Both Rakshit Shetty and Gautham Ramachandran tried something extremely bold and one of them pulled it off with flying colors, while the other went flat at several places.'Getting a remake right is almost as tough as converting a successful book into a movie,' is a tip that is passed under the breath in the Tinseltown. This needs no better example than Richie if one considers Gautham Ramachandran's debut movie as a remake of debutant Rakshit Shetty's Kannada classic Ulidavaru Kandante – As seen by the rest.
Post the release of the Nivin Pauly-starrer, film buffs and critics are busy drawing connection with the Kannada movie. While some consider Richie a loose Tamil translation of the original version released in 2014, others are busy arguing and bullying on social media to legitimize their point.
The absurdness of the whole affair is that they are trying to find a convergence point of two movies and characters traveling parallel yet in different directions and at different pace. Before you pit Richie against Ulidavaru Kandante (UK) or Nivin against Rakshit Shetty, who has also played the lead role in the film, or Rakshit against Gautham Ramachandran please go through these points-to-ponder.
Characters
The protagonist in UK: In UK, Rakshit has drawn his central character with darker shade. Richi, who shows signs of oppositional defiant disorder as a child, is molded into a perfect thug after a term in a juvenile home.
The protagonist in Richie: Gautham Ramachandran's Richie is a lonely man who keeps a false face of defiance to hide the marks of abuses he had to face in the juvenile home after being abandoned by his friend Raghu and father Rev. Sagayam. Richie's interactions with his father, close aide, childhood friend, and the god show a yearning for the normal life which has long ostracized him.
Rakshit, the one who crafted Richi, clearly understood the pulse of the character. There was not an iota of artificiality or compromises in Rakshit's portrayal of the character.
On the other hand, Nivin Pauly, who was also part Gautham's scripting team, nuanced Richie with some brighter shades, starting from the swag.
Unlike UK, in which Richi was just one of the lines mooring the story, Richie revolves around Nivin's character. Though these consciously taken detours have given some glorious moments to Richie and Nivin, they also prevented the movie and actor from scaling artistic heights.
Munna aka Lover boy: This is one character Rakshit left under the wraps of mystery. A man from the hills, Munna, is out of place in the coastal village. The things keeping him anchored at that place are rooted to a past from which he is running away, a stable job, and Regina, his lady love. Once in the boat and again while offered a joint by Balu, Munna hints at vices in his nature and how hard he is trying to keep them at bay.
Selvam aka Madurai Payal: Selvam in Richie is also running off from a troubled past but Gautham reveals the character's woes without leaving any room for mystery. A confused Selvam is forced to react when Richie kidnaps Kaka Peter, brother of Philomina – his love interest.
Kishore, who played Munna, and Natarajan Subramaniam aka Natty, who played Selvam, had great outing in Ulidavaru Kandante and Richie respectively. The only similarity between Munna and Selvam would be that they both were love struck mechanics who could not fix their own lives.
The plot
UK: Rakshit reflects life in a realistic way, where the good, the bad and the ugly coexist within each character. The movie is about an incident that happens in a coastal village and of those who are involved in it. The narration gives out only the needed backstories while pacing the nonlinear way.
Richie: Gautham modified the original script to lend more weight on Richie, the central character played by Nivin. He also added a pinch of myth to tell, symbolically, how transient is worldly happiness. Despite constructing his movie also in a neo-noir mold, Gautham tried to engage more popular cinema hues into Richie.
Both the directors tried something extremely bold and one of them pulled it off with flying colors, while the other went flat at several places.
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