I have been wondering for quite some time that films in general, and Tamil movies more specifically, with big star names are degenerating from bad to worse. There are two simple and significant reasons. The focus is mainly on the so-called ‘box office’ and ‘star value’ and, well, ‘a lot of ACTION’. 

Please remember these popular stars have not entered the filmdom with the types of films they now act in, and enjoy mass appeal. 

Let me first take the example of the Great Super Star Rajnikant. He made an innocuous entry as a repenting vagabond husband of a popular singer MRB, in KB’s ‘Apoorva Ragangal’ as a last resort to have a peaceful death. Even in the second outing, ‘Moondru Mudichu’ by the same director, he played a villain with a crooked mind, ultimately defeated by the heroine Sridevi. 

After a dozen or similar useless insignificant movies, with ‘Basha,’ he touched the pinnacle and earned the sobriquet ‘Super Star’ by actor-producer Balaji. All the films that followed later are one and the same with a single storyline of good (SS) versus bad (some useless villain). The Tamil audience lapped them up, and still with glee, forgetting some of the good ones like ‘Mullum Malarum’, ‘Aarilirundthu Arubathu Varai’, ‘Thillu Mullu’ and ‘Nallavanukku Nallavan’ to name a few. 

Then a versatile Kamal Hassan also jumped into the ditch of action following his juniors and contemporary Rajnikant, banking on ‘action movies’. His entry was also not as a fisticuff hero but as a rebel who falls in love with a woman who is older than him. Later, when he too shifted to vendetta themes like ‘Nayakan’ and ‘Apoorva Sahaodarargal’, the movie carried some novelty and a story. Today, he has too, in the bandwagon of fights, blood, gore, and violence, touching abysmal depths of obscenity through his recent ‘Thug Life.’

Vijay was identified and liked more for his love stories, starting with ‘Poove Unakkaga’ and ‘Kathalukku Mariyadai’, and a host of love stories. Soon he was lured to play rough roles with ‘Gilli’ and whatnot, which are all action-packed with more fight scenes than emotional or even tender love scenes. 

Ajith didn’t fit in this fisticuff affair even remotely when his ‘Kadal Kottai’ became a superhit. Even his villainy in ‘Vaali’ wasn’t appreciated, so was his savvy hero of ‘Kandukonden Kandukonden’. Later, he too was pushed to become a fighter, hitting, kicking, and breaking limbs and glasses with directors who ultimately closed his career with his most absurd last outing. 

Who likes these mindless fight scenes bizarrely choreographed by stuntmen? Are breaking glasses, or concrete structures, chandeliers, by deploying computer graphics extensively, giving a kick to the viewers? The youth of today, whose grey cells in the brain are already overloaded and can only be provoked by such impossible stunts.

Films are for entertainment, no doubt, but they too have a responsibility and public commitment. The ‘simpleton’ superstar, ‘intellectual’ Kamal Hassan, ‘political aspirant’ Vijay, and ‘real action man’ Ajith couldn’t keep on feeding the masses just with horrible, bloody (really and figuratively) stories and sickening stunts, and violence forever.