The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : `Sudesi' is Vijayakanth's poll manifesto

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 13, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

`Sudesi' is Vijayakanth's poll manifesto

Sudhish Kamath

Film packs some radical ideas for change and reform "I don't like to come early and keep waiting or reach late and keep people waiting. The time is correct now"

CHENNAI : `Sudesi' is all about Captain's remedies for good governance.

Though it has adequate cheesy masala sequences for critics to run it down as yet another run-of-the-mill Vijayakanth movie, `Sudesi' packs a few radical ideas for change and reform, significant given that the movie has released a few weeks before his first election.

Incidentally, the movie begins exactly where Rajnikant's 'Baba' ends: the assassination of an honest political leader.

Vijayakanth uses the film as a platform to make his pre-election punch-lines.

There is a scene when he walks into his village and people ask him why he's late. "Late illai, correct," he quips. "I don't like to come early and keep waiting or reach late and keep people waiting. The time is correct now," he explains as fans cheer. The actor-turned-politician also clarifies that he does not see anyone (political party or leader) as his enemy. "I can't do anything if they see me as one," he says.

After introducing himself as a representative of the people, Vijayakanth uses photographs of Vivekananda and Subhash Chandra Bose in many of the scenes to position them as his role models and also uses a comic scene to compare himself with MGR.

"There is only one difference between MGR and you. He used to bite his tongue and talk, you talk through your teeth," says Karunas, the comedian, to which Vijayakanth responds: "I know another difference. He uses his hand to fight," as visuals showing `Puratchi Thalaivar' MGR swinging his fist at the baddies intercut with stunt scenes featuring `Puratchi Kalaignar' Captain using his feet to kick the goons.

What is significant is that Vijayakanth's `Sudesi' does not feature him as a politician. It merely depicts him arm-twisting a corrupt chief minister into introducing welfare schemes for the people with the help of an incriminating video. Instead of using that video to seize power and defame the CM, Sudesi `remote controls' him with a fax machine, sending out a list of things to do.

Such as making a year-long rural health internship mandatory for medical college students to get their degree. "They will gain experience and understand their country better," he says. Or, implementing regular random surprise visits by the Chief Minister to the districts periodically, developing a redressal system for grievances by which people can collect 5000 signatures to dismiss government officials in their area or re-install them and making it compulsory for government employees to send their children to government schools, to ensure that the standard of education and quality of staff in State-run schools improve.

Striking a euphoric note earlier generated by Shankar's `Muthalvan,' this Captain Cine Creations' production might not be as classy, but certainly packages Vijayakanth as a man with good intentions and a selfless leader, especially when Sudesi does not take up the mantle offered to him in the end.

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