Express News Service
Directors funding the first project of their assistants is not a common occurrence, with a handful of filmmakers like AR Murugadoss, Shankar and Mani Ratnam doing so. Karthik Subbaraj now joins that list as he has turned producer for Triples, made by his erstwhile associate, Charukesh Sekar. I ve tried to incorporate my learnings from Karthik Subbaraj in this web series, including staging and drawing best performances, says Charukesh.
Excerpts:
Karthik, your recent films like Mercury and Petta have not had your brand of humour seen in earlier films like Pizza and Jigarthanda. Was this why you were drawn to this project?
Triples review: All of Tamil cinema can’t save this bummer of a web series The biggest shame with Triples is that it had potential. A sharper commentary on the world and a cleverer dialogue writer could have made Triples an absolute delight of a show. Ranjani Krishnakumar December 14, 2020 14:05:12 IST
Language: Tamil
It is not uncommon among Tamil filmmakers in general, and the Karthik Subbaraj production house in particular, to want to pay homage to the past.
Triples chooses Crazy Mohan’s oeuvre. Ram, played by a surprisingly adept Jai, is on the verge of marrying Mythili (Madhuri MJ), after a heart-breaking divorce from Meera (Vani Bhojan). Situation has it that Meera wants to reunite with Ram. His friends Cheenu (Rajkumar), Maadhu (Vivek Prasanna) and his wife Janaki (Namita Krishnamurthy) decide to play cupid.
Express News Service
The main characters of Disney Hotstar’s Triples go by names like Maadhu, Cheenu, Mythili and Janaki. You hear these names; you think of Crazy Mohan such is the impact of the late actor-writer’s contribution to the Tamil comedy scene. Somewhere early in the first episode of this eight-episode web-series, Ram (Jai) and friends borrow money from a loan shark named Baby Chettaa, and proceed to open a coffee shop called Kalakkitta Da (do I need to explain the pun?).
The said Chettaa, before lending his money, says he’s like a bank. Ram and friends smile in relief. But then Chettaa wears his face of menace and takes a deep breath meant to increase the effect of his punchline and clarifies that he is a ‘blood bank’.
Jai and Rajkumar in ‘Triples’
Writer Balaji Jayaraman and director Charukesh Sekar deserve credit for conjuring up quite a few funny situations, and the actors revel in them
The Crazy Mohan connection to ‘Triples’, which is playing on Disney + Hotstar VIP, is unmissable. The lead character is named Ram and there’s a girl called Mythili in the scheme of things. No, we weren’t thinking about ‘Panchathanthiram’.
Much later, the lead pair stealthily wanders around with a newspaper covering their faces. No, we weren’t thinking about ‘Michael Madana Kama Rajan’ at all.
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