Movie Review – Jailer

Where is Thalaivar heading to?

Ya ya, “Thalaivaru Nerantharam” and all is fine but what really it does apart from making a seventy year old man keep on walking in slow mo throughout the film. If slow mo is what I want I’d have rather watch Megan Fox in ‘Transformers 2’. Between ‘Jailer’ and ‘Leo’, probably the only two movies, which I thought, would’ve been nice if I had watched in theatre last year, I thought ‘Jailer’ would be better, because people were raving it. But apart from few moments which Rajini would make his own, no matter how crappy the director is, as a film ‘Jailer’ didn’t appeal. ‘Leo’ even though wasn’t great, at least had good filmmaking skills compared to this. What’s worse is even though I criticize, I enjoyed it while watching. That is dangerous.

Seeing Thalaivar in promos where he polishes his son’s shoes and gets ridiculed by his grandson, I thought the movie would have tried to create fake humility, but fortunately it was not the case. Nelson’s comic take worked. “Tiger” Muthuvel Pandian (Rajinikanth) is shown as a powerful man right from the word go, even when he is kidnapped when his son is on a mission. I must say, it was well handled. I expected, that for some time, he would play underdog and suddenly come to power but it was not the case. It might have worked better this way but would have been usual. Anyways the first part where he was not the ‘hero’ was only short lived and largely unappealing. There was not even an iota of sadness when we get to know that his son is killed. The director absolutely doesn’t give us any time to reminiscent.

Post that its usual Rajini template, only that there were three more people to walk in slow mo along with him. Even though monotonous, it all works due to the music and Rajini’s screen presence. But there is absolutely no creativity. Music is the same old, jarring, high octane pieces, which would last for the time being. One guy during some conversation casually said that Anirudh is a trending guy and not a trendsetter like Harris. There are complaints about Harris but that’s for another day. For now Anirudh’s music is working.

The crux of the story is nice, Nelson has packaged the story well with dark humor, the climax twist works, the villain is good, the cameos are good, even Tiger’s son Arjun (Vasanth Ravi) is good in whatever space he gets. I can get your mind voice, “ithuku mela vera ena da venum”. But altogether there was something missing. The film doesn’t feel coherent. Somehow Nelson and Rajini together sell this film. But we don’t get to feel for the events happening in the film. The highs are lows are ebbing. When Arjun dies, when the treasure is obtained, and all the main points in the film, we don’t feel the sadness or the elation, the characters feel. We just nod to what the actors say in that specific scene. But may be a lot many liked it because the emotion in the climax shot was brilliant, it hits the nail right on the head.

The trend of cameos are irritating. They just pull in people from different industry just for face value to sell it. We don’t get to know anything about them and absolutely no back story. We are applauding them for the stars they are and not for the role in the film. As it’s the beginning, it’s exciting but I’m sure it’s going to become a trend and soon become a cringe fest like Marvel Cinematic Universe. But I confess, the climax scene where they all light up the cigar together, I couldn’t sit in my seat out of excitement.

Movie Review – Leo

An actor in fine form and a director who believes in his craft, sell this mediocre film, thanks to the sincerity.

Thanks to a lot of backlash, it took me a while to watch the film. For the hype it generated before it, I too, like many of you, wanted the film to fail. But it was surprisingly cool. Good that I already got to know about the fake flashback and boring second half. I was prepared for a snooze fest. But I was happy how Lokesh made an ambitious project, within his limits, in a blockbuster format movie. Lokesh and now Nelson, even though are lifting the standards of blockbuster genre with their way of handling cinema, it’s sad to see that they are inspiring a bunch of youngsters in just making a good film as a road to a big star’s project.

The film starts with an amazing Sandy and his gang stealing a house. Their whole part was done superbly and left to surprise as what they’re capable with, may be in some other film of LCU. Of course the looks and the way Sandy behaved was a template psycho character, yet it still worked. In fact the whole first half worked like a charm. It’s lovely to see how Lokesh is making a genre of his own, with this fake identity thing. He makes the story with a lot more respect than other masala filmmakers do.

The much coveted Hyena sequence happens next. It’s a reasonably well choreographed sequence. But don’t know why Vijay never gets his wig right. VFX was top notch. There are bound to be comparisons with the grizzly bear sequence of ‘The Revenant’ (a film and a sequence which I didn’t like) but it’s understandable that they couldn’t go to the level of that, with the limited expertise and budget available. Overall the sequence was a fair deal and how it acted as a setup for many things in the movie, about Parthi’s (Vijay) affinity towards animals, Joshy’s (Gautham Vasudev Menon) shooting skills, Siddhu’s (Mathew Thomas) javelin skills etc. Only because of that scene, in the second half when Siddhu throws the Javelin at Parthi, it was that powerful, otherwise it would have been bland like Andrea with the bow and arrow in Master. Also loved the suddenness of the title card post. It was short and sweet.

Vijay was at his charming best. I’m afraid I’m becoming a fan of him. I hate to confess but he’s aging like a fine wine. In this film as a father of two kids, his chemistry with them were amazing. Especially the “Karu Karu Karupayi” sequence, he absolutely owned it. Both Trisha and her character was dull and boring and there was absolutely no chemistry between the two of them, which was sad to see. It’s really difficult to be a woman testosterone filled Lokiverse. The only kind of women which would appeal in his films would be like that of Agent Tina (Vasanthi).

The highlight of the film would definitely be the fight sequences, whether or not it was clinical, whether or not it worked for you, each one was taken with so much effort and sincerity, every fight had a theme. It was like watching Shankar film’s song. Even though by now it had become redundant, he was the first person who invested (not just the money) on songs. But hopefully this concept doesn’t get beaten to death and become an excuse for bad writing.

By the time, the glass breaks and we hear the “Badass”, Lokesh almost sells the film, with the help of terrific Vijay. Anything and everything which happens in the film post that (except for that click of a tongue to call Subramani) is him trying to have a conclusive end to the film. The flashback was a disaster, especially as soon as Elisa Das (Madonna Sebastian) appears in the film. How are we supposed to sympathize for a character we had just seen? And Leo escaping the place too wasn’t convincing.

It’s followed by few high octane sequences and one sudden breakdown of Parthi in front of his wife. In cricket, you can say how well a batsman is in form, by the sound of ball striking the willow. That scene felt like it. Vijay doesn’t do that type of sequence anymore. There he doesn’t cheat only his wife but us too. Such terrific acting. The character reveal in the end was just ‘meh’ but how Lokesh has cleverly found out what works for Vijay and what doesn’t is shown in the end by his supposed comic take in the dinner table and his hesitancy in picking the call in the climax. A similar sequence would be there in ‘Master’ where he’d with his students and climb the stairs saying, “apdi enatha than da pesitu irupanga”. Its minute things like these which Lokesh has extracted from Vijay, which makes the film nice.

I hate to believe that he’s adding songs just for the market. I guess he too enjoys it. It was okay for “Pathala Pathala”, even though unnecessary, everyone were happy to see Andavar having his due of fun but “Naan Ready” was totally unnecessary and cringe. I don’t want to read too much into his idea of drug free society and LCU. It just feels like the message in ‘Thulluvadho Ilamai’, where they show everything and ask them not to do.

Movie Review – Thiruchitrambalam

A film which was not good enough to appreciate, not bad enough to reject

From the outlook, ‘Thiruchitrambalam’ looked as generic a film can get. With the amount of “different” films which Dhanush was doing, this looked like a film to miss. But for some strange reason, this film got the love of audience and started doing well in the Box Office. There was comparison to Dhanush’s earlier films, especially “VIP” by a large section of people. Most of it looked to be deliberately done. In the end it was a simple film which had its moments. When a film like this becomes a hit it raises two questions, does audience except only this much from a movie or are the so called commercial movies not even this good.

We travel with Thiruchitrambalam Jr alias “Pazham” (Dhanush) and Shobana (Nithya Menen) throughout the film. Nithya Menen was as annoying as she could get. She is one of the rare actress who can be effervescent naturally but here her cuteness was exploited and her Tamil, by the way she stressed the words, was irritating too. They wanted to fit in a Tara from ‘OK Kanmani’ as a friend here, which didn’t work. And she had been given a character which if you hate, you’d be hated by remaining. Wonder when we’d get to see an un-bloated Man Woman friendship in Tamil Cinema. Closest we got was Autograph and Sneha, especially the chemistry between them when they were actually not uttering any dialogues in “Kizhake Parthen” song was fantastic.

Dhanush does Pazham with élan. It’s a mark of a great actor who can still be relatable after a string of high voltage performances. Something which Vikram let go off him after his success in big budget films. Due to an accident, a misunderstanding develops between him and his father and he loses his braveness. Thankfully he didn’t have a big fight while saving his dad, Inspector Neelakandan (Prakash Raj) towards the end. I was praying that it shouldn’t become a mass moment. His performance in ‘Thiruchitrambalam’ was like that of Ranveer Singh in ‘Gully Boy’. You don’t get to see their greatness on screen but you’ll know how easily they’ve become part of script. It’s like that silent partner who doesn’t lose his wicket and gives strike to another free flowing batsman at every given chance.

The second love story with Ranjani (Priya Bhavani Shankar) was a disaster. Not only the bit story but even Priya Bhavani Shankar overacting in those scenes were a pain to watch. Even her cuteness couldn’t save her performance. On the other hand Anusha’s (Raashii Khanna) love track, when it started to feel interesting, fell in a typical chauvinistic judgmental all-now-get up-and-clap-your-hands template. Wish the film was about them explored more about each of their worlds rather than fault finding. So Mr. Pazham loves a “city” girl and a “village” girl and when he knows that both don’t suit him, he selects his friend, who loves him since he was a child. How lame!

But to be honest, the film doesn’t look as lame as the story. That’s where the director, Mithran R Jawahar has excelled. He has created an environment which makes us believe Pazham’s feelings are real. Leave the accident and bad back story for it. At present, three men from three generation living in a housing board flat, with bikes parked on road, where any middle class man would have thought how other bikes would go in the adjacent street if bikes are parked in such haphazard manner is a great setup. He could have done wonders with the setup, in fact he could have done Asghar Farhadi with a strained relationship of dad and son, without reveling any details but chooses cute by opting for Ilayaraja poster and motta madi sentiment. That’s where he fails.

Bharathiraja for most part excels as thug Sr. Thiruchitrambalam but it was Prakash Raj who holds the fort. Recently we see a more matured version of him. The gap has done a world of him for him I believe, or maybe we’re seeing him after a point and feeling it that way. Anyways it was a pleasure to watch him on screen. And Dhanush was superb playing the second fiddle to both of them. Few scenes, even though filmy were lit. The scene were Pazam tells that it’d be good only if his dad hits him, the way he enters to lift him etc. But there would be an equally bad scene for every good scene, for example, here we see Sr. Pazham in the zoom out.

The fun portions between the Pazham’s were lovely. Especially the train sequence where Sr. says about his death. It was superbly handled. Wish their beer seasons lasted more in that manner. (Did you notice those couple of beers in a plate so that it wouldn’t fall of the bed?) Overall it could have been a great movie if it had the love track taken off. Even if not explored in a serious way, it could have still been good. In the end, the film eventually ends in the only way I didn’t want to. For which I can never forgive.

Movie Review – Don (2022)

Tries to do too many things in too little time

When a film like ‘Don’ becomes a blockbuster, we get to know how low Tamil cinema has stooped to. Exactly like how ‘Comali’ had become a hit the previous year. It falls in the same template but may be not as irritating as ‘Comali’, thanks to Sivakarthikeyan’s presence, Anirudh’s numbers and humour. But otherwise, in the hindsight, the movie felt like a a disgrace to what ‘3 Idiots’ could achieve with three veterans. It was all fine till it was treading along the ‘Meesaya Muruku’ line but when it takes itself seriously, that’s when it falters.

The movie begins with a great build-up of him standing in rain in backshot. The build-up was so much that it felt like a spoof, but it ended up being a serious scene about him wanting to go to college for some event the next day. The entire film happens in a flashback mode. The whole of his journey through the forest with rains, elephants and imminent dangers and the director Cibi Chakravarthy thinking that he’s using them as metaphors was so lame. That’s how a third standard kid would write about metaphor as soon as he gets to know the meaning of the word ‘metaphor’ through his teachers.

Chakravarthy (Sivakarthikeyan) hates his father who wants him to always study and during his childhood he had vouched that he’d get better at something apart from studies but just like every kid in the block he’s forced to go to engineering college where he changes everything and gets the acknowledgement of the students, leading to the title ‘Don’. Can it get lamer than this? I think that’s why they were insisting repeatedly during promotions about the title and how it had to be taken in a funny tone as it’s not an action movie. At least if he had suffered for some time and then got to the status it’d have been a nice time pass but he’s always Don and afraid only of his dad.

In reality, Chakravarthy doesn’t stand a chance against Bhoominathan (S. J. Suryah) Even though the movie shouldn’t be analysed for its intricacies, a person like Chakravarthy succeeding against Bhoominathan in an everyday life is farfetched. Especially the Russian university scenes. In fact, in none of the clashes between them, there was a sense of continuity. Bhoomi first says that he’d be lenient and would be strict only against Chakravarthy, then reverses the rule, again fails, again reverses. So, no action of Bhoominathan was gripping. In the similar vein, Virus from ‘3 Idiot’s was a classic example of terror, whom none could break. Here Bhoomi’s character only shouts and tries to push the image of terror amongst us. That’s some weak writing.

Samuthirakani does the usual irritating father character but again doesn’t impact like his character in ‘VIP’ due to poor writing. Don’s sidekicks are of absolutely no use, including Sivaangi, who couldn’t bring her magic from TV to screen. Priyanka Mohan tries to be earnest to her character but like how Sri Divya got puffed up with additional makeup and made to overact from her first film to second film of Sivakarthikeyan , Priyanka Mohan too was made the same way. Got to feel for her. She was brilliant in ‘Doctor’. I in fact liked her in her very first movie, ‘Nani’s Gang Leader’ where she was effervescent.

Even though lengthy, and the film tries to do too much by going here and there, it was a nice sort of guilty pleasure till the climax. The third act was the one which completely spoils the films. The film takes a serious tone out of nowhere, he discovers his passion out of nowhere. Worst is that I don’t know why, when he’s said that he’s a good storyteller, I got reminded of the scene where Ranbir tells a story near a street food shop in ‘Tamasha’. The setting of it, with editing, lighting, is one of the best scenes ever made. Due to that, this scene irritated me even more. Last time it was ‘Hridayam’ and now this. Why does everyone has to pickup a camera.

Everyone whom the protagonist thinks as a villain become a good guy. S J Surya’s acting powers come out from that scene, where he says, “chi po da”. Wish he had gotten a role rather than being an eccentric caricature. Samuthrakani, tries to do Samuthrakani things which was again not convincing. Sivakarthikeyan has improved on his emotional acting skills and somehow it all comes to an end, especially his drive to college. It was taxing. They make a mixture of everything and package it a way and make it an edible dish in the end, somehow tasty too but when we try to concentrate on layers and making, its just a solid mess.

Movie Review – Vikram

Once upon a time, there lived a… oh, enough said!

First of all, it’s a great pleasure to see Kamal on screen. Happy about his unkept promise of not planning to act again. It’d have been a bummer if he had not made films any further. Quite curiously, for a Kamal film, the movie generated a lot of hype, first among me because of lot of coincidence like my name, birthday, friends name etc. but even amongst others, there were people wanting to catch the movie desperately, after the first review was out. Having said all that, I didn’t except such a movie from Kamal, it was a shocker, as cliched as it my sound, it was another truly different movie.

After settling to the FDFS ambience, personalized Kasi theatre engagement, papers flying, bouncers shouting, whistles, videos etc. it was finally time for the film to start. For a full-blown action film, a song like that at the start was needless. Don’t know why it was kept. Yea it was fun to see Kamal enjoying himself but was it apt for the film is the question and the song wasn’t done with full conviction. Like my friend pointed out when the song ended midway, “ipo lam pattu podrathukae bayapadranga” (nowadays, people are afraid to keep songs in the film). And he was right, I felt how Lokesh was in two minds when he wanted to both have a song as well as not have it. From that point to the interval, it was a blast, with only one bad scene where the prostitute tells what Kamal does physically to her. It was emotionally cringe.

The first scene of the film where Kamal dies would have been a shocker for many. Even though we all know its not the end of him, the way the director delays the character entry and keeps us in hooks was something no director had done before. When was a hero, let alone a big budget mass action hero, had appeared only during the interval. That’s what makes Kamal different from others and he must be appreciated for that. For a comeback film he appears only in the interval block. With that, he answers the the complaint about how he never gives chance to other actors, in style. The interval scene seriously is a blast. I was telling how it could have been one of the best first parts of the movie if it had been released separately. It would have had a ‘Kill Bill’ kind of impact with the Tamil audience.

The problem starts with second half. I’d rather not say problem but the film fails to elevate the protagonist like it does for other actors. After a brilliant Fahad Fasil show in the first half with menacing Vijay Sethupathi. The scenes with Narain, Tina and everyone of his aid works big time but for Kamal with a couple of punch dialogues and absolutely needless “Nalavara, Ketavara” dialogue, it was only compulsive applause he was getting. May be just like ‘Jigarthanda’, people loved the first half so much so that they couldn’t hate the second half. They were applauding for the Vikram who was in search in the first half rather than the Kamal on screen. I was in fact shocked that the film became such a huge hit. I thought I’d be writing about how it’s a great film which was again misunderstood by audience but I’m doing the opposite. I was proved wrong by the audience who were able to accept the fact that in spite of Kamal being in the film, it was a Lokesh film in which Kamal has acted.

Action sequences could have been definitely better. His mannerisms of shaking his shoulder were done one touch too many. Probably the only action scene that worked was the Tina transformation. Even though I guessed, it was lovely. Also the names of all the agents were displayed at great junctures. Probably the film shouldn’t have been shown with the title at first, rather should have been shown only when the Agent Vikram’s name gets displayed during the climax.

I know it’s wrong to expect an emotional performance in an action film, but I felt it would have been nice if some more time had been given for him with his grandson, their chemistry was lovely (Remember the dad son scene in ‘Uttama Villain’, can it get any better than that). Especially the crying scene which Lokesh repeatedly points out gave us a glimpse of Don Corleone scene with his grandkids in the field. Maybe it was intentional. Whether it was intentional or not, another inspiration definitely seemed to have come with Nolan’s batman series. The interval close up shot of Kamal, the lights off scene from marriage hall, the restaurant scene where the kid looks for his grandfather etc. But the important thing is everyone of this scene worked. In fact, everything did except elevating Kamal as a mass actor.

The climax could have bene brilliant and explosive as Lokesh intended if only had ‘Kaithi’ not come earlier. As soon as we saw guns and drugs in the first scene, we knew what was going to be the climax and cinematically there was nothing new in the climax blow up. It was underwhelming to be honest. With ‘Kaithi’, we got a terrific feel, the silence after the gunshot there was lovely, here it was just a repeat. Even Kamal bringing the barrel to ground, Fahad Fasil rescuing the kid was all cliched.

People fondly call this a Loki Universe, it is nice to see him get all the love. He too calls it his world. It is good to see him doing a connect with his other movies and be proud about it but hope it doesn’t become a template and he yields to a compulsion to connect every movie of his after this.

Movie Review – Master

A Great Vijay Film which ends up inches short of being Greatest Vijay Film

Just like how ‘Petta’ was for Rajni, ‘Master’ was for Vijay. It was carefully made in such a way that it’d satisfying the big screen viewers. That too coming at a time where going to theatres has become a luxury. My bad that I missed both the films in theatres. ‘Master’ had a great storyline, a pure original, and the way it was carefully molded into a commercial film deservers an applause. Lokesh seemed to have mastered the art of it. May be because ‘Maanagaram’ didn’t have any expectations and he was in no pressure to give importance to specific actors and screen space between them, it still remains his best film but with ‘Master’ he had bettered ‘Kaithi’ by at least an inch. Just couldn’t wait for ‘Vikram’…

Loved the way the film started, with the way villain being introduced, it was like a proper man vs man type of thriller. May be Lokesh needn’t have let Vijay Sethupathi dub for a younger Bhavani (a terrific Mahendran), it could have given more curiosity for the viewers to know whether it was going to be the hero or the villain. Or maybe he thought the villain entry was more powerful than the hero’s so didn’t want to disappoint audience by being compared. The jail, fist punch, and for a change, a man’s physique also worked towards building the character. It was like proper Bane type of pure evil entry.

Vijay on the other hand gets a forced action entry. The action sequence of which was nothing interesting. In fact the action sequences of the entire film was a bummer. Except for that one shot where the camera rotates in the climax fight between JD and Bhavani, there was not a single innovative action sequence. It would have been a lot better if he had been introduced with the “Vaathi Coming” theme. It would have given authenticity to the character. May be even the film could have been titled ‘Vaathi’, that would’ve packed a punch.  May be Lokesh would have even written film to start Vijay’s character with this theme and may be forced to do an action sequence prior to that because in the theme, we don’t see Vijay’s face for a while. It’s pointless to shoot it like that when we had already seen his face. This looked like a blunder from a man who had made one of the terrific mass opening scenes in Tamil cinema with ‘Kaithi’.

Post the introduction scenes of both the leads, Vijay tremendously grows into the character. It was like watching a man on form. He was prolific throughout the movie. On the other hand Vijay Sethupathi was the same old lethargic man. I guess they wanted someone who could elevate a mediocre villain character so they put him. But it’s not a solid character which would work with just anyone. Also the lathery and dialogue delivery has become monotonous. The whole hero vs villain setup was like a repeat of ‘Petta’. Don’t know what’s with college masters and wardens all of a sudden, they’ve become heroic.

Other characters are barely there. It was pretty useless to have a heroine. Lokesh could have very well done without it and could’ve got a brownie point for it. Andrea as an archer was a joke, the entire lorry fight was a joke. The dialogues in the end didn’t appeal at all. In fact the whole move got tamed after Vijay becomes a good boy (read as trimming his beard). In spite of very little screen space Mahendran as a young Bhavni and Ciby Bhuvana Chandran as Sri appealed.

It was one of the films where the villain’s physique would have worked wonders. Bhavani gets introduced with a bulging biceps but later appears as someone who has absolutely no idea how to exercise his muscles. His punches were a near joke which just escaped because of Vijay Sethupathi. If anyone else had delivered those single punch killer moves, they’d have been trolled to death.

The juvenile concept was a great original and wish a lot more could have been shown in that area rather than just being a tool between hero and villain. But it was refreshing to see an alcoholic Vijay without any strong flashback. Wish even Nasser had not told about that in those few words. His flashback stories told by himself were terrific. And I guess this is the best looking Vijay in his entire film career.

There were few Vijay gimmicks like “I’m waiting”, kabbadi fight etc. The idea was well placed but the execution could have been better. Like how “Kannula Thimiru” could have been shot better, kabbadi fight too could have been better choreographed. No matter what, Anirudh scores with his massy background scores. When we were all thinking that the faceoff between hero and villain would happen only in the climax, there is a pre climax scene where JD holds Bhavani with a pen and ridicules his name. That was nicely done, both, naming the villain in this manner as well as ridiculing it.

The culmination of both the characters for one major fight towards the end didn’t really appeal. It looked forced and felt like the only way to end the movie. The few bad boys in the juvenile home giving JD the info of Bhavani too was too farfetched. First of all why would Bhavani want to escape, he wasn’t troubled to the limits by JD yet. So it all was quite un-organic and forced. Even if not a modern day great film, with better treatment it could have been a modern day great Vijay film. But it fails to pack the punch like ‘Kaththi’ did which was a near perfect film in this genre. So may be if I had to rate between ‘Petta’ and ‘Master’ on which properly glorified a mass hero, I would rate ‘Petta’ better. And whoa, I missed watching movies for a year.

Movie Review – Nani’s Gang Leader

A charmingly disguised commercial thriller

The first thing that you associate with Nani is charm. That has been both a boon as well as bane for him. Thankfully I watched his ‘Jersey’ where I could seem him stripped off charm and still exhibit so much exuberance through acting. So ‘Naan Ee’ was the only film where I saw him in his usual charming self. That’s why there is always an interest in watching his films. ‘Gang Leader’ through thrives much on that factor and exudes charm.

If Nani is a kind of interesting character, Vikram Kumar too is. The director who started with a promising 13 B (which I didn’t like as much as others) and churned away hits like ‘Manam’, ‘24’ and such, is a director who makes films look classy but, in the end, is still a masala director. But Masala done in a way that it’s enjoyable and not overpowering. Gang Leader too falls in the category. And when the you have a star like Nani, he keeps you afloat with his charm and when compared to other films of Vikram Kumar, this looked more stable. It’s nevertheless a make-believe film but at least its something which respects emotion more than the glamour.

Just like a number of movies in the recent past, this starts with a heist scene too where a dog and few people get killed. The heist is quick and nobody cares about the bank or the money it lost. We care about the people. A letter arrives to few women mentioning about a gift they’d be getting. They all arrive to see the one who posted it, Saraswathi (Lakshmi), who tells them about her plan to kill the one person who killed the remaining in the heist. The sentiment doesn’t really work but the director makes us buy it. They scout for a person to do his job and that’s Pencil Parthasarathy (Nani). He agrees to it as he can finally get to write an original novel.

If you had hated the film by now for shallow storyline, you’re never going to like it further, but if you’re a masala fan like me, the rest would be enjoyable as well. The way they trace to villain and try to get hold of him were all very bleak. There could be million ways he could have escaped. Let me not get into the detailing part of it, I was not even interested about it at first place. But the characters and the chemistry between the family were really good. By having a girlfriend, daughter, sister, mother and grandmother. The director ticks all the boxes and they too perform effortlessly. Even the gay manager of the bank, Santoor Senakkayala (Vennela Kishore) does a decent job. In fact, I’ve become a fan of him off late. His comic sense is really good. In spite of not having much romantic scenes, the chemistry between Parthasarathy and Priya (Priyanka Arul Mohan) was really good and she looked lovely too. With few laugh out loud moments and a couple of sentiment scenes. Lakshmi and Saranya Ponvannan provide a good back up to the film so that we don’t lose interest.

In a film where the entire first half goes by in searching the villain, the main criteria it should have satisfied would be, it ought to have a powerful villain. But here Dev (Kartikeya Gummakonda) is a loser, who doesn’t have any card up his sleeves and provides no fight for Nani’s gang. There were a couple of interesting scenes in the second half like Saraswathi’s back story and Nani’s. I loved the motive of revenge for Saraswathi. That’s the only thing I could genuinely appreciate for writing and that’s the only take away for me from the film. Rest all were made up craft. The point when she says that whether they’d have all ganged up if she had been seeking revenge for an eighty-year-old was bang on face. It’s a question of priority. Like, ‘Saving Private Ryan’, where we can keep on debating whether it was right or wrong. That was a lovely one.

During the climax the only thought that came to our mind was how it’d be a perfect remake material in Tamil with Sivakarthikeyan in the lead because he could do everything which Nani had done in the movie. A top hero like Vijay or Ajith definitely wouldn’t fit the bill because it’s not as heroic as expected but for someone like SK it’d fit the bill perfectly where he’d get his due of comedy, little bit of sentiment and a story with twists. That one action fight in the end would satisfy his fans too. All said and done, I wonder whether I’d have watched it by putting so much effort, if the movie had been originally made in Tamil with SK in the lead 😛

Movie Review – U Turn (2018)

Turns into the right direction

U Turn was one of the movies pending in the list for a really long time. As my affinity towards horror movies are really less (thanks to all the Nayantara movies), I was trying to postpone it time and again. Also did a mistake of thinking ‘Game Over’ to be ‘U Turn’ and watched the movie in between. I had to pass a lot of time in between as I also watched Maya. Watching horrors back to back is totally pointless for me. So, decided to do it out of the blue when I’m in a lull in that category so finally I got to watch ‘U Turn’ as it satisfied all the criteria.

My next decision was to whether watch the original Kannada one or the Tamil one. Even though I had the Tamil movie with me I was contemplating further because the Kannada movie was readily available online too. Kannada had Shraddha and Tamil had Samantha. I’m a Samantha fan but I like Shraddha too who did a fabulous job in ‘Nerkonda Parvai’. But the thing about ‘U Turn’ was there was not much comparisons between the two movies, no one regretted they watched Tamil version and no one really called out loud for Kannada version too. Maybe it was plot driven and had less to do with the language. So, it kind of worked in both languages without any comparison. Finally, thanks to my affinity towards the language as well as the heroine, I decided to watch the Tamil version.

The movie started playing tricks right from scene one with an inverted camera over the median which then becomes linear post a point where the median is disturbed. If it had been direct first and then got inverted, it’d not have worked like how it was. Right after the title we get to see an interesting long shot in auto. Easily breaks the monotony of shot one and gives us a feel that it’s a movie with nothing scary. Thanks to the bright lighting, we don’t get a feel of eeriness post the opening shot. Also, the problem with most of the horror movies would be the first few minutes it spends on investing the characters. Some movies directly get to the point but with some movies the twists and turns starts only after a few minutes. Here it was the latter. The first twenty minutes or so really worked, it was nice and jovial and cute to watch it. Samantha’s voice is naturally sexy so it was sweet to hear.

Once the plot starts, it gets interesting further. The first half was fabulous even though most of the twists were guessable. The only farfetched twist was the one where Aditya (Rahul Ravindran) changes bike in the flyover. Apart from that and a meek climax, it was worthy watch.

What could have been done better was to make the police station, lockup etc. more interesting, add some realism to it. It was too cute a police station to be and characters were white and black. Maybe we got too used to the cunningness of policemen in other films so it was sweet here. But it acts like a hindrance here. Police, police station, traffic police, the video they see and all look like set pieces. I have not seen a clearer video of traffic through CCTV. It was like videos people would make for short films. If the police station had to be polished, it better had looked like a GVM movie or may be had got raw like a Mysskin or Vetrimaaran movie. It was neither both and looked unreal.

Apart from that it was a largely satisfying movie and Samantha had done a neat job by not overdoing anything and still be vulnerable. As much as we should be happy to see women centric movies, I’m afraid they’re being used only for horror movies because it’s easier to show them vulnerable. Why not a hero could act as vulnerable person in a horror movie. Wish men who couldn’t solve the problem and shown as affected persons would act as protagonists in horror movies and women get better movies than this horror, feminist stuffs.

Movie Review – Dharala Prabhu

Sandwiched between a good and a bad movie

‘Dharala Prabhu’ was not at all in my list, strictly not. Because I loved ‘Vicky Donor’ so much, the experience of it still being fresh in my memory I wasn’t even thinking of watching its remake. I precisely remember during ‘Vicky Donor’ release, I went to watch some other movie and had absolutely no clue about the film. So ‘Vicky Donor’ was a riot, it was totally unexpected. I felt the same freshness of that of ‘Band Baaja Baraat’. Similar to the latter, the former too had excellent leads, they seemed to me made for this role. Having seen the Fair & Lovely girl first time on screen, I became a huge fan of Yami Gautam post that. She had done an excellent job in the film. Needless to say, Ayushmann Khurrana too was so charming and Annu Kapoor was fantabulous. Just the way he says ‘sperm’ in that diction was a treat to watch.

At that time, it was unimaginable to even think of such a movie in Tamil but in a span of around eight years things have changed. ‘Pink’ was remade as ‘Nerkonda Paarvai’ that too with a big star like Ajith. And now ‘Vicky Donor’ to ‘Dharala Prabhu’. The director has to be appreciated first up for making a film which doesn’t end up being sleazy but something everyone could watch. Then the casting. Vivek was terrific, in fact he holds the whole film together, yet couldn’t match up to Annu Kapoor level because it was one of his best roles. Harish Kalyan was a really good choice for Ayushmann Khurrana’s role. He could do romantic scenes with ease. Only the frustration could have come better. But Vivek manages for Harish’s shortcomings. Disaster was Yami Gautam’s role, Tanya Hope was so out of place.

The movie luckily was not a scene by scene remake. Also, it tried to be sensible with the things here instead of going all out ROFL. A couple of main twists, here Prabhu (Harish Kalyan) is a football player who wants to get into a government job, with a window seat in third floor and looking at the mount road. It didn’t work for me. I’d have expected a passionate person who wanted to go to the football field but the fact that it was written without any sort of guilt for Prabhu character was a good thing to have happened. He proudly says that he goes through sports quota, he has a ‘gethu’ (pride) in saying so. That’s the closest a movie character can come to being practical.

Another scene was the one where Nidhi’s (Tanya Hope) parents come to talk to Prabhu’s parents about marriage. The fact that she’s divorcee would be known to the groom’s parents only during that time in Hindi but here it’d have been known already. Another sense of practicality. Because of both these junctures, the sequences are mellowed down but film gets a more rooted approach. Here people look serious and it jumps to the song, in Hindi people would be laughing when the talk goes on. Drastically different but Hindi one works like a charm. Here it’s just a normal scene. In fact, even the grandma here was mellow, in Hindi she was a Rockstar. But Sachu does a great job for that role.

The problem with the film was that, it was not so bad to shoo it off, neither was it so good to laud it. I watched the movie in two parts. Once till interval and the second part the other night. Ideally it should not happen but usually when it happens, either you are so keen to complete the second part or so disinterested to do so. But with this film I was truly in between. Neither was I interested nor was I disinterested. It was just like turning to another chapter in a book causally. I guess that’s what made the film a casualty.