு…
Be it the kabaddi kabaddi theme during the title credits or the songs in the movie,All the songs in the movie were chartbusters in that year.
I still remember how my cousins from Delhi who knew very little tamizh used to jump to the tune of soora thenga adra adra.
Even though this was a cliched masala movie,all the songs gelled well with the narrative and when trisha sings unnai ondru ketpen in that light tower scene the entire theatre roared in anticipation of appadi podu podu.
Link to the movie’s jukebox on Youtube:https://youtu.be/Yc9_0Jo4ogw
Semifinals pona pottum, finals la paathukalam :p
My definition of a good movie is a movie that makes us forget logic and keeps us fully engrossed for the duration of the movie.
GHILLI like any other masala movie had a bunch of plotholes.Be it trisha boarding an international flight yet making it on time to the climax match or the larger than life stunts, GHILLI had a ton of logic mistakes. None are bigger than the protagonist’s team losing the semifinals of the kabaddi tournament and still progressing the finals (Yes,I am not exaggerating).
But ask anyone who has watched GHILLI and they will tell you how they never thought of these loopholes when they watched the movie for the first time.
GHILLI’s screenplay had an unprecedented pace that made us forget almost all the flaws in the movie. Till this day I can’t name any masala movie having a better screenplay than GHILLI.
GHILLI egurudicheyyyy!!!!
To sum up, GHILLI represents an important part of my childhood and when I watched it today( March 29,2020) I can’t but feel how much this movie means to me on a personal level.
The movie is streaming on Youtube and Sun NXT.
https://www.sunnxt.com/movie/detail/8778
Please do yourself a favour and watch the movie asap.
மௌனம் 