She simply lends some 'mangalam' (her name in the film) to the proceedings before disappearing. Simran looks lovely but one would have to be generous to call her role anything more than an extended cameo. His comic timing remains spot on - that throwaway 'biryani dealer' line had me in splits. It is not for nothing that he is called a director's actor. Rajini can sleepwalk through the motions of style by now, but he is there packing in as much as he can. Later in the film, he uses Jayalalithaa's punchline - "Seiveergala" - adding that it's not enough to ask if they will do it, they have to do it. Rajini plays the Nammavar kind of mentor to the students, but when he's talking about setting things at the hostel right, the political undertones are hard to miss. And if this wasn't enough, Anirudh's constant background score and the colouring underline the "mass" in every frame.Įveryone's waiting patiently for Karthik to make the revelation and he prolongs the moment with one distraction after another. From the very first moment when we hear of Kaali, people are always giving him "build-up" - "we don't know who he is but he beat up everyone", "look at him, he is aware of our presence and he will turn now", "he is not an ordinary man" etc etc etc.
Unlike Baasha, to which the film liberally references (that "Ullepo!" still manages to raise goosebumps on your skin), there is no transformation from 'innocent underdog' to 'badass gangster'. Of course, nobody in the audience believes for a second that he's just a hostel warden. We meet him as the temporary hostel warden at St Woods College and by the end of the film, I was still left dissatisfied by the flimsy explanation for why he was there in the first place. Rajini certainly looks stylish but you wish the director had given him something more to do other than alternating between flicking his sunglasses and hair, in between beating people up. The first half, in fact, suffers from acute Rajinitis, with Karthik unapologetically stuffing every frame with "mass" - or his interpretation of it. A thread in the story develops along the lines of Thalapathy but is then subverted, Karthik-style, there's even a 'Muthu watches' in the background in the fight scene before the interval. His name is Kaali (from Mullum Malarum - and the director of that film, J Mahendran, appears in a small role in Petta the song 'Raman andalum' appears at a crucial juncture too), he has an origin story similar to that of Thalapathy, there's an Anwar ( Baasha) who plays an important role in his life, the 'paambu' joke, a Rajini staple, gets a nod, as well. For fanboys and fangirls, Petta offers a fun spot-the-Rajini-film reference game.
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