Jai is certainly not the best of performers in our cinema, but he does have a certain helplessness in his look and demeanour that still fetches him roles. In Jarugandi , he is cast as Sathya, an ordinary lower middle-class youngster who desperately wants to come up in life. He’s an expert in breaking open cars and scooting away with them, but that isn’t going to get him too far. In order to earn more money and, as they say, “settle in life”, he borrows a loan from an unscrupulous money lender that lends him in all sorts of trouble.
- Genre: Comedy
- Cast: Jai, Reba, Robo Shankar, Daniel Pope, Ilavarasu
- Storyline: A middle class youngster wants to make quick money and lands in a mess
The attempt in Jarugandi is to make a Kalakappu -like comedy of errors but it ends up falling flat. That’s because director Pichumani takes on too many things; he wants to tell us about an interesting bank loan scam that takes place, but has to quickly move on to the laughs. And so, we have to sit through a love track between Robo Shankar and (yes, you read that right) and supposedly-menacing villains whose agenda we have no clue about.
Things get more taxing than engaging in the second half as the film veers into some needless romance and song-and-dance. There are more unwarranted sequences, which includes a fight at a hospital. And the heroine (Reba Monica John) wails: “ Enna suthi enna nadakarthunu terila ” (“I don’t know what’s happening around me”). Staring at the big screen, we’re tempted to say the same.
The comedy works only in a few places, largely thanks to Paari (Daniel Pope). It’s a typical hero’s friend role, but Daniel has you grinning with his over-the-top expressions and funny T-shirts. In a largely-aimless film, those are among the minor things that manage to keep you amused.
