Director Samy is famous (read notorious) for films that touch taboo subjects like the lust of a sister-in-law for her husband's brother in ‘Uyir’, AIDS in ‘Mirugam’, and the sexual relationship between a father-in-law and his daughter- in- law in ‘Sindhu Samaveli’. Samy claimed that in ‘Kangaroo’ he has discarded controversial issues and has focused on the love and care between a brother and sister promising a “Clean Family Entertainer”. The film is no doubt clean and does revolve around a family, but whether it entertains is another story.
Murugesan aged about ten brings his infant sister to Kodaikanal, where a provision store owner Nadaar (Thambi Ramaiah) takes pity on the kids and gives them a place to stay. A grown Murugesan (Arjuna) is a tea stall owner who looks every bit a ruffian, talks little, does not show any emotions, has animalistic behavior, carnivorous eating habits and drinks arrack in litres. The one person who is the world to him, is his sister Azhagu (Priyanka) on whom he dotes so much that people around call him Kangaroo. There is also Chellam (Varsha Ashwatha) a friend of Azhagu who loves Murugesan. The villain group consists of Ticket (Kalabhavan Mani) who wants to push Chellam in the flesh trade with the help of her sister who is already in it and a jeep driver who lusts for Azhagu. Murugesan bashes the two men for disturbing his sister and her friend and an enmity ensues. Murugesan discovers that his sister is in love with another jeep driver Mani and arranges for the marriage between the two much to the jealousy of Ticket and his friend. Just before the marriage Mani falls from a cliff and dies. After a few months Murugesan convinces Azhagu to marry again and fixes a groom who also dies from electrocution. Brother and sister move to another town where she gets married, but an attempt on the husband too is made injuring him severely and the unknown killer is ready to try again at the hospital. What happens to the brother and sister and who kills off every suitor of Azhagu forms the rest of the screenplay which has two unexpected twists in the climax.
Arjuna has put in a lot of efforts for his role, but is let down by poor and inconsistent characterization. Priyanka as Azhagu has acquitted herself quite well and Varsha Ashwatha is neither here nor there. Veterans Thambi Ramaiah and R. Sunderrajan could have been cut from any of their other movies and pasted here. The talented Kalabhavan Mani hams it to the hilt. Director Samy too has a role of an investigative police officer who unravels the major twist in the screenplay.
Technically Raja Ratnam’s camera, Mani’s editing and singer Srinivas’s debut music are passable. Samy has taken the love between a brother and sister as the core of the subject, but fails to convey that to the audience as we only hear people talking often about how much they love each other but are shown very little to get us to connect to the characters. There are only two places where the director scores , one is when the identity of the killer is revealed and then the final twist, which is touching, revealed only to the audience but not to the characters.
Director Samy has really chosen a great knot about the psychological effects of over possessiveness but the execution (which is in the eighties style) is a big let down and all we can say is better luck next time.
Verdict : 2/5
