'Matha' in short is the most shameless piece of Sri Lankan cinema I have seen. It takes a highly sensitive issue that plagued Sri Lanka for more than 30 years, mutilates it into a series of blunt opinionated views and then delivers it to viewers as subtly as sledge hammer blows to the head. The story of 'Matha' starts off with short introductions to childhood incidents of Yoga(Dharshan Dharmaraj) and Parvathi(Yasodha Radhakrishnan); two Tamil kids who survived the 1985 Yal Devi Bombing. There is no real character development beyond that to speak of. But the narrative jumps in a schizophrenic fashion to key events of Sri Lanka's battle against the LTTE up to their final defeat in 2009. In this sense, regardless how controversial it maybe, 'Matha' is more or less a reenactment of key events spanned across two decades of war. But these events are glued together using a frail fictional love story between Yoga and Parvathi. This love story seemed merely a gimmick as it is only used as a backdrop to lambaste the LTTE as monsters and highlight the bravado of the Sri Lankan Forces. If anything this film is true to the type of work expected from Dr Ariyaratne Athugala, the writer of this obnoxious monstrosity. Mind you that he was chairman of Sri Lanka's state TV channel, Rupavahini and present Director General of the Government Information Department. So it's quite understandable that he can't shake his habit of delivering uncontested propaganda. But I expected better from Boodee Keerthisena, the director of 'Matha'. I assumed he can judge a story from a banal and frankly lazy attempt of painting one of the most controversial conflicts of defeating terrorism of the 21st century as a monochrome fairytale. Each scene is so hopelessly obtuse and brash, Dr. Athugala might as well have taken viewers to a presentation and shoved his one dimensional opinions down their throats. Dr Athugala has taken every liberty in the book to paint the LTTE as bogeymen of the worst kind; a fact that any Sri Lankan know by default. Recruiting child soldiers, shooting unarmed civilians, rape of their own LTTE female carders are just outlines of the grand mosaic he tries to create. But he fails so miserably to give context to any of these events making the movie an emotionally dead string of events. To be told in graphic detail what I already know is not what I go to the movies for. Insight into actions of the LTTE, the Tamil civilians or Sri Lankan soldiers are not explored at all beyond the boneheaded 'we are the good guys, they are the bad guys' rhetoric. I've seen more multifaceted story telling Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies. This film goes into incredible lengths to justify killing terrorists. An example that got stuck in my mind was a Sri Lankan pilot giving a 'thumbs up' after bombing a LTTE camp. Are the viewers supposed to feel good about it Boodee? Didn't the first half of the film try to convince that the LTTE forcefully brainwashed children to fight their cause? So is killing hundreds of mislead children with a supersonic jet OK now? Apart from morally bankrupt scenes like that, 'Matha' also make Sri Lankan soldiers look inhuman with their ever exuberant displays of generosity and selflessness. A battle fought and won by humans being told through cloying clichés is an insult to real human sacrifices made by Sri Lankan Armed Forces in my opinion. As far as dubious achievements go, 'Matha' also make it wickedly difficult to tell if the actors are good or not. Yoga and Parvathi has a feeble grasp of the lead roles, but their characters are barely examined. It is indeed a waste of time to even discuss other characters in the film because they literally exist for the sake of acting out scenes that doesn't amalgamate into a meaningful whole. To the credit of the director, I felt that imagery and camera angles used in the film were creative and fresh. A scene shot in twilight showing mass forceful evacuation of Tamil civilians by the LTTE particularly captured my attention. Even with little screen time the lead actor and actress gave glimpses of having definite talent in acting which would best suit real films and not as props in bigoted glorification of war. The same can be said about the rest of the cast. More established actors like Dharmapriya Dias and Mahendra Perera inject little doses of life to 'Matha' thanks to their acting prowess but that barely helps this wreck of a film. Seeing good actors playing one dimensional cameos is like seeing a lions in a circus. Making majestic kings of the wild jump hoops is exactly what Boodee Keerthisena has done to his talented cast.