Blastu Blastu! Thalapathy Kacheri Indeed: Why Jana Nayagan Finally Made Me Understand the Vijay Hype

To be celebrated as such a loved actor and now a politician—I suppose this is any human being's dream. What a banger of a final movie the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Joseph Vijay, has made! I could never understand what his hype was right from my D.A.V. days; all the little girls in my class were crazy about this lanky, hyper-dancing dude. However, I think I have finally understood the hype after watching Jana Nayagan. 

The movie had every single emotion that struck a chord with me. He plays the role of a single dad to a girl he is not even related to, a saviour of the state, and a man who empowers women. He walks into a school and openly educates every child—including myself, watching the movie from the comfort of my sofa—about sexual abuse. Add the use of special effects in the form of a robot army, and my mind was blown so many times over during the course of those two-plus hours. 

I suddenly found myself wanting to work alongside him and join his political party as a communications advisor. I cried when the girl he raised acknowledged him as the father who might not have given birth to her but raised her anyway. I also got goosebumps each time he slammed a patriarchal man in the movie who disrespected women by saying, "Women should just sit at home and make babies." 

What a movie! What a movie! I am so sad I didn't catch it on the big screen—there goes my last chance to catch Thalapathy in theatres. I absolutely loved that one scene where a framed portrait of the late actor-politician M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) comes alive, calls out to Vijay's character, Thalapathy Vetri Kondan, as "Thanga Thalapathy," and drops a black leather whip into his hands to fight the corrupt villains (played by Prakash Raj in that particular sequence). 

If I had any sadness about this movie, it was seeing my childhood crush Bobby Deol turned into a villain. From his long-haired "Soldier Soldier meethi baate bolkar, dil ko chura legaya" days, he has suddenly turned into the evil, power-hungry John Himmler after starting out as DCP Amrish Poojari. 

Leaving that one sadness of mine aside, I absolutely loved everything about Jana Nayagan—from the women empowerment scenes to the robot army sequences, and the entire single-dad aspect. What an emotional rollercoaster this film is. I cried, I laughed, I clapped, and I didn't want it to end. Blastu blastu! Thalapathy kacheri indeed!