Aranmanai 4 movie review: A new day and a new Aranmanai film ...
There have been some positive changes in the new installment of Sundar C’s Aranmanai 4. For one, we don’t get those sleazy shots of actresses that pass as comedy in the director’s films. The quintessential glamour song, something of a trademark in his films, is missing too. This confirms Sundar C is aware of the criticism against his films and is taking steps to combat it. Now, only if he had avoided the unabashed laziness in the writing as well. Other than these cosmetic changes, there’s little difference between Aranmanai 4 and the earlier installments in the franchise. But then, the effortless template has been turned into the USP of the franchise. Other than the titular palace, we have the same two heroines, a bunch of actors who try to sell their silliness as comedy, and an impending village festival featuring a Hindu goddess, who will add to the final touch in the climax. Selvi (Tamannaah) and her husband (Santhosh Pratap) live in a palace in the middle of a forest in a remote village. A perfunctory song depicts them as a happy and loving family. The idea here is to make us emotionally invested in them. We are supposed to feel for the family when it gets destroyed by an evil spirit.
Honestly, the initial sequence of the ghost’s invasion is intriguing. The mystery around the proceedings makes you curious about what went down on that day. When it is finally revealed as a generic flashback, I blamed myself for even that sliver of expectation. Instead of an evil spirit — that of a good woman — exacting her revenge, this time Sundar C borrows ideas from Assamese folklore about a ghost called Baak. According to the folklore, the malevolent supernatural creature lives on the waterbodies. It assumes the identity of its victims after killing them and lives with their families in disguise. Yet, it is still unknown how this Baak makes any difference to the template Aranmanai story. Any ghost would have done the job. It is not like Sundar C has explored the characteristics of this Assamese ghost. The shapeshifting ability is the only aspect of Baak that is useful to the story. However, for a movie franchise that has become successful in its ability to make people laugh at the violence of ghosts, a logical explanation for its superpower is unnecessary. No one would bat an eye if Sundar C wrote a ghost that could change its identity. The whole point of the genre is to not look for rationality, right? Also, look at the length the director had to go to bring the ghost from Assam to a small remote village in Tamil Nadu.
About the village, it is perhaps the most sophisticated and rich one out there in Tamil Nadu. The festival is like the good old Dasara where instead of Ram, we have Tamil native god Mariayamman killing a demon. The effigies of the two are bigger than the temple in the paace and have lifts and advanced fireworks. That’s the problem with a film like Aranmanai 4. On one hand, one has suspend disbelief as one is watching an ‘entertaining’ horror comedy, while, on the other, you have the director trying to explore folklore for this puerile film. Such inconsistencies leave one confused about whether or not to take this confounding mess seriously. If entertainment is the sole purpose of the film, it is a glorious failure. The film is just an unending sequence of painfully boring antics of Yogi Babu, Kovai Sarala, and VTV Ganesh and poorly done jump scares that suffer from subpar CGI work.
Yet all such sluggish work comes across as a conscious decision as the filmmaker doesn’t want his audience to expend their brain. It is tailormade for Instagram Reels-watching audiences who can simultaneously follow undemanding ‘content’ in their palms and on the big screen. Sundar C, in a recent interview claimed that critics don’t praise commercial films as it might make them lose the ‘intellectual tag’. But it seems the director is the one finding solace in ‘commercial cinema’ tag to hide the lack of creativity. When did commercial films and bad films become synonymous?
Aranmanai 4 cast: Tamannaah, Raashi Khanna, Sundar C, Kovai Sarala, Yogi Babu
Aranmanai 4 director: Sundar C
Aranmanai 4 rating: 1 star
