Director: VJ Gopinath
Solid: Vetri, Rohini, Karunakaran
Streaming On: Aha Tamil
Within the 2019 launch Jiivi, audiences had been introduced with a noir that has a fatalistic twist. Filmmaker VJ Gopinath took the drained narrative threads of a theft case and blended it up with implausible concepts of destiny, future, and inescapable karma. Regardless of its principally uninspired performances, the existential thriller managed to maintain us hooked with its relentless allure of the subject material. However the identical can’t be mentioned of Jiivi 2.
Buddies and companions in crime, Saravana (Vetri) and Mani (Karunakaran) return to the sequel, which picks up the place the unique left off. Saravana is now a married man and has left behind his scheming methods to maintain his blind spouse. Mani, however, stays unaltered. Although he’s nonetheless racked with guilt over shedding their gold loot, which received Saravana entangled in a karmic mess within the authentic, they attempt to decide up the items and transfer on with their lives. However in useless.
As an inebriated Saravana vents in a scene at an area bar — harking back to a vital sequence from the unique — no sum of money is sufficient to maintain a wedding. And so, he predictably goes again to his previous methods. That is conveyed symbolically with a signage on the bar that claims “thottal thodarum: in case you contact it, the behavior continues,” a phrase that alludes not simply to Saravana’s love for liquor, but in addition to depravity.
The sequel introduces us to new characters — however none of them make an impression for us to register their names or intentions. There’s an unsparing police officer (performed by Jawahar, who bears an uncanny resemblance to brother and actor Nasser), a bratty school scholar who splurges all his cash on costly whiskey and smokes, and his Tamil soap-loving paati. The sequel, like its predecessor, is wealthy with concepts however is clueless about what to do with all of it. As an illustration, the paati suffers from short-term reminiscence loss, a personality trait that might’ve been a possible goldmine in against the law thriller comparable to this. However the makers barely play up this angle. Characters like these are what made Jiivi an fulfilling journey. After all, the regulars within the universe, proprietor akka (Rohini) and Kathir (Mime Gopi) make their appearances within the sequel as properly, however their angst and arcs – which went on to be a part of the unique’s highlights — are underplayed.
Metaphysical theories comparable to thodarbiyal (coincidences that join generations of a household) and mukkona vidhi (the triangle idea of destiny) are explored by the prism of theft and demise within the sequel, too. However the identical ideas, which sounded refreshing within the authentic, find yourself sounding convoluted and drained in Jiivi 2. The movie additionally crams the frames with apparent visible metaphors, which find yourself shedding their worth. So, when the quantity ‘666’ is used to indicate — no factors for guessing — an individual’s devilishness and a lizard is seen as a harbinger of dangerous luck, we all know the movie isn’t huge on subtlety.
However to the movie’s credit score, not all metaphors are uninteresting. Scenes from Rajnikanth’s seminal 80s titles, Paddikadavan and Anbulla Rajini, are used and performed within the background as necessary allegories, usually symbolising the destiny of the principle characters. These small easter eggs within the sequel stay to be a few of the solely indicators of wit that Jiivi continues to be remembered for.