Nanban Review

Nanban is the Tamil remake of a hit Hindi flick 3 Idiots which itself was adapted from Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone. The story revolves around 3 friends and their college life. After the college days one of the three friends has cut of the chords and is not having any contacts with anybody from the college. Two of the friends go in search of their close friend who was an eye opening mentor for them. During their journey they memorize the good old days and the special moments they have shared together. This is a movie with a message especially on the methodology in which our education system should be formulated. The movie also has all the elements required for a commercial movie with a good blend of comedy and emotions.
The movie is well casted which includes Vijay, Srikanth, Jeeva, Satyaraj, S J Surya etc. The performance of each one of them is good but has not reached the levels of the original movie. They had done their best but the original was excellent. This is once in a blue moon opportunity to see Vijay in this decent outfit. The dance in the movie is choreographed by Farah Khan but don’t expect too much as the steps are simple ones.

The movie is an exact replica of the original movie and the director has tried to make it frame by frame. Usually songs are one of the highlight of Shankar movie and he has failed in this regard. Apart from the song “Asku Laska” rest of the songs is not that much ear soothing ones. The settings built for the song sequence are good the usual Shankar style.

One director’s flaw I observed in the movie is where Ileana hands over her brother’s suicide note to Satyaraj and it is evident that it is blank paper. Don’t know why an ace director like Shankar who is famous for spending too much money for his movies has missed this silly point. Whenever the frames of Ooty appear in the movie, The Ladakh which is pictured beautifully in 3 Idiots comes to my mind and is in no way they are comparable.

Ileana & Sathyan however failed to capture the magic of Kareena & Omi Vidya respectively. Satyaraj has definitely done a decent job but falters with respect to Boman's brilliance.
This is a good entertainer and I will give 5.5 out of 10 for the effort Shankar has put forth not to destroy the original one. You will enjoy it if you din watch the original.