Gambler Movie Review – Stylish 100% Paisa Vasool Entertainer

The Tamil film Mankatha has been dubbed into Telugu as Gambler and the movie is Ajith’s 50th film. Trisha and Lakshmi Rai play the female leads in this movie directed by Venkat Prabhu.Mankatha has had a blockbuster run in Tamil so let us see how it fares.


What its about : The movie revolves around the cricket betting Mafia and the humongous amounts of money that are involved in it.Vinayak (Ajith) is a suspended playboy cop. He is romantically involved with Sanjana (Trisha) and so comes into contact with Sanjana’s father Reddy (Jayaprakash), who controls all the betting and gambling activities of Dharavi in Mumbai. Vinayak easily earns the trust of Reddy.
Sumanth (Vaibhav) is a trusted aide of Reddy and knows the ins and outs of his illegal businesses.When Sumanth comes to know that 500 Crores of betting money is being brought to Reddy’s den for the IPL final, he becomes greedy and hatches a plan to steal the money with his buddies Mahath (Mahath) – A bar owner, Ganesh (Ashwin) – A Police Inspector and Prem (Premgi Amaren) – A brilliant IT expert.
Vinayak learns about the plan and forcibly makes his way into the gang. He provides his intelligence inputs and expertise to the operation and they make a successful heist. The ultra glamorous Sona (Lakshmi Rai) seduces some of the team members for a cut of the money. All hell breaks loose when the five team members start to double cross each other. Into this mess comes in ACP Prithviraj (Arjun) who heads a special task force that is responsible for tracking down and eliminating the betting Mafia.
What follows is a cat and mouse game between all the parties for the huge amount of money.Who will end up with the money in the end? Who is to be trusted and who is the rogue?



What’s Good: There are a lot of things working in favour of this movie. But the biggest contributing factor without a doubt is Ajith. He delivers a career best performance as the stylish and suave playboy cop Vinayak. He towers over the film and arrests your attention with riveting histrionics. The last five minutes before the interval literally sent a chill down my spine. His character Vinayak has shades of grey all over, just like his hair. Ajith has put on some weight but the look suits the character perfectly. He smokes and drinks with gay abandon and it looks like he actually had a lot of fun playing this character.
Trisha is Ok as Sanjana. She doesn’t have much to do except to boss over Ajith’s character and chide him for his drinking and smoking. Her screen time is limited. Laksmi Rai however, is the bomb. Her character Sona looks hot, oozes glamour and is not afraid to show skin. She literally seduces the audience with her riveting performance. Lakshmi Rai is a major asset to the movie.
Arjun justifies his title ‘Action King’. He looks cool as the super cop Prithvi and his clashes with Ajith are a treat to watch.
The first half of the movie is terrific. ‘Gambler’ is a stylish and sophisticated heist drama in the first half and the movie takes liberal inspiration from the Hollywood Blockbusters like ‘The Italian Job’, ‘Armored’ and ‘Fast and the Furious’. The action sequences are well choreographed and look awesome on screen.
Premgi provides a few laughs as the bumbling IT expert Prem. Ashwin, Vaibhav and Mahath do a fabulous job as the conmen. Vaibhav in particular has a nice and meaty role. He is a fine actor and will shine if he chooses such characters. Andrea Jeremiah and Anjali are Ok in their short cameos.
The special effects for the opening titles and end credits are simply superb and are not to be missed. Don’t walk out of the theatre thinking the movie is over.


What’s Bad: A brilliant and sophisticated first half is sadly let down by a predictable and slightly illogical second half. The songs are not too good and appear at the wrong times. They spoil the tempo and flow of the movie. Except for the introduction song picturized over Ajith and Lakshmi Rai, all the other songs don’t even look good on screen.
An illogical climax and slightly predictable twists also let down the movie. There are some gaping holes in the screenplay. If some of the redundant scenes and songs in the movie are chopped off, Gambler will just absolutely rock.


Technical Departments : Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score and remixing work is absolutely terrific. Special mention must be made of the rocking sound track that accompanies Ajith throughout the movie.
Director Venkat Prabhu needs to be commended for handling Ajith’s stardom and image perfectly. He has done a decent job overall and his sound commercial sense will bring the Producers a lot of money. A slightly better screenplay would have worked wonders.Editing could have been better. Cinematography is top notch and adds to the movie’s stylish feel.


Verdict: Gambler is a 100% paisa vasool entertainer. Ajith is a treat to watch and the movie has something for everyone. If you can ignore some illogical screenplay and some crappy songs, the movie will entertain you fully and completely. The movie will do well in Andhra Pradesh as the B and C centre folks will also enjoy the action sequences and the glamour show of Lakshmi Rai. Go with your friends and have fun this weekend with ‘Gambler’.It is money well spent.

Source :123Telugu.com Rating : 3.5/5

Gambler - Ajith saves the day

Betting money, wily cops, underworld, greedy sidekicks, principal characters without a sense of scruples. Add a dose of booze, a hero who oozes menace and avarice at almost every turn, not to forget a terrific twist at the end, the plot becomes irresistible. Only Telugu nativity is missing. Never mind, if you can make with the handsome Ajith who comes with a smart performance and the slick cinematography that draws from Vishal Bharadwaj's vision, you will certainly find Gambler entertaining.

Gambler, the dubbed version of Mankatha, is purely a male-dominated story in which money and murder are the focal points. All the characters, including the hero, are suborned to the greed of moolah. In this cat and mouse game, anybody could meet his nemesis next. Everybody lives on the edge, almost and always. So much so, the next one to die could even be Vinayak Mahadev (Ajith), who calls himself 'The Kingmaker.'

Vinayak is a suspended cop who befriends Sanjana (Trisha), the daughter of Sambasiva Reddy (Jayaprakash). Reddy makes money through shady deals and has got big plans to loot Rs. 500 cr. of betting money which is to be pooled at a theatre owned by him, so that he can share the booty with a gang of crooks in the mafia.

If there is big fortune around, can connivery and crime be far behind? As expected, some players have their firm sight on the moolah. Least does Reddy realise that it is, however, Sumanth (Vaibhav), who he has nurtured for years, who is conniving to stab from the back and run away with the money with his friends Mahanth, Ganesh (Ashwin) and Prem (Premji Amaran).

The curtain for race and chase game begins when Vinayak enters the fray with his own evil designs. Before it is interval bang, the gang of five (Sumanth, Mahanth, Ganesh and Prem have been joined by Vinayak, who offers them the benefit of working as a team) successfully pillages the haul. In the game that follows, Vinayak occupies the centre stage while rest of them taper off as insignificant stuff, but not before threatening to undermine the Project Money of the black sheep, Vinayak.

The second half is an all-out Ajith bonanza. His character mutates from a cigar-smoking evil planner to a ruthless and psychic robber after the money, displaying devil-may-care attitude and even meanness. It is not rare for a Tamil hero to play a character with negative shades, but Ajith goes a step ahead by spouting baneful lines.

Yet the film is also Venkat Prabhu's to a good extent. His taking is slick, though the screenplay could have been better. Cinematography (Sakthi Saravanan) is top notch and action is nifty.

As for the performances, Ajith tops the chart with his pefectionism while his four chohorts fit the bill. Vaibhav looks good as a raw youth and the director has done well by fleshing out his role in the first half-an-hour by making him romance his wife. Trisha and Lakshmi Rai have only peripheral roles to play in this male-oriented film.

Yuvan Shankar Raja doesn't come up with hummable scores, but the background music is A-1.

All in all, Gambler is watchable for Ajith, visuals and action sequences.

Saturday, September 10, 2011 by deivam P Mohanraj · 0