Movie Review – Maanaadu

A Venkat Prabhu Fun Ride

Only a Venkat Prabhu film can guarantee a fun ride like this. An absolute guilty pleasure. I’m not saying this to demean the film because it was a sincere attempt, but nevertheless a great guilty pleasure. Thankfully the film doesn’t go to ‘Tenet’ mode and keeps its food grounded with the fun factor more than anything else. With enough number of puns and funs, the movie not only thrills you but keeps you engaged till the end. It’s like one of the rides in the theme park which gives you an unexpected satisfaction.

The movie begins with a usual big hero gimmick but it can be easy overlooked as it was not irritating. The first twenty minutes of Venkat Prabhu’s films would always be the worst, if it doesn’t pick up after that, it means that it’s a debacle. But movies like ‘Saroja’ and ‘Maanaadu’ pick up post that and give enough satisfaction. So the flight scene, a mandatory glass break, a needless song etc. bores you out, but by now everyone would have got used to Venkat Prabhu’s style of filmmaking so they’d have been okay. The films tension starts as soon as S. J. Surya gets introduced and consequent death/deaths.

We get to know about his reliving post the first death and movie was well shot for those sequences, with these many people. It’s not a movie to knit pick on the missing details but something we’ve to just go with the flow and enjoy. So it was a fairly enjoyable ride. Wish Kalyani Priyadarshan had got some more role rather than just being a dumb heroine. Wonder how if she does the same in Malayalam movie, it works but in Tamil movie it feels dumb. Others were just irritating characters with just no value. The whole film was just a faceoff between S J Suryah and Simbu.

Abdul Khaliq (Silambarasan) is an NRI returning from Dubai for a friend’s marriage. In fact to marry off a friend by abducting the girl for it, but a turn of events makes him realize that he has some bigger purpose and continues reliving the same day. The logic was silly but it’s good that they didn’t delve deep into that except for a short explanation. The whole Hindu-Muslim thing too was absurd and needless. Wish it didn’t try to be of any bigger purpose than it really was. But anyways if we dig deep, it’s our mistake, these needs to be dealt at surface level and washed off. Then you’ll get an enjoyable ride.

Generally in a film like this, after we get to know about the reason of time loop, it becomes redundant but the interval block where it was revealed that DCP V. Dhanushkodi (S. J. Suryah) too loops back in time, it becomes interesting. Kudos to Venkat Prabhu for keeping the audience in hook till the climax. Some tactics like dying many times during fight and coming back to escape from death was handled efficiently. But isn’t it how a normal human would have the death probability. Only because our heroes are super powerful they escape these many deaths naturally.

In all its one of the movies which was fun but could have been a lot more fun if watched with a crowd in theatre.

Movie Review – Rocky (2021)

Love thy violence

In what looks like a marriage between ‘Old Boy’ and ‘Super Deluxe’, this looks like a first proper film in the gore genre for Tamil cinema. Something which ‘Boys’ did to Adult film genre in Tamil cinema. The director, Arun Matheshwaran seems to have a strong liking towards violence and it wasn’t used just as a showbiz tool but as a world which he has created. Even though parts of it would definitely remind you of Korean films, it doesn’t come out as a film where the violence gives you a sadistic high but a definitive scare. May be because it’s the first film where this amount of gore had a native flavor to it.

The posters of the film was done brilliantly with all the characters together, Rocky (Vasanth Ravi), Manimaran (Bharathiraja) and co. It gave a Thevar Magan feel with Bharathiraja sitting in front and Rocky standing behind him with a number of associates. It felt like one whole gang who were fighting together against someone but on watching the film we realize it’s the complete opposite. May be the poster was done so intentionally to give a shock or done with the idea of the past of them. Even without the hidden meanings it was brilliant but after we get to know the story, it only becomes better.

As soon as the movie starts we get to know that it has a world of its own, just like ‘Super Deluxe’. The timelines are quite confusing because the film doesn’t take a traditional angle where the hero ages physically. Going by the angle that Manimaran’s son (Rishikanth) killed Rocky’s mother Malli (Rohini) and Rocky avenged him for that and spends time in jail, there was hardly any change physically of Rocky. It’s a kind of film that a question for that shouldn’t be raised. Just like how someone comes out of blue to try to kill Rocky’s Niece Malli (Anisha). Films like these give confidence to young directors to create whatever they like, without the need to stick by the tradition.

But even in a film which tries to be its own, why do you have to have songs. Especially the song when Rocky meets his sister Amudha (Raveena Ravi) spoils both the sequence before it and post it. It was a beautiful long shot to her room and back to road, giving a chill but thanks to the song we get to breathe a sigh of relief, post that we see Amudha dying in front of Rocky. The song could have easily been avoided to have the emotions swinging from tension to sweetness to horror but guess the director wanted to use the song as a tool for sweetness, which only led to relaxation. In fact it was the only point of relaxation in an otherwise solid tense movie.

Quite contrary to other Hitman movies, this film doesn’t feature bulked up people as goons but rather fragile ones actually. The horror is in their action and not looks. Especially Manimaran’s introduction scene where he explains how he was successful in fishery business was lit. Because till then Thanraj (Ashraf Mallisery) looks comic in his act of going front and back in a road roller but only when it looks like a threat we get to know what a horrific villain he was.

It could have been a terrific climax after all the blood and gore, but Lokesh Kanagaraj single handedly has spoilt the entire generation’s expectations by giving a definition an overdose of gun action in Kaithi. That’s why every other film which has similar climax looks meek. But thankfully, an actor with an otherwise average voice modulation, delivers one hell of a punch in the climax, which gives enough climax to watch the film till end with the glee, “Maman thangai magalaana, Mangai unakaaga, Ulagai vilai pesuvaar”

Movie Review – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

What.A.Woman!

What, a, woman! Probably that’s the only thought that constantly lingers in the mind while watching the movie. ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ is a rare gem which gets the tone of the movie perfect while making it message oriented. It’s not a movie where you’d instantly like the protagonists and it’s not a movie which lures you with the shock value but a carefully constructed mood piece which makes you feel as if you’re inside an exploding chamber, which in the end doesn’t really explode but releases the vacuum in a subtle way.

The biggest advantage of this being a non-native movie was that, even though the title was direct, I didn’t know what was written in the three billboards and as I had not known, it was a great pleasure to decrypt it as the movie began. It doesn’t take much time for the movie to tell you about what the it was all about. But even in those first few minutes, the movie keeps you tensed. Thanks to the setting, lighting, sound, maybe everything but the most important of all was the lady, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand). What an actor Frances McDormand is, who can make any character special. Who can forget her performance in ‘Fargo’? It was one of the movies where anyone would be thinking that she can’t repeat a performance like that or she wouldn’t get such a character again but ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ was equivalent to it.

The director, Martin McDonagh doesn’t look like a man who was into theaters more than films because the way the scenes were shot, it was near perfect. It was one of the excoriatingly beautiful eerie movie which I had seen recently. My last favorite shot movie was ‘Capote’. So you can see that it has lived up to a certain standards. I’ve watched only once and didn’t want to rewatch it just to decode a point. But is it just me or he doesn’t really show all the three billboards together in a single shot. If it was intentional, it was a great piece of work. Because the title was the entirety of the movie and that’s what runs in our mind throughout the movie. In spite of that we don’t see the complete sentence of something which was etched in the movie.

It was a straight forward message oriented movie alright, may be even propagandist but it’s the best possible way one can do a message movie. The characters were so special and end in a fate we least imagine. Be it the death of Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) whom thanks to the title, would have made us think that he’d appear throughout the movie. And Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), true to his name of the character, refines or defines what a dick, a person can be. He and his character was brilliant till the point his face gets burnt.

Look how brilliantly the characters were written. Not a single character in the movie was straight. A lady who has lost her daughter, who casually swears in the household with his son, a husband who has a dumb blonde of a woman who is of their daughters age, a dying Chief, an alcoholic momma’s boy, Dixon etc. it can’t get more clumsy than that but still they all are a part of society and coexist with each other and they need each other to coexist, that’s the beauty. Wish Dixon was a dick throughout the movie because it was too great a movie to see a change in the characteristic of an individual but thankfully he doesn’t emerge out in a traditionally heroic way. Love the doubts that he and Mildred have in the climax and thankfully the movie wasn’t simple enough, where the case gets resolved, yet doesn’t leave us in the hooks like a ‘Memories of Murder’, rather somehow makes us feel the realistic nature of life and gets us attached to the thinking of Dixon and Mildred.

If there was one scene I wish hadn’t happened, it would be the scene where he gets juice from Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones) because it comes after such a great scene. Even if the character has transformed to be a better person post that arson light up, it would have been nice if that juice scene had not happened, it would give a more edgy feel especially in the bar. I probably expected Red to through the juice in his face but would’ve not liked even that had happened. Best would have been to just cut without the audience knowing whether Red knew that it was Dixon or not. Probably he getting a new face is a symbolism to his character transforming? May be. But that was the only weak link of an otherwise glorious movie.

Movie Review – D

Raw and rocking

Ram Gopal Varma’s films are a charm isn’t it. Even though, this was not directed by him. Vishram Sawant only looked like he mirrored RGV’s thoughts because it looked very much an RGV film with raw, unruffled emotions. Produced under his banner and considered the last of his movies among Indian Gangster Trilogy the movie was to the point. As much as the emotions looked stripped, ‘D’ was all about emotion. Lethargic, third person type of emotion. With Randeep Hooda at the fore, he brings in a natural flavor to the type of movie which Ram Gopal Varma had wanted.

Just like any out of the box movie, it takes a while for the audience to settle. The initial few minutes are clumsy and intentionally made in that way. May be that’s an attribute to RGVs style of film making. We get to see a young man, Deshu (Randeep Hooda) coming back to his hometown for his mother’s death. Deshu is not really an emotive person. He feels that it’s just his duty that he had to be there for his mother’s death. It’s more of a compulsion for him than the love towards his mother. He sees a live death within few days and then again witnesses a murder which makes him understand that it’s not a fair world outside.

The acting for these sequences were pretty much Godard like. The emotions were not spoon fed for us to understand. We don’t feel curious to see what’s his life was going to become but we get driven by his life, as if like a passerby. As he gets humiliated by Mangli’s (Raju Mavani) gang, instead of confessing or joining the gang, he joins the opposite gang and takes his revenge.

Then all we see is his rise, which was in a way interesting. There were few interesting scenes where the dialogues can’t be heard, even though they continue to talk. Generally these would be implemented at some of the suspenseful points in the film and is one of the most irritating techniques but here it feels like fast forwarding an unwanted song. It was a relief because we don’t really want to get to the details of an uninteresting man. We just want to see the highlights. The music in those junctions too were appealing and elevates the mood of the movie, giving a retro punk feel.

The only point of the film which looks forced in the conclusion. Hashim Bhai (Goga Kapoor) becoming folly of the plans of two of his sons, Mukarram (Sushant Singh) and Shabbir (Yashpal Sharma) felt too convenient. A man of his stature believing age old tricks like this was not convincing. It’d have rather been interesting if he had acted as if he was supporting his sons because if he had not he’d have been killed by his sons. If he had, he would’ve known that his sons would be eventually killed because Deshu is no normal person. That conflict would have been interesting than having a plain old ending.

The film more than anything was ambitious and that was so nice to watch. Any budding filmmaker who wants to make a gangster film would be inspired and would think that they don’t have to always have a huge budget for such movies. In fact even the gun sound coming of silencer was done so soft that there was no big fuzz over anything. It’s a world which RGV has created and would remain forever like this, no matter what he does post that.

Movie Review – About Elly

Mundane state of numbness

‘About Elly’ is probably where it all started but ‘A Separation’ opened a window to get into the world of Asghar Farhadi. It took me a really long time to watch ‘About Elly’, for a major part, even though it was in my Iranian films watch list, I wasn’t aware that it was an Asghar Farhadi’s film. Having been quite overwhelmed by a stunning ‘A Separation’ I didn’t want to lessen the makers impact by watching another film of his. Unfortunately, in the end, the benchmark of comparison became the folly.

If one had seen any of Farhadi’s film, it would be quite evident what his world was about. So even though, when the lights came, we see a family family going on a road trip, we knew that an impending sadness was on the fore. The feel is quite unexplainable. Guess that would happen even if we’re new to his world. Farhadi has some magic in creating such a tense world of stifling emotions. He mastered it in ‘A Separation’ but ‘About Elly’ is still no mean feat. Probably ‘A Separation’ was more impactful because I watched it first but even if one had watched it in the reverse order, it still would have been terrific.

‘About Elly’ starts with a ray of hope. A vague light which we couldn’t make out. Wonder how art film directors come up with ideas like that to keep us curious. Post that we get transported to their world and thanks to the title we constantly think about Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti). In fact it feels like a horror template without a ghost. Or maybe Elly was the ghost. Poor girl, even when I write I feel bad for her.

Even though the film was titled as ‘About Elly’, it was more about Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) than Elly. Sepideh was the one who was at the receiving end of everyone. A distraught face of her was the haunting image of the whole movie. Theoretically everything she did looks to be wrong but morally, as a well-wisher to friend, she had done nothing wrong and just because of an unforeseen event, she suffers. Poor thing. The film explains what can happen to a family due to an accident. Accidents are always thought of as something which wouldn’t happen to us until it happens. It’s not a planned event and that’s why the name. The suddenness in which it affects people who hadn’t thought about is horrific.

We discover the story layer by layer, just like how we’d know someone’s story who becomes our new neighbor. We feel it’s a family trip and then get to know that it’s a friends cum family trip and later we get to know there is actually a matchmaking happening in the midst of it. It all goes fine and as expected there is a sudden change of events. It was handled beautifully by making our focus shift to Arash and we get to figure out that Elly was missing only at a later point, just like the family. The director’s mastery was evident in the sequence.

Then the film falls in Farhadi’s template where he plays with human emotions and it’s tyranny of sorts. We get to know about each character and how they respond to crises. We couldn’t help but feel bad for Sepideh. Especially when she conveys about Elly to Ali-Reza (Saber Abar).

For a film which was handled layer by layer of intense emotions, the climax felt a little flat. Ali-Reza, as per Sepideh is the guy whom Elly doesn’t like. Ever since his introduction, by his actions even we hate him. May be if there had been a part two or if the characters existed after the movie and we had got to know that Ali-Reza too was not such a bad guy, it’d have been a revelation. Wish it had happened in the movie and Sepideh had got a shocker, it would have been striking. Plus, finally she succumbs to pressure and tells Elly didn’t refuse invitation. Thus closing out on that angle. The final shot of her in mortuary was too conclusive a scene, which could have been avoided in the film. Especially a film of this stature.

Movie Review – Sita Ramam

A super soupy love story

Few movies are made as Pan India films, few movies become Pan India films. ‘Sita Ramam’ falls in the second category. No matter in which language one had watched it would have become their own film. This proves that grandeur and action are all secondary in front of emotions. Thanks to the online presence and social media, this movie has become a sleeper hit and got the love of everyone, especially women. Because the way it was made and how people were able to connect were one of the driving factors of it being liked.

The first few minutes of the film felt sudden and disturbing. I had read earlier that it was banned in UAE for some reason. So I was expecting the worst but the tone of the movie changes once the love story starts. One of the main things that works for a love story is good looking actors and a beautiful setup. It has both. In fact the settings were so beautiful that it could be framed. The patriotic angle goes in the background and their story comes in front.

Mrunal Thakur has become a household name after that movie. Everyone loves her now, not only for the looks but for her character as well. May be for the latter more than former, just like how Sameera Reddy was liked by everyone post ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ Hopefully she doesn’t become a one film wonder like her. By the end of the movie she becomes a household name and as a character she’d be forever etched in the memory. That’s the advantage of having a sad ending. The characters would have the power to last longer than usual. Plus her costumes were superbly done. But above all there is no real reason why people would like someone. She has become a crush of all for some or the other reason. Personally though I didn’t find her really appealing and worth the hype.

Dulquer Salman on the other hand was perfect for the role. The character looked tailor made for him. He was in fact more likeable than Mrunal Thakur for me. Rashmika is a treasure, isn’t she. For all the drama outside the screen, she has such great screen presence and as soon as one calls the shots she becomes the character. Her sincerity is so appealing, especially when you know her persona outside the film.

As much as everyone loved the movie, the problem of the movie too was same. It was carefully made in such a way that it shouldn’t be hated. After a point it becomes an overdose of lovey doviness. Wish the director had explored the characters a little more and not constantly think of only pleasing the audience. It was one of the movie where we know that we’d get sad at the end of the movie, but we would feel happy for the experience. In a way it was sadistic too that we are okay to be manipulated in such a way.

No matter what’s the case, the success of the movie had to be attributed to the sincerity because no matter in what language one is watching, it feels their own and most of the people who had known the language had dubbed the film. Not once was my focus on finding faulty lip syncs. Plus the poetry and song lyrics were really apt. That shows how much effort would have gone through the movie to keep it just like original. For example there is a scene where Noor Jahan (Mrunal Thakur) hears a breaking news, she’s in the upper floor and camera is below and the lyrics from an already appeared song goes like, “tharai irangi vandha…” which means the moon coming down to earth. How apt! It’s scenes like this which transcends boundaries and makes one like the movie not only for the emotion but for the making as well. Because at the end of the day, that’s what cinema is all about. On the other hand the Noor Jahan revelation scene made me burst out laughing, thanks to ‘Kaathala Kaathala’, if you know what I mean.

May be this might not go down as an everlasting movie like a ‘Premam’ or ‘VTV’ but definitely not a passing cloud as well. It’s the film of the moment and it’s better to enjoy when its trending, rather than analyzing why it couldn’t be a trendsetter.