Oor Kavalan (’87) Tamil Movie Review

Can you imagine a tragedy, in a movie starring Rajnikanth? Yes, this movie Oor Kavalan (1987) is one of them. Not that Rajnikanth gets beaten up by the villains and dies or anything … he manages well over 50 people in this movie too. But the heroine (well, one of them) dies in the end. We are, however, given a glimpse of that in the beginning itself – it sorta killed the suspense, I feel. 

It seems this movie failed in the box-office, but I felt it was not that bad. The comedy scenes (initially) were good, the characterization of Radhika was different, Rajnikanth, as usual, is ever-confident and ever-powerful.  Strangely, this movie doesn’t entirely move around the main hero/heroine, but it movies around another heroine (lover of Rajnikanth’s brother).

Since a poor guy falls in love with rich girl (in a village), the Pannaiyar (Village head) – who SUDDENLY becomes BAD because of this incident – is adamant that the marriage be held with another boy of his choice (the neighboring village ‘equal status’ big-shot). Rajnikanth storms into the wedding, stops it and gets his brother married to the girl. All this is normal.

But what happens next is abnormal. There is a traditional belief that God sometimes comes into people *in an excited state* and tells what is needed to be done. Obviously this was used for *fixing* purpose, by elders and big-shots. In this movie, God not only tells, but also kills the groom (through Pujari) immediately afterwards! Things get racy from then.

The villain Raguvaran needs a special mention – he’s one of the best antagonist in Tamil movies and does a good job in this movie too. I have not seen this younger version of Raghuvaran, before. These two reminded me of another future movie that they’d act together – the stunning ‘Baasha’. The other villain, Pannaiyar, should have acted more forcefully – he just is not threatening enough for a rich girl’s father!

All usual the sentiments, action, masala, fights, etc. are there in this movie too. When compared to the kind of movies we get these days, this movie is not that bad. You can definitely watch it once. Just make sure to fast-forward all the songs (except one sad song) – they just don’t add anything and just slow down the pace.

Destination Infinity