Consistency. It is what the committees that review and certify Tamil films lack. For instance, last week’s Dhanush film Asuran , was given a U/A certificate. But those who watched the movie can attest that director Vetri Maaran was allowed to retain a significant portion of the gory violence that drove the storyline.
This week’s release, Puppy , also has a U/A certificate. Yet Nattu Dev has been told to censor words like “bit-tu” and “matter” (colloquial lingo that refers to porn content and sex respectively). The English word “porn” is muted. Even the abbreviation “GST” does not escape sanctions. What blows my mind is that the certifying authority deemed “matter” as a completely fine word to use in Siva Manasula Sakthi (2009). It is incredible what effect the passage of time (10 years, in this case) can have on our sensibilities and intolerance quotient!
But I digress. Puppy , the film, for want of a better comparison is like the South Indian savoury ‘mixture’. There are a lot of elements to process.
Like, why is Yogi Babu dressed in different football outfits throughout? He represents every club from Manchester United to Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus, and yet has only one scene of note where he actually plays football — a scene which could not have been more out of place in a film, that aspires to be everything under the sun.
- Cast: Varun, Yogi Babu, Samyuktha Hegde
- Director: Nattu Dev
- Storyline: A “morattu single” on his quest to lose virginity discovers love, sex and also saves his pet dog
The film begins with us being introduced to the one and only “ morattu single” we need to worry about — Prabhu (played by Varun). He is upset that the Government has banned porn websites, and is caught watching porn during college hours that leads to his suspension. Along the way, we are treated to dialogues that would not sound out of place on a message board for incels.
Since I watched the “funny sequences” amid a crowd of largely morattu singles, and who happened to laugh hard, at times, for some of the scenes, I was stuck with a dilemma. Is this really what passes off as humour for the younger generation? Should I be laughing too? It was a good thing that the film did not leave me too much of time to introspect, for, within the next 10 minutes, I had been introduced to two more parallel story lines — one that involves a dog (hence the name Puppy), and one with a love interest.
Since both of those storylines were nothing but generic, I got to thinking about the comedy again. It is adolescent humour that works for Pupp y but it would only appeal to a certain section of the audience: the kind of all-male audience that I was watching the film with. It also, weirdly, helps that Nattu Dev’s lead actor walks through the entire film with a deer-in-headlights look.
But this is only one half of the story. The gist of the second half — what happens when morattu singles are spoken to about the values associated with pregnancy (read as: abortion is wrong), and are made to watch Yogi Babu play football? Boredom.
The film also has Anirudh singing about how it feels great to hook up, and then we have Gautham Menon (in the second half) singing about why that one night stand was a mistake!
Like I said: a mixture. Taste it at your own risk.
