Amazingly enough, those of us in the US got to see Kamal Hassan’s big, big, big release hours before it plays on some 1000 screens in India.

The theater in Newark was 3/4 full, many people coming straight from work, laptop bags in tow, and the film started spot on at 8pm.   No sooner had the lights gone down, the words Aascar Films (funny, eh?) flashed on the screen, then Kamala’s name loomed over us and a chorus of cheers and whistles came up from the crowd.   More cheers a few minutes later when the camera swooped down over the Madras coastline.

So yes, the man who 10 years ago became a woman in order to be closer to his kids in Chachi 420, has this time taken on 10 roles in one film, some more successful than others.

The first story line, of  a holy man in the 12th century involved in a Shivite / Vaisnavite dispute, packs a wallop as an opener, with a meaty and muscular Kamal Hassan as Nambi (Avatar #1), who’s willing to die for his faith, even as his wife (Asin) and toddler son beg him to give in.

From the distant past, to the recent future, late December 2004 (that’s right, just before the tsunami), KH is now Dr. Govind (Avatar #2), a super-scientist working in the US at the biotech firm named, get this, Beagle II.   The firm has gotten into bed with Dubya (Avatar #3), using the PhD’s powers to create a mega-virus, capable of killing tens of thousands of people in no time.  

Realizing his boss intends to sell the viral vials to Evil Doers, Dr. Govind grabs them and goes on the lam, accidentally ending up back in India.   This opens the door for the entry of several baddies onto the scene, including Christian Fletcher (Avatar #4), a flaxen-haired, waxy-faced, ex-CIA assassin.  

Both Fletcher, and Bush, require large amounts of facial padding, and they, plus the ancient Krishnaveni Paati are the characters that I had the biggest problems with, just because their faces looked like Halloween masks, and because, with the men’s roles, Kamal Hassan has such a distinct voice, even as he does an American drawl, you still hear him coming through, so between the visual and aural cues, it’s hard to suspend disbelief.

Dasavathaaram is a good three hours in length, and therefore  is able to include comedy (the Telugu- AND Tamil-speaking Balaram Naidu, who was very popular with the many sons of Andhra Pradesh in the theater tonight), lots of martial arts and dishoom, multiple locales, surprisingly not that many songs, and also some attempts to instruct while making the case for striking a balance between science and faith, abandoning caste- and religious-based prejudices, and saving the environment.

For me, the movie went on a bit too long.   As we hurtle through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the inevitable arrival of that wall of water on Boxing Day, I did start doing a mental checklist of which characters still remained to reappear for the final denouement.  

Is it a big problem?     Not really, not for me.   Even with the bad make-up jobs to overlook, KH did undertake quite a project here, and much of the story/ies entertain, especially as he manages to wind them all up into a huge ball of twine at the end, back on the Madras waterfront, while simultaneously  finding  a mainstream, populist way to examine many topics (superpower politics, caste issues, dalit rights,  religious extremism, corruption, gee, is that everything?)

Mallika Sherawat is rather wasted here as the vamp/Pakistani-trained assassin Jasmine.   Her item number is screechy and forgettable, her costume has rather odd crystal spiderwebs placed over her front and back in rather obvious areas, and once she’s done vamping, she just becomes a second-fiddle moll along on the run.

See it or skip it?

See it.   It’s an entertaining saga, and you get to watch the man himself in action, playing so many different parts, even when encumbered by all the whiteface make-up.

Asin is cute, though there’s no real spark between the two lead actors.