Friday Review: 49-O

The comedy king of Tamil cinema, Goundamani, has reappeared in a movie after long back and also led the film titled 49-O. The movie released in Sep 2015 deals with the state of farmers and fertile lands being transformed into housing plots though political satire. Goundamani as the protagonist haven’t come back to do a regular comedy role as hero, which most comedians prefer do to these day but acted prudentially in a serious character along his counter dialogues for what he’s famous for.

Goundamani is a genuine farmer and believes that fertile land is the future, oppose to the farmers decided to sell their fertile land to a real estate company but their poverty forced them to go ahead with the decision and later deceived by the company and local politician. The people realizes their mistake and to help farmers get back their lands, Goundamani come with a plan of promoting his own fertile land but instead of making housing plots he develops  graveyards, beside the lands of farmers to block the business of the company.

As another step to regain their fertile land, they decides to sell their votes instead of politicians fix the amount, usually, they come up with a sum to be paid for vote. Later they nominate their own candidate and propagate for his victory against the local politicians… but unfortunately he was murdered. At that moment, Goundamani starts a pioneering movement and how did that help them to regain their fertile lands is rest of the story. Like one man army, Goundamani bears the entire movie and his age isn’t an issue while his energy level on entertainment front is still adequate.

With simple story, Goundamani’s strong dialogue delivery and script writing upholds the farmer’s struggles and political satire as the highlight of the scenario. The land promoters has been excoriated a lot and much of illusions relevant to the fake promises by them has been revealed in fun manner. The music/songs and cinematography has been average, but nothing to complain about and many scenes have been straightforward so the film concludes in less than 2 hours. The movie is worth watching for the strong social message that supports the value system of farming and re-entry of Goundamani - for his political counter! 

Btw. 49-O is a rule referred to The Conduct of Elections Rules in Indian, a procedure to be followed when a valid voter decides not to cast his vote and decides to record this fact.