Pongadi Neengalum Unga Kaadhalum

You wouldn't expect a movie with an in-your-face title like Pongadi Neengalum Unga Kaadhalum to have sensitivity but shouldn't it at least be sensible? What we get is a crass fest that revels in MCP-isms and also has the gall to try and wash away all of that with a preachifying scene that is a half-baked take-off from the superbly written scene in Pasanga. While the latter drove home the message that a little praise can go a long way in keeping everyone happy, this film tells us that it is in the nature of women to expect praise and failure to do so by the men is what leads them to go astray.

The first half has very little in terms of plot development. All we get are two strands of plot. A young woman is date raped and captured on camera by her boyfriends, and so, she commits suicide. Her dad, a police commissioner, is desperate to catch the culprits, whose identity he doesn't know. Meanwhile, Divya, who is from an affluent family, woos the hero, a petty thief, with a vengeance, quite literally. Why is she after him and how do these two storylines meet? If the former is too abstract and involves a needlessly long party scene, the latter is an overdose of bad behaviour, the likes of which we have seen handled in Paruthiveeran with much finesse. Sample this: the hero asks the heroine to kiss him — in the middle of the road, in broad daylight — to prove that she truly loves him and when she is about to do so, he stops her, calls out to everyone on the street and then tells her to kiss him. And, that is not all, as right when she is about to kiss, he turns his head so that she is forced to kiss him on the lips!

In scene after scene, the female characters are portrayed in a demeaning way, sometimes in the name of humour and many times in the name of realism. A college girl is shown telling her friends to let the boys wait longer before making their move; a young woman is shown exploiting a married man who gifts her a costly phone, which she gifts to her other boyfr...