Firstly, Kamal Haasan turns 51! Here's wishing him!

In Sivakaasi, the unique mind of Perarasu is not as evident as it was in the inimitable Thirupachi. I found (and vouch for that) that Thirupachi was very very different from a usual Vijay Masala film and went in for Sivakaasi hoping Perarasu will be doing it again. Not quite!
Though, my friend (with whom I watched the film with), who managed to see the similarities between Thirupachi and Sivakaasi, could not help but laud me for finding the talent in Perarasu after watching only the first of his yet-to-complete oeuvré of movies, though.

The good thing about Majaa is that it doesn't have much of the trappings of a usual tamil masala film, if you would disregard the usual round-up of things for a hero of Vikram's stature. But, the overwhelming bad thing is that it has all the trappings (everything in the book) of a usual malayalam masala film. The story skeletally looks much like a marriage of the medievel tales about petty thieves (not so unusual in malluwood, I perceive), and the good old Westerns (but the treatment is so ordinarily done that the thematic similarities might be barely visible). Pasupathy does shine in an ineptly written role. The simple humour is yet commendably done in the initial sequences. When the story goes back to the family feud business, you are better off being a chain-smoker (to use cliché from Aanandha Vikatan reviews).
I am particularly not bought off with Vikram's idea to import movies/ideas from mallu world and he seems to like it to no end.

Taking a cue from here (via George), Abhishek Bachchan starrer, Bluffmaster! (the promos of which are already on all TV channels) seems to have been sourced from Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men; Roy, the name of the protagonist, being intact.