Nayakan (1987)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

World class performance of Kamal and Maniratnam PC Sriram Ilayaraja combo's magic makes this movie an emotional,visual and musical masterpiece.This movie is the product of India's finest actor,Director,Cinematographer and Music Director.It is a natural tendency to compare movies of this genre to Godfather as it set the benchmark.I am a huge fan of Godfather trilogy and can proudly say that this movie paralleled and in some cases surpasses godfather in narrative,performance and visuals.I would not like to spoil anything about this movie.Do yourself a favor and watch this to experience the best of those legends. Story 10/10 Direction 10/10 Music 10/10 Performances 10/10

I would rate this movie as a glowing example of the essence being inspired but the setup, execution and the ultimate product being original. people argue that the look of older Kamal's make-up being similar to that of Marlon Brando, the way Kamal cries when his son is killed is similar to the performance of Marlon Brando etc.. But no one can argue the fact that the scene build up and the way the story was setup was not lifted from the God Father, there are so many movies that are copied scene by scene (as a matter of fact the Hindi film Dayavan was a scene to scene copy of Nayakan but failed miserably!) but here the genius called Mani Ratnam has adopted the basic storyline and Indianized and made a masterpiece around a character (co-incidentally resembled much to the local Dharavi don Varadha Bhai) which was immortalized by Padmashree Dr. Kamal Haasan. A must watch for anyone who has an eye for meaningful entertainers with the best technicians in the industry at rollicking form firing all cylinders from Mani Ratnam, Kamal Haasan to Thotta Tharani, Ilaiyaraja, P.C Sreeram etc.

It is really difficult to express the experience of watching nayakan in words, the real life story about the transformation of a boy into a rebel and then a don, brilliantly portrayed by one of the greatest actors alive today, Kamal Hassan.While the film draws little inspiration from "The Godfather trilogy", the emotions and trauma associated with many events , along with ilayaraja's rendition of 'thenpandi seemayile' , really does make this movie very special!, nothing to beat this one, among the best movies i have ever seen. I can rate it along with American beauty, shawshank redemption or even amelie.

one of the best Indian movies ever......may be even the best.....one thing i cant understand is how can a movie which is based on the life of Varadharaja Mudhaliar be a copy of THE GODFATHER..... come on guys not every Indian movie is a Hollywood remake......i hope no 1 says Varadharaja Mudhaliar lived his life according to Mario Puzo's godfatherits a shame the way people try to compare every Indian movie to a Hollywood one....it has nothing to do with godfather even though people like to compare both....