I am a fan of Venkat Prabhu from the very first film he made. (I have even managed to catch his acting debut earlier...). Saroja was a good follow up and I couldn't wait to see to Goa right on the first day. Infact I imagined, he took much longer with this one than his other movies. Goa went sold out on the day of release thanks to all the promos and hype and I ended up watching Tamil Padam instead. Reviews pronounced it an average movie and I almost fell for it. Caught it a good 2 weeks after the release and here I am, my faith in Venkat completely restored.
Goa is cinema like we have never seen it before. Atleast in Tamil cinema. Here we are stuck with thali sentiments, item numbers and round trolley shots of our heroes and Goa just lets you laugh at it's heroes all the two and a half hours you are with them. The movie is mad, impulsive and hilarious. If you walk into the theatre everytime expecting good cinema with parameters like story, screenplay, dialogues, songs and music, my suggestion would be to avoid Goa. This is definitely not for the high -brow. Instead if you are all game to be entertained with spoofs, jokes - some bad, some good and a good deal of lunacy, go for it. The movie defies any sense of logic and is carried purely by the madeness of the leading trio. And surprise, inspite of an overdose of half clad (actually not even half clad) women prancing around the beach, the director has given his female characters their due.
Jai, Vaibhav and Premgi as Vinayakam, Ramarajan and Samikannu run away from their village to escape their parents. Meeting a friend in Madurai convince them to get married to a white woman to go abroad and make their fortune. And for this, they set out to Goa. Please do not look for any logic beyond this point. Now they are Vinay, Ram and Sam all set to paint the town red. But it is Jack (Akash Arvind) and Danny (Sampath) who get the ball rolling. Never before has tamil cinema even discussed alternate sexuality leave alone present it with such sensitivity. It's flawless acting from Sampath. Considering it is the villians who are stuck with their image the most in the industry it is a casting victory. The character of Roshni (Piya) is again a welcome change to tamil cinema. We actually get to see a heroine who seems real! I tried figuring out what Suhasini (Sneha) was all about, then decided to forget and watch the fun. You'll end up doing this several times during the film.
So, Jai's funny, Vaibhav's cute and Premji is nutty. A breezy romance, pretty women and what else?? Yes, the songs... they are bad. The title track and 'Idhu varai' is hummable. I was too busy laughing to notice the background score. Sorry Yuvan, do something better for your cousins the next time. Not all the jokes are funny. But here's a bunch of guys who will do anything to make you laugh. Why not indulge them a bit?
