Movie Review – Mahaan

A pulverizing anti message film

For a Vikram film, which was preposterously titled ‘Mahaan’, this happened to be a quickie. With the first single of the movie too not creating much hype and falling under regular troupe of Santhosh Narayanan’s latest outings, it looked like it was going to be the same old story of any Vikram movie but the real attention started with the teasers and trailers where the film felt appealing. But the puzzle solved itself only after watching the movie. In fact the whole setup was to make audience think of something else and come up with something wholly different.

There is a short, not so appealing flashback at the start with three kids involving in a game of cards. It happens so quick that we don’t get a grasp of it. One of the kid Gandhi Mahaan, ends up to be the forty year old Vikram in the next scene, who has to abide by the rules his family, society has framed/set for him. It was a pleasure to watch Vikram do such a subtle under performance in the beginning but it doesn’t last long as he gets a free license for a day. His wife Nachi (an amazing Simran) and his kid Dadabhai Naoroji leave him because of the incident. From that point to interval it was just a pleasure watching Vikram on screen. Time and again he shows what an actor he is. He is a straight out Hollywood material who could match up with the likes of Al Pacino and De Niro in a Scorsese gangster flick.

The three friends unite together at most interesting points. In fact any character who appears for a scene, reunites at superb juncture. Sathya (Bobby Simha) at gambling, Gnanam (Vettai Muthukumar) when they plan to get a seemingly impossible license for their drink and Manikkam (Ramachandran) at his lone birthday party. In fact its Manikkam’s words which makes a seemingly innocent Gandhi turn into Mahaan. Isn’t it just apt that Gandhi thinks of only Manikkam during his birthday? And the chemistry between all of them with Vikram was fabulous. None looked like lesser known actors. It was great to see so much comfort level on screen.

It was good to see Karthik Subbaraj trying to come out of comfort zone. He could have easily done a normal gangster movie with Vikram and could have gotten away with it as a runaway hit but the path he takes in second half and establishes a lead actor without questioning his morality was brilliant. Pro Gandhian, Pro Alcohol or pro or anti of anything is not easy to establish. But he does it with élan. The scene where Dada (Dhruv) refuses to drink alcohol was such a lively scene. It could have been easily laughed at. If it had been laughed at, the film would have been a failure. Only because the emotions of it could be understood, it makes for a compelling watch.

Karthik had tried to do something different with ‘Iraivi’ and ‘Jagame Thandhiram’ but couldn’t. With ‘Iraivi’ it got too personal and self-righteous and with ‘Jagame Thandhiram’ it got too hollywoodish, so much so that it looked plasticky. But with Mahaan he held his ground even though he had not aced it. There were few brilliant scenes where the emotions were stripped off, like, every time Vikram thinks of family, it doesn’t happen for more than a couple of seconds, he laughs it off with his peers dismissing that his past life was nothing but crap. (Something like Ranbir brushing of Deepika rejecting her proposal in ‘Tamasha’ but that was not as subtle as ‘Mahaan’) Karthik could have easily made those scenes a cry fest and made us empathize with Vikram. But he doesn’t, and that’s the beauty. In one of the scenes he so effortlessly dismisses his wife Nachi from his life. He says something like, “avala epovo thooki potachu, payana than maraka mudila”. It’s so cruel a scene which I’m afraid whether other actors would have done it but it happens so effortlessly in the movie.

Climax is where the entire villainess of Gandhi comes to fore. It was a treat to watch Vikram in full flow. Like my friend commented, Vikram gave an audition for ‘Marudhanayagam’ with his ‘Hey Ram’ caricature. Dhruv who was trying so hard to match with Vikram in the face off scenes had to succumb completely in the climax. In fact he obeying his dad in film felt more real than the remaining scenes. Gandhi calling him a puppy in the call to Gnanam was probably the cruelest scene of the movie. May be the people who couldn’t connect with the movie citing that they couldn’t understand the emotions were actually the ones who couldn’t digest the fact that the lead needn’t always have to be a morally correct person.

The length of the film felt justified. May be it could have explored more about Dada and the flashback sequences. The actors, especially the trio of Vikram, Bobby Simha and Vettai Muthukumar were terrific. Even Sananth as Rocky was brilliant. In fact everyone were, except for Dhruv. May be it’s a miscasting. He was not bad, in fact a lot better than I expected but he was forced with a herculean task to match up with Vikram. Karthik or may be Vikram wanted the character to be macho and tried to add a lot of cool factors like Vikram’s previous mannerisms and dialogues but it was a total put off. May be a cop who hardly talks and generally broody in nature would have appealed more.

Overall it was a superb movie with Vikram and it was like showing the next generation what he’s capable of. People who are newly discovering him (thanks to a series of flops) would have been wondering why was he not in limelight all through the years.

Movie Review – Putham Pudhu Kaalai

What starts like a loveable lockdown romance ends up being a numbing corona tale

The theme is lockdown and there are five films about it, the number of mentions of lockdown and corona would be a nice exercise to do while watching the short films because almost every film has a mention of it, a number of times. As if we haven’t heard the news and read the newspapers enough, the terms are annoying to the core. And given the limitations, all filmmakers try really hard to do something worthwhile where some end up successful and some end up desperate but everyone end up doing literal tales with very little cinematic value.

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Let’s look at each of the films, one by one.

Ilamai Idho Idho

The first film is generally a make or break film when it comes to an anthology. So, it has to be carefully selected so that it sets the mood right plus the other films has to be better than the first one, otherwise audience will easily lose interest. ‘Ilamai Idho Idho’ works for its curiosity and terrific cast. Even though Kalidas and Kalyani are cute as a young couple, it’s the seasoned campaigners Jayaram and Urvashi who steal the show. At first when they transformed to young self, I was disappointed because it felt like an insult to old age, to employ young people to act them out but the mix and match of cast worked well as a whole.

Coming from a lady director, the eye for details is amazing, the spoon in the bowl and wet towel on bed are like every household’s melodrama, which one a woman can note. May be for an upper middle-class person with maids to support for every need, this might look cute. But for an average individual, they’d know how annoying these things can get. After the drama, the film ends on a happy note too. Well begun is half done.

Avarum Naanum – Avalum Naanum

The titles, voice over, a delayed heroine entry, English speaking people. You know you’re in for a GVM retreat. Thankfully its not a love story but a story between a grandad and his granddaughter which is done in the same romantic way as how Jessie meets Karthik. Needless to say, M. S. Bhaskar is excellent, for a change, as an educated urban scientist and Ritu Varma as an IT employee, who from a recent hangover of ‘Oru Manam’ looks all the more fabulous as a GVM heroine.

Of all the shorts, this one feels the least desperate, even though there are a lot of mentions of mask and corona. There is an overtly dramatic scene between them both, where the subject is excellent but dialogues were written very poorly, a trademark GVM mistake. Thanks to the cast, they make the scene work. I loved the idea of how a man feels for her daughter’s loss of passion, it’s a great subject which GVM has touched upon but it doesn’t carry on with the same flow. Like any other GVM film, more than the film, we end up loving the heroine and her costumes.

Coffee, Anyone?

The film’s downfall starts from here. A tale of sisters, something which should have had a Jane Austen flair, falls flat because of over enthusiasm of real-life sisters, Anu Hassan and Suhasini Maniratnam, through acting and directing, respectively. Obviously Suhasini has directed because whoever came up with the idea, discussed with their peers and decided to do a lockdown film, it’s not that they hunted for talents. So, this is a pretty bleak subject. An ailing mother whom we first think has corona but thankfully not, her three daughters, one of whom had born late and a father who takes care of wife.

The film is about hope but its as hopeless as it could get, the subject is like how a teenager would write short story, there is absolutely no surprise. There is no logic but only magic but the magic doesn’t work because its like seeing the age-old act for the umpteenth time. If the GVM movie was literal in narrative, this film is literal right from the title. The climax with the granny holding a cup of filter kaapi lokes like a more irritating version of Ashwagandha, Athi Madhuram mixed 3 roses tea ad.

Reunion

Seriously, what was even tried here. It has Andrea who’s hot as hell and wears great gym wears at home and even sings an awesome English song but that’s that. Of all, this looked like the most pointless film. Like a film of an old man who so wanted to prove that he is young. It was a reunion of sorts where a singer meets doctor who has crush on her. There are drugs, biryani and adidas thrown in. Poor Gurucharan C, apart from singing that Ooh la la la song, there isn’t one scene he looked comfortable. Especially going near Andrea, he had a constant fear like a high school student trying to talk to a pretty girl. The climax where he says that the poem is for her, is a point which the audience would have decoded even before the script was written.

Miracle

This would have been a film which most people had eagerly waited for. The film starts with trademark Karthik Subbaraj shots, music and pun. Wonder how Bobby Simha acts so well when it comes to his movies. He was effortlessly funny in this film too but the show stealer would definitely be his friend, Sharath Ravi, who was terrific with his comedy timing. But that’s that. It’s not a film by filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj but only by a short filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj. The film would qualify as one of the films made by contestants but not by a maestro. He’d have easily made this film during his Nalaya Iyakunar days, who knows maybe it’s one of the films he had in mind during those days but couldn’t make. So, he had made it this time with better production value. Except for the scene where the tyre rolls with “Oru kili uruguthu” background, there wasn’t anything funny. But it’s a troupe which has been beaten to death by now, so it fails even in that aspect.

So, my rating of the short film would be almost of the same order it appears on screen.

Reunion < Coffee, Anyone? < Miracle < Avarum Naanum – Avalum Naanum < Ilamai Idho Idho