With wafer-thin plots, where cutting scenes randomly wouldn't make any difference, movies like Ariyaan are the reason why I find it hard to take low budget Tamil films seriously. I look at the trailers and immediately dread what's in store. Everyone wants to make a masala movie. The only good thing about the big budget masala films is the glossy production value and these films lack even on that front.
Gautam is an aspiring ad-filmmaker. He likes Steffi, a nobody. She happens to be a Christian and frequents churches, because that's what Christians do all the time. There's a goon who shows up at regular intervals, suggesting he'll have something significant to do at the end. That's it. That's the synopsis.
Pedestrian direction aside, the writing is downright awful. I can keep listing what didn't work but let me start with elements that did. Actually there's just one. There were a few unpredictable moments here and there in the second half which made things less unbearable. For instance, there's this lesbian encounter which came out of nowhere. As if this wasn't surprising enough, the act ended with one person killing the other. What are the odds of that?
One thing which drove me furious was Gautam's absurd double standards. It so happens Steffi consumes alcohol. Gautam does too, but has a problem with her drinking. I know this film was shot a long time ago but that close-minded ideology has been unarguably wrong for ages. It's not just a character's point of view. What bugs me is how the girl doesn't question him for his hypocrisy. I mean, the girl could do a lot better than someone like him. There's nothing whatsoever to like about him. With no redeeming qualities, I doubted if I could detest him any more. The answer came soon enough as he repeatedly kicked a woman in the middle of the road. End of the story. There's no way to like a movie and connect emotionally when the lead is such a belligerent butthole.
The female lead Ragini Dwivedi was pretty hot; so that's a plus. She has done a lot of work in the Kannada film industry and this film must have been an art-house level betterment for her, I am sure. The less said about the hero, the better. Performance-wise, everyone is equally bad. Music is not as bad as one would expect. This Vizhiye track is pretty good, actually.
I get why I had to watch it fully. What surprises me is how a few people were sitting through it till the very end. Ariyaan is the kind of lowbrow movie that gets aired on channels like Zee Tamil on a weekday at 2 pm. File it under 'So bad it's plain bad' category.
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