Devarattam- This is Muthaiyah's Avengers and he is not going to end this game.

Firstly, Gautham Karthik’s hairstyle in this film.

In Devarattam, he is a lawyer. I’m very sure lawyers follow a strict and formal dress/grooming code. And I’m 200% sure this unkempt, lengthy, hair-everywhere-on-the-face isn’t one of the them. It looks like Gautham Karthik, almost wants to rectify every single mistake he did in Muthuramalingam. Like he doesn’t want any shade of Muthuramalingam to be part of Devarattam. In the former, he comes as a personal jalapulengaz silambam coach for Priya Anand, in a neatly trimmed hairstyle. In Devarattam, it is just exactly the opposite- a hairstyle that blocks everything including his vision of becoming a better actor in Tamil cinema.

And then we have the villain’s introduction. He grabs an innocent fellow and screams on his face,
“En yethira vandaavay vettuven.
En yethiriya vandaa vettama irupena?”

In a few scenes later he announces,
“En maganai nee chumma paathaley poduven.”
In another scene, hero’s brother-in-law advises the hero,
“Inga nallavan nadaka mudiyaadhu,
Nallavanaa kooda nadaka mudiyaadhu.”

I am really worried about this village now. Everyone seems to be suffering from some sort of a strange arthritis issue that the general advice seems to be “Don’t walk!” If only audience were given the same advice while entering the theatre, they could have been saved.

Director Muthaiyah who has done films like Komban, Kuti Puli, Marudhu, Kodiveeran, attempts to portray the relationship between an unkempt hairstyled hero and his one sister, no two sisters, wait, he has 6 sisters in this film. Yet, he shows extra kilogram paasam towards the eldest sister for she brings him up as his son and not a brother. At one point, she utters, 

“Unnai pasi theriyama valarthuten nu ninaichen.
ippa thaan da theriyudhu unnai bayam theriyama valarthuten nu.”

More like, mudi vetta theriyama valarthuten.

For the huge koshti of sisters and brother-in-laws the hero has,

the film title, instead of Devarattam, could have been

 justified if it was 

titled Karagattam.

Hero’s father in the flashback threatens the villain,
“Vitu koduthu po ketu poga maatay”
Villain: “Enaku vitu koduthellam palagam kidaiyaadhu.
Vetu koduthu thaan palagam.”

The verbal diarrhea of rhyming lines continues and everyone in this film is given ample space for that. This is clearly Muthaiyah’s Avengers. His love and passion for violence-provoking dialogues galore and he does not show any signs of ending this rhyming game.
 
When we complain about loosu ponnu heroines, directors decide to change by crafting roles in which the women are given reputable career roles.
Yet there are still the same loosu ponnu.
They barely have any dialogues. They still aimlessly walk in songs.  They still wait for the hero to handle chaos or conflict. Manjima Mohan is one such employed loosu ponnu.

Avengers Muthaiyah in all his interviews almost pleads everyone not to see this as caste-pride film.
Of course, it is. 


The various references of Muthuramalinga Thevar statues/posters in songs and fight scenes are too obvious not to be noticed. The focus of the film is to ‘protect’ women and that itself stems from the deeply-rooted patriarchal values and toxic masculinity in the community where the women aren’t allowed to love/date anyone outside their community. The film sugar-coats this poison in the name of highlighting Pollachi rape case but, on the other side, it is only trying to spit venom ‘if we don’t protect the women and keep them under our control, they are going to ruin our pride’.

The danger signs are instantly visible when some men during the first day first show youtube reviews say, “Ithu Jaathi padam thaan. Naanga parpom” and “Ponnunga pethavanga sollrathai kettu nadakanum.” This is nothing but glorifying honour killing and every aspect of freedom that women are trying to fight for.

You want to mete out punishment to rapists. But taking a simplistic view of all girls need to be protected, and emphasizing that we can’t let others touch our girls or love our girls is where the problem starts.

And Devarattam is a massively problematic one.

The same film that wants to ‘protect’ women as though all of us are in ICU, makes fun of women’s dark-skin tone and her size.

The same film that wants to ‘celebrate’ women has the climax scene where the hero  says,
“Enaku poo vachu pottu vachu pombala mathiri anupi vachitu eppo yethuku enkita solreenga?”