| Release date: 09 September 2011 |
| Rating : 3.5/5 |
| Director : Venkat Prabhu |
| Producer : Bellamkonda Suresh |
| Music Director : Yuvan Shankar Raja |
| Starring: Ajith Kumar, Trisha Krishnan, Arjun, Lakshmi Rai, Andrea Jeremiah and others |
The Tamil film Mankatha has been dubbed into Telugu as Gambler and the movie is Ajith’s 50th film. Trisha and Lakshmi Rai play the female leads in this movie directed by Venkat Prabhu.Mankatha has had a blockbuster run in Tamil so let us see how it fares.
What its about : The movie revolves around the cricket betting Mafia and the humongous amounts of money that are involved in it.Vinayak (Ajith) is a suspended playboy cop. He is romantically involved with Sanjana (Trisha) and so comes into contact with Sanjana’s father Reddy (Jayaprakash), who controls all the betting and gambling activities of Dharavi in Mumbai. Vinayak easily earns the trust of Reddy.
Sumanth (Vaibhav) is a trusted aide of Reddy and knows the ins and outs of his illegal businesses.When Sumanth comes to know that 500 Crores of betting money is being brought to Reddy’s den for the IPL final, he becomes greedy and hatches a plan to steal the money with his buddies Mahath (Mahath) – A bar owner, Ganesh (Ashwin) – A Police Inspector and Prem (Premgi Amaren) – A brilliant IT expert.
Vinayak learns about the plan and forcibly makes his way into the gang. He provides his intelligence inputs and expertise to the operation and they make a successful heist. The ultra glamorous Sona (Lakshmi Rai) seduces some of the team members for a cut of the money. All hell breaks loose when the five team members start to double cross each other. Into this mess comes in ACP Prithviraj (Arjun) who heads a special task force that is responsible for tracking down and eliminating the betting Mafia.
What follows is a cat and mouse game between all the parties for the huge amount of money.Who will end up with the money in the end? Who is to be trusted and who is the rogue?
What’s Good: There are a lot of things working in favour of this movie. But the biggest contributing factor without a doubt is Ajith. He delivers a career best performance as the stylish and suave playboy cop Vinayak. He towers over the film and arrests your attention with riveting histrionics. The last five minutes before the interval literally sent a chill down my spine. His character Vinayak has shades of grey all over, just like his hair. Ajith has put on some weight but the look suits the character perfectly. He smokes and drinks with gay abandon and it looks like he actually had a lot of fun playing this character.
Trisha is Ok as Sanjana. She doesn’t have much to do except to boss over Ajith’s character and chide him for his drinking and smoking. Her screen time is limited. Laksmi Rai however, is the bomb. Her character Sona looks hot, oozes glamour and is not afraid to show skin. She literally seduces the audience with her riveting performance. Lakshmi Rai is a major asset to the movie.
Arjun justifies his title ‘Action King’. He looks cool as the super cop Prithvi and his clashes with Ajith are a treat to watch.
The first half of the movie is terrific. ‘Gambler’ is a stylish and sophisticated heist drama in the first half and the movie takes liberal inspiration from the Hollywood Blockbusters like ‘The Italian Job’, ‘Armored’ and ‘Fast and the Furious’. The action sequences are well choreographed and look awesome on screen.
Premgi provides a few laughs as the bumbling IT expert Prem. Ashwin, Vaibhav and Mahath do a fabulous job as the conmen. Vaibhav in particular has a nice and meaty role. He is a fine actor and will shine if he chooses such characters. Andrea Jeremiah and Anjali are Ok in their short cameos.
The special effects for the opening titles and end credits are simply superb and are not to be missed. Don’t walk out of the theatre thinking the movie is over.
What’s Bad: A brilliant and sophisticated first half is sadly let down by a predictable and slightly illogical second half. The songs are not too good and appear at the wrong times. They spoil the tempo and flow of the movie. Except for the introduction song picturized over Ajith and Lakshmi Rai, all the other songs don’t even look good on screen.
Technical Departments : Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score and remixing work is absolutely terrific. Special mention must be made of the rocking sound track that accompanies Ajith throughout the movie.
Director Venkat Prabhu needs to be commended for handling Ajith’s stardom and image perfectly. He has done a decent job overall and his sound commercial sense will bring the Producers a lot of money. A slightly better screenplay would have worked wonders.Editing could have been better. Cinematography is top notch and adds to the movie’s stylish feel.
Verdict: Gambler is a 100% paisa vasool entertainer. Ajith is a treat to watch and the movie has something for everyone. If you can ignore some illogical screenplay and some crappy songs, the movie will entertain you fully and completely. The movie will do well in Andhra Pradesh as the B and C centre folks will also enjoy the action sequences and the glamour show of Lakshmi Rai. Go with your friends and have fun this weekend with ‘Gambler’.It is money well spent.
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