Mansoor Ali Khan's All Pass salvo: let us live too

Mansoor Ali Khan came to the All Pass audio and trailer launch on Friday to bless a small film, and ended up filing the evening’s charge sheet himself. He shot a full dance sequence for the climax of Karuppu, he told the gathering, and the film released without it. The team promised the number would at least come out on YouTube; that never happened either. “Suriya and Karthi are big actors, let them live. But let us live too,” he said. “I have been an actor and a producer for years. I want the justice due to me.”

He kept going, taking aim at the gossip economy that circles men like him. “Whether they give us work or not, they sit down there and say my son smokes ganja, that I am a madman. Whatever good I do, they drag it down and mock it.” Then, having emptied the chamber, he blessed the film with real warmth: he praised James Vasanthan for speaking up publicly on NEET coaching, said Tamil cinema has found a good hero and heroine in this pair, and demanded that every technician on a film get the same publicity its stars do.

The film he was blessing is All Pass, written and directed by Mydeen and produced by debutant Mohana R under One Step Entertainment, with James Vasanthan composing. It is built on the ordinary life of north Chennai: a cook, a painter and a cycle-shop owner, their families, their children, their small fights and celebrations. Producer G Dhananjayan, speaking as a guest, made the counterpoint explicit: Tamil cinema has manufactured an image of north Chennai as all aggression and street fights, and this team instead shot the neighbourhood’s plainer truth across 45 days in its narrowest, busiest streets.

Mydeen’s casting stories were the evening’s charmers. When he approached Dushyanth Jayaprakash for the lead, the actor said his father would decide; Mydeen did not know at the time that the father was Jayaprakash. He narrated the full script expecting a producer’s advice, and instead Jayaprakash asked who was playing a character called Azhagar. Mydeen admitted he had imagined Jayaprakash in it but assumed the salary would be beyond him. Salary is not a matter, the actor replied, and took the part. James Vasanthan set one condition before signing: would Mydeen shoot the film exactly as written? He would, and the composer came aboard.

All Pass is Dushyanth Jayaprakash’s fourth film, and the composer closes a neat circle: his first, Easan, had James Vasanthan’s music when he acted in it as a boy in Sasikumar’s directorial. Sharing the screen with his father this time, he said, was the part he will not forget. Janani, familiar from Bigg Boss Tamil and seen in Leo, plays the female lead, and said the director’s clarity about the story’s world and locations is what convinced her. Mohana R kept her own speech to four sentences, confessing that she can act in front of a camera but shakes when asked to speak before a crowd. She appears in the film too.

The guest list carried its own history. Vikraman counted a thirty-year bond with Jayaprakash and claimed credit for turning him from actor into producer; R V Udhayakumar praised the trailer, the songs and the technical team. Sarath Lohitashwa of Pandiya Naadu and Ethir Neechal plays the antagonist, joined by Roshan Basheer of Papanasam and Aruvi Madhan, the PT master from Bison Kaalamaadan. Senthikumari, director Subramaniya Siva, Vinothini and Prasanna Balachandran fill out the cast. Dillraju handles cinematography, Pasanga editor S Baaskar cuts, and Mohan Rajan writes the lyrics to James Vasanthan’s four songs. The album and trailer are out now on Trend Music, and James Vasanthan left the crowd with the film’s simplest pitch: watch it, and you get peace of mind.