Nayakan has been lauded as a landmark film in India and to an extent it is true but I feel that it is highly overrated. Though it was an important film of the 80's it has not aged well. Highly inspired from Francis Ford Copolla's The Godfather Mani Rathnam has done a marvelous job of Indianising it. When compared to its poor Hindi remake Dayavan and to the countless other Godfather inspired ripoffs like Dharmatma and others it is far superior but not quite a classic. Mani Rathnam has gone to a great extent in getting the look right and technically it is a terrific film when given a thought that it was made in the 80's.The dilemma which Mani Rathnam had (like many other good filmmakers in India) is to make a different film and at the same time make it work at the box office and hence he had to compromise his script. So what we have here is another glamorized portrait of a underworld don who is forced to take law into his hands for his people and later on becomes the law himself. Just how many times have we seen this. In the Godfather Al Pacino's character was a deeply realized character from an ex-soldier who is forced into the family business he never intended to be a part of he turns into a murderous crime boss who even orders the killing of his mild mannered brother. The complexity of the character was superbly drawn out whereas in Nayakan it is too simplistic where the negative shades of the character are completely left out.But where it works is the treatment the mood and the setting is realistic.How you wish Rathnam had gone all the way and bought out the Grey shades of the character and ultimately the downfall. Also the characterizations of the supporting players is poorly sketched with not a single character standing out. And finally it comes to Kamal Haasan whose performance here is rated by many as the greatest work by any Indian actor. In fact far from it this is not even Kamal Haasan's best work .Haasan is very good but not great.Music by Illayaraja is good but the songs serve as nothing more than interruptions. When compared to other other landmark films like Govind Nihalani's Ardh Satya (a powerful film about police corruption ) and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro(A great black comedy again about corruption) Nayakan just falls short. It could have been the definitive gangster epic of Indian cinema instead it is just a decent gangland fable.
