Me and my dad dont agree on things normally, but we agreed that the hindi version - "A Wednesday" was better than the tamil remake - "Unnaipol Oruvan". Naseeruddin Shah is good at underplaying his roles and the "common man" billing fit him to the tee in the movie. The biggest disadvantage the tamil version had to do with the aura surrouding the two super stars - Kamal and Mohanlal. While it was a very subdued performance from the former, the malayalam star played his role with aplomb. Casting of Lakshmi as the chief secretary and the May Madham kid as the IIT dropout with his forced accent was a real letdown. Adding Santhanam Bharathi as one of the mercenaries diluted the seriousness of the context to a certain extent. The two police officers aiding Mohanlal, were too fit to be believed to be from the Tamilnadu police. Kamal for all his creative skills, is often culpable of trying to be too preachy in few of his movies ( his trademark...aaa....aaaaa....was missed in this movie ); luckily in this one he doesnt go over-board on that count.
Shurti Hassan's debut score is pretty average and I believe the rocker image of hers is evident in her music too. Believe Kamal did strain his vocal cords for an operatic segment of the background score.
Strong points : short duration, muted patriotism, no glorification of the superstars, no songs
Weak points : mis-casting, the reason behind Kamal's reason to do what he did in the movie isnt as convincing as one in Hindi, dubbing was out of place in few segments
Still a very good movie, compared to the punch dialogue laden fare from Kollywood.
