With songs and gratuitous action blocks, heist thrillers have always been made with shortcomings. Vemal’s new adult-comedy-heist-romantic-
There is a strong reasoning behind the protagonists turning thieves in the film and a good flow for a hyper-linked climax. As we have been witnessing a number of adult comedy movies in recent days, IEMI, unlike others, has a proper story and screenplay. However, like every other film, the movie also has its own share of sleazy shows and objectification and humiliation of women.
The story has some unique far removed-from-life roles. Take Vemal’s character Hari – a wannabe millionaire and also a pervert who loses all his money because of women – the combination which itself is quirky and puts him in trouble again and again. The writer could have made wonders with this combination but has limited that. Similar is, Anand Raj’s ‘Annachi’ role, which makes sense at times with his satirical one-liners – ‘Nee pota sathatha ketu naalu peru velaya vittu poitaan‘.
On the other hand, there are also lines like, ‘Ivalo sambaathikanumna naama pombalaya poranthurukanum‘ and ‘Agamotham inga entha pombalayum pombalayaa illa‘, that are direct defamation of women. It’s becoming a habit in cinema where degrading women becomes the selling point of films. Just a thought – what if a woman filmmaker directs an adult-comedy where men are body-shamed or defamed? It is time for the men belonging to the Tamil film fraternity to revisit and reboot the system.
In some scenes, we feel like there is no logic like where Hari takes advantage of Ashna Zaveri without even knowing her name in the beginning. If a movie is remade from a different language, that doesn’t mean all the mistakes, too, are to be brought to the new version.
Going by the story-line, the essence of IEMI should have been all about why an economically-weaker duo opts for committing a crime and end up in trouble which is discussed lesser compared to its sleazy show. Whatever the narration style – adult-comedy or heist-comedy – this takeaway goes mostly missing in the movie.