Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Ethir Neechal - See it if you are running aficionado

(எதிர்  நீச்சல் ) Ethir Neechal  Movie Review

This is must see movie if you are runner from Chennai.  Ethir Neechal stars several Chennai Runners, Ramesh Mangaleswaran, Tiger Swami, Govind, Venkat Rangan, Ridhima Suri to name a few. You would miss them if you blink.. so don't blink.

Just to be sure, Ethir Neechal is is not a running movie but  the entire second half is devoted to running.  The movie is about a man wanting to achieve something for a wrong reason and decides to run a marathon. He wants to achieve something to get his 'new name', Harish stick as he is embarrassed about his 'old name' Kunjithapatham (குஞ்சிதபாதம்).

This movie has the usual ingredients and with Sivakarthikeyan as the main protagonist, there is no dearth of comedy.  The movie makers have taken lot of cinematic liberty in shooting the marathon sequence.  But I wish, they had done some homework before shooting the running sequence.

Thankfully, they did not show the hero beating the world record, though show Siva beating several 'Ethiopians'.  The movie is replete with factual erros like the mention of 14K as half mark which must be crossed in 30 minutes.

There is plenty of clips from The Wipro Chennai Marathon 2012 and The Hyderabad Marathon 2012.  They are interspersed with running sequence shot separately of the hero winning the marathon by a whisker of margin.

Ethir Neechal also touches the sensitive topic 'gender' verification tests and the play of money / politics in national meets.

As runner, I could find many flaws in the movie.  But nevertheless happy to see Tamil movies coming with running theme.  This is the second one this season with the first one being Haridas.  So, would recommend this movie just for that reason.

Bottomline - See the movie, if you are a running aficionado. 
Rating - *** (Three Stars out of Five)

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