The Fourth Monkey

symbolism has been a mainstay in indian filmdom for ages. be it the locket with the picture of a loved one inside, the bandanna that the hero ties on to indicate a one-sided fight or the family song that helps reunite everything from lost dogs and the old rickshaw-driver to their rightful families. these are all symbolic devices that put the move in the movie. in ayudham the fourth monkey is one such symbol which while occuring only twice in the whole movie aptly sums up the entire story.
siva is a happy-go-lucky guy who gets into unnecessary fights.his father is a constable who doesn't want him to do so. the fourth monkey makes his first appearance here. when his dad points out the 3 philosophical Gandhian monkeys that neither see, hear or speak no evil , siva rummages around and finds the fourth monkey which is curiously posed like a bhajan singer with clappers in its hands.siva takes the walking stick from the gandhi statue nearby and places it in those hands making the fourth monkey the see-evil-hit-it-with-stick monkey.
his dad though does not get the point even when taught with such brilliant visuals and like every other father he manages to meet the health minister who comes to their city for a visit and gets siva a medical seat in a college in madras hoping he wont get into any more trouble. (side note : prashanth who plays siva has already attended medical school once in the US , in Jeans .he might be acclimatising himself to indian humans in case , like road rules, the human heart is on the right for desis ) . he meets and likes maha(sneha) there who also instantly likes him. but a local goon is infatuated with maha and won't let anyone get near her.according to statistics he has killed 12 who loved her, blinded 9 who looked at her and cut the arms of 5 who hit on her (literally) by mistake. i long for the times when villains used to be public servants smuggling drugs or making illicit liquor and generally abducting any woman they liked. these modern baddies are obssessed with one girl making themselves vulnerable (usually a trait of the heroes and exploited by the baddies) and at the same time robbing the viewers of a lewd item number.
siva decides to love maha full time and takes on the don's goons. moving away from convention he first makes sure his familes are safe before he goes after the goon and finally gets news that the goon has gotten away to mumbai. things seem to return to normal and the fourth monkey makes yet another appearance when siva's dad himself takes the stick from gandhiji's hand and places it in the fourth's hand symbolising above all else that dads reserve the right to call their offspring monkeys without indicating anything about their own origins. but obviously the villain is still around and kills maha's father before finally perishing in a climax that was eerily similar to terminator but for a change the goon was running around with the damsel while a severely injured siva climbed stairs looking very much like a robot.anyway it ends with the goon dying in a flaming pool of his own petrol.
i didnt listen to the music but the picturization was over the top for some songs.there is one in the streets of london with caucasians dressed in lungis and fisherwomen outfits.
if you have a feeling you have seen this movie, its alright. most of the scenes and some lines also have been lifted from Run (a 2002 film with Madhavan in the lead, the precursor to this strong-yet-clever hero genre) and its all because of
the fifth monkey who is hiding behind the scenes - the director who apes several other movies without compunction. its one thing to make a film of the same genre that is currently popular, totally another thing to lift an entire script and replacing the characters. its like my attempt to copy programming code by replacing only the variable names. but the monkey concept - all original. kudos to the director for coming up with something this banal.
my next flick is a few days away so read this guy's stuff instead so u also know what a good review is about.