According to the trailer, Vijay Sethupathi was the luckiest man on the planet, as he got to romance two beautiful women, Nayanthara and Samantha. However, the character he plays in Vignesh Shivan's Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal - Rambo - is nothing but misfortune. He brings bad luck to people, such as his mother, who has a stroke soon after he is born. Or he suffers - for example, when he wants a chocobar, the very last piece has just been sold to someone else, or a crow shits on it. But Rambo soon reverts to the man we saw in the trailer. His bad luck appears to end when he meets Kanmani (Nayanthara) and Khatija (Samantha). One image says it all:
This is a two-part film: There are two religions and two women. There are two types of cinematography: naturalistic and neon-lit: a scene shot on Napier's bridge appears radioactive-green. Anirudh's chart-topping songs are divided into two categories: beat-heavy party songs that keep you tapping your feet and melodious tracks like Naan pizhai. Given that I just mentioned that song, allow me to express my admiration for Vignesh Shivan as a lyricist. "naan nenacha thonum edame," as the song goes. What a lovely thought: the woman becomes the imagined destination of the man. Anyway, Anirudh's songs' two flavours reflect the two heroines: the homebound Nayanthara always wears saris, and the pub-hopping Khatija always wears Western clothes.
The narrative structure appears to be divided into four quarters, or four sub-genres. First, we get a sort of dry dramedy, in which the comedy is layered beneath the drama. Then there's a romance. Following the intermission, we get a kind of bedroom farce, with two women cat-fighting over a man: here, the drama is layered beneath the comedy, and we finally get a relationship drama. Everything is conceptually fascinating, and there are some fantastic laugh-out-loud moments, particularly in the second half. However, the film fails to come together. Tonally, it's all over the place, and I believe this is why. Take, for example, Vignesh Shivan's Paava Kathaigal episode.
Of course, you could argue that Kaathuvaakula isn't meant to be taken seriously, which is why we don't get a single defining relationship moment between Rambo and Kanmani, or Rambo and Khatija. You could argue that the director is spoofing the types of triangular situations we see on TV shows, where someone listens to sob stories - say, of men who have two wives - and then renders a decision. In addition, the film's clumsy framing device is a TV show hosted by Prabhu that is heavy on exposition. I wished the situations had played out as scenes instead of being explained to us through dialogue.
