Articles - Reviews

Goa

Friday January 29, 2010

Couple of successful hits – ‘Chennai 600028’ and ‘Saroja’ was right enough to promote ‘Goa’ – a Venkat Prabhu Holiday. Out of big expectations, the film finally makes it way onto the screens with such interesting star-casts. But the puzzling stuffs pop up with certain factors that fail to offer amenities. Say for instance, the ‘gay’ quotients aren’t appropriate for ‘B’ and ‘C’ centres. Indeed, the filmmaker himself accepts it as the very opening sequence as a Pujari offers his intentional prayer to god to gratify these cohorts.

In spite of colorful scenarios across sun-kissing beaches of Goa, red-hot missies and their bikini acts, the film doesn’t hold a substantive attributes, especially during the first hour, 3 friends—Rama Rajan (Jai), Vinayagam (Vaibhav) and Samikannu (Premji), - are rebels in the making, going against the superstitious beliefs of their conservative village and often landing themselves in trouble with the elders of the village. The cultural and religious practices of the village are so extreme that they prohibit the boys from even watching films, the pastime of south India! Unable to tolerate their repeated transgressions, the village elders decree that the three should no longer be able to maintain any kind of contact whatsoever.

They somehow managing to meet each other in disguise during a village festival, the three friends flee the village as an act of revenge against their overly strict families.

They go to Madurai, Where they get another shock whey they see that Rajan is getting married to a foreigner from the UK! At the wedding Samikannu has own electric, though unspoken, connection with one of Lisa’s friends, Jessica. After the wedding Rajan tells his story, how he and his bride Lisa met in Goa and fell in love. As if marrying a foreigner isn’t enough, the boys are floored to hear that Rajan is going to settle in London with a cushy job to boot, courtesy of her father! The boys, Rama Rajan in particular, are amazed by the idea that a beautiful, rich, white woman could fall in love with a very average looking, lower-middle class guy from rural India. Rama Rajan plans and then convinces his friends that they should go to Goa. They could find a white girl, marry her and then settle down in a foreign country.

It’s almost like paradise-come down on earth for these young village guys… But sooner they realize, that true love lies beyond their perceptions.

Few scripts are good to read over the papers, but unconvincing on the screens. Need an illustration? ‘Goa’ amply justifies it. On the point, the first 30mins flapdoodles with a very long establishment of characters and Venkat Prabhu could’ve trimmed those sequences.

In the second hour, there’s some interesting act of fetching gold in casino club over the cruise, but the transient drama fails to engross us. Of course, it’s a blatant inspiration of Hollywood’s ‘Ocean 12’ and lots of resemblances from ‘American Pie’, ‘Beer Fest’ and so on.

Premji entertains with his prominent presence.

Tags: goa | jai | vega | premji | piyaa | jessica | sneha | vaibhav | soundarya rajinikanth | ocher studios | spb charan | venakat prabhu | yuvan shankar raja | sampath kumar