Raavan or Ravanan Movie - Review

Buk Buk Buk Buk..dandanaka dandanka dandanaka!

Oops..sorry! I'm so captivated by the dialogs like the one above that I forgot to start the review. Lets start with the cast.

Vikram (Veera) - Made immortal by the above dialog. Wears designer vests made by Adidas or Choromozone. Knows tamil poetry. Scheduled tribe in the remote hamlet in tirunelveli. Mother tongue - A tribal language that they dont use often. Bad guy who is actualy good. But mostly does bad things till the end.

Prithvi (Dev) - Aishwarya Rai's husbandu. He is a SP and so by that definition wears jeans, full-hand indigo nation casual shirt and white round neck t shirt. Wears Rayban. Good guy who is actually bad. Does good things mostly but for the end.

Kuruvamma (Aishwarya Rai) - She has a more modern name (Ragini). Vikram calls her kuruvamma. She is the good looking wife of Prithvi. Struggles to establish the goodness due to ageing face. Shows ample cleavage to distract that fact. Maniratnam heroine and by that definition wears red/crimson/yello/green colored designer churidhars or sarees. In her spare time she teaches bharatanatyam to kids from the "Indra" movie. Anu hassan would have fit this role well, but for her ginormous size these days. Aish has trimmed her nose hair perfectly. Need to check which remover she uses. Vikram needs it. Ah! I found some perfection in this movie!

Forest Ranger (Navarasa Nayagan Karthik) - Plays the hanuman character. Established by wearing monkey kullah all through the movie. Re-establishes by jumping all around in the intro scene. Speaks incoherently as always. Behaves crankily. Sad comeback film to have opted for!

Elder Brother to Vikram (Prabhu) - Same scheduled tribe gang leader. But wears denim shirts (XXXL) and timberland outdoor work shoes. Does not know poetry like Vikram. Speaks the better version of fake tirunelveli accent.

Vennila (Priyamani) - Sister of Prabhu and Vikram. Comes, speaks urban tamil one-liners like a maniratnam heroine though a part of the tribe. Dies in a few minutes after some adiga prasangi dialogs. I suspect she was killed for it as against the make-believe suicide the screenplay shows.

Prabhu's wife (Ranjitha - Nithyananda Fame) - No special need that she fulfills, except for the front benchers who were very amuzed by her comic presence in a commercial movie. She is an "art movie" specialist "apparently"!

Then there is a eunuch comedienne character played by that silly comedy fellow - Vyapuri.

The story:

Vikram's a bad guy and his people are bad (we dont know why. Maniratnam says so and we believe). In one of the songs, Vikram bats for the rights of the tribals on the lands they live in. May be on the day of that shoot, there was some naxal headlines in the newspaper and Mani did not want to miss a topical idea. The next day there could have been a kidnap news. So he makes Vikram finish the song and kidnap Prithvi's wife to take revenge for the death of his sister who was raped by police men. Not sure if Prithvi was also a gang raper. But since he is Rama's reincarnation we dont believe so.

Prithvi searches for Aish in the rain forest, water, village etc. They search for 14 days and not a day more or day less, as ramayan has 14 years of vanvaas. No other reason! Vikram in the meantime likes Aish very much (because?). But in climax he lets her go. Prithvi doubts if Aish slept with Vikram. At this point I wished Aish jumps down the train that they were in and lands in an underground sewerage drain (like Sita did in her day and age). Nothing like that happens, disappointing the viewer in what is otherwise a meticulous and utterly intelligent script that does complete justice to the Ramayana epic.

By this time, you have realized that the story dint matter even to maniratnam or the actors.

Lets come to the dialogs which are done by Suhasini. She runs a movie review show in some tam channel. I hope she takes moral responsibility and shuts that show down.

Some dialogs that are novel or shocking:

- Bak bak bak bak..danda nakka..brrrriiii(Vikram makes this sound after every third dialog)

- Vikram first conversation with Aish is a pleasant exchange of sanga tamizh poems whose meaning not one soul in the theatre understood (Congrats Suhasini for the dialog coup)

- In the climax when Prithvi escapes death and nervously kissed aish (after all kissing aish is a big deal and his nervousness shows in the movie). Enter the dialog from aish "Padhinaalu naal acha..neenga padhinaalu nimishathla vanduruveenga nu nenechen..vanga veetuku polam" (Did you need 14 days...I thought you would come in 14 minutes..okay lets go home)..Gosh, was she kidnapped? Did he defy death? Or did she just go for a visit to the gynec and he came in late to pick her back to home, on his way back from office?

- Aish to Vikram :En uyire edukka onaku yaar urimai kudithirkaa? (Subramaniam swamy can write better tamil dialogs than this)

So whats good about the movie?

Music is decent, though at some point you feel that a very alien islamic tinge seeps in. We dont care as this is the least glaring of the gaffes in the movie.

Cinematography is spectacular and truely world class. I never knew there was so much woods to explore in my backyard (tirunelveli). Lets forget the shoddy graphics gig in the climax.

Props - OMG..amazing..heck who cares if brown and green colored translucent stones neednt be there in the middle of the forest where Aish is held captive? As long as its good, it has to be in the screen. The beautiful lamp in the boat! Wow what screen presence it adds in spite of its utterly useless or unnatural existence! How about those artistically woven cane compound walls in adivasi village. It does look a bit gautier merchandise like.Heck adds to the screen presence.

If you remember the narayana idol that acted in Dasavatharam movie, the same idol has acted in this movie also. Agarwal movers and packers have moved it to the tribal hamlet's water falls so that Aish can take all the effort to go there to pray for her release (instead of spending the same time to find an exit route)

Go for the movie for sure -

Good locales (if you dont get Nat Geo in your TV)

Good Props (if you dont get travel and living channel)

Good music (if you cannot download it online)

Good looking aishwarya rai in some parts (if you dont have jeans movie in your DVD collection)

PS: Technically, I did not pay to watch it! My mom who paid for it, liked the movie for some strange reason. So it looks like if you try hard, you might even like it.

PPS: I am waiting for the hindi movie review from the blogosphere. It must be fun to read how Abhishek played Vikram's role.. There is quite a bit of mandham-ness he needs to overcome!

Sarwam - Movie Review

Its been a while I wrote and I am ashamed that I write about a movie like Sarwan to break the limbo.

In anycase, having decided that I would do a great dis-service, its only logical that I write about another!

Sarwam is a story of a lovelorn man trying to save his deceased lover's transplanted heart from the villian. No that sounds like a story. It could not be. I saw it.

So, Sarwam is probably a story of a father trying to save his son from a psycopath. Something's wrong. The father was relegated to a hospital bed. He didnt particulary save anything, including our time.

So probably Sarwam is a story of a(nother) father, trying to revenge for the death of his son (and actually wife, who was not worth revenging for, as his actions suggest).

The movie, as you realize, is a a confused concoction of lackluster story lines much like what you woulg get by mixing tomato sauce, idly and chappathi and eat it along with vinegar. Eww...

Arya's back to being a human being after his role as an opium smoking sanyasi. The earlier role suited him the best. He could hid behind his soiled beard when acting dint give much helping hand. In this movie, he loves trisha in the first half, doing what actors like Karthik did well, 30 years ago. The delivery and packaging of love scenes had a simple formula:

2 funny dialogues + 1 sentiment scene with a kid + 1 convictionless anger from heroine + some needless animation of butterflies = formation of love.

Add to it dialogues like 'I wish I die like this", "What will be our future house like", "I will flush the toilet after defeacating", "I will not sneeze while trying to kiss", you will get epic love.

With such epic love, we are in the edge of the seat to know what happens when Trisha dies in an accident. The director should have hurried into those scenes right in the 10th minute of the movie, without giving us glimmers of hope through nice song sequences and cinematorgraphy. It would have been easier for us to plant a bomb in a body part which he probably used to think this story out.

3 months after Trisha dies, her heart is taken out of the samsung refigerator and sent to a hospital. There was a kid there whose "heartila periya hottai" as Jeyaram says in pancha thantiram. The poli (bogus) doctor who was in fact a bajji master till the previous day, uses the same forceps from his "sundari bajji stall" to take the well roasted bajji like heart and keep in the hottai of the kid. As a passing reference, Trisha's father says arya that all this was possible because, the boy had an enlarged heart and hence thrisha's heart fitted his hottai.

The operation was over, much like putting the bajji in a plantain leaf and rolling it a few times with "azhagigal kaidhu" news laden Dinamalar news paper. Only thing the doctor dint ask us audience is 'Saar, thenga sattiniya ile vengaya sattiniya?'

Even if he had asked we wouldnt have been shocked. Yenna engalukku andha vali puriyala.

Coming to that, the previous sentence is the epic dialogue of the movie. The villan, his dhaadi and dog are all trained to be repeat the same thing through out the movie - to say "onaku vali puriyala', 'to never be trimmed' and 'to keep doing 'he he he he' respectively.

Andha vidiya moonji's son and wife were killed in a freak accident by an appam & kadala curry eating mama. The villian wants to kill the mallu aapam mama's son for revenge. Idhan ba istory.

Since the trisha bajji is now the kid's bajji, Arya wants to save the kid. Along with the heart bajji, the director also thought its good if he continues with some heroine type romance even after trisha dies..so you have sequences where the kid and arya have oh-sweet arguments about ilayaraja- ar rehman music, kid getting angry and trying to make faces, kid feeling insecure in the bed (oh god) and all that. WTH??

Finally after mouthing "onaku yen vali puriala" a thousand times, villan and arya meet and villain dies.

The movie comes to an end.

Only when we got up we all realized that the entire theatre had muscular dystropy due to the curses from the villian.

Enakku ipo nalla vali puriyudhu!

Morale of the story: Dont watch tamil movies till a few directors die.

Some questions to Kamal - Dasavatharam

Kamal saar....some questions:

1. Govind (Scientist) invents bio-weapon. He then sees his lab monkey dying a gory death consuming. He then lectures that we should destroy the weapon. Lives are important. Why dint this wisdom dawn before spnding millions of tax payers money (I pay 35% tax with no economic stimulus returns you see)? May be Govind thought the weapon would be let into paramakudi wells and turn them into instant gobar gas plants to fuel our stoves for suttaplaam and vetha kozhambu
2. Why did Mallika Sherwat wear a swinsuit in that dance and have a net in the strategic place? Saddists!
3. Why dint Fletcher get a translator better than mallika, for tamizh? There was MS Bhaskar anyway. Or was she sent here because Delta airlines gave a buy one get one free offer, for tickets?
4. Has kamal heard of liposuction? If he does not believe in it, I suggest he develops a virus that can remove his excess luggage in his cheeks and thoppai. He looks like ponni raw rice one quintal bag, three of them stacked one above other.
5. How old is old? Paati kamal is 90 + years made evident by her voice. But she (especially her hands) make me feel she was an undiscovered evolution of Dinosaurs. She even had dry scales in her hand.
6. Doctor says "Avtar you are alright. Its a medical miracle. The bullet neatly removed your cancer cells. Now its just a formality of Chemotherapy". Sorry, this is not even worth ridiculing. Talk about a lecture from Kamal on saving lives and the doctor pokes needle into all cancer survivors, ridiculing their worst phase of fight against cancer.
7. How much did Kamal spend for make up? I would spent just 10 kgs of kuttuvilaku brand aatta. The effect would have been better. The left out maavu could have been used to kill the virus. If tata salt can ruin a million dollar virus, why cant chappati maavu do that?
8. Two FBI agents came to India to chase Fletcher and the bio-weapon. May be they dint finish the ilaneer till the end?
9. Why did Jayalalitha act in the movie? Was it because the movie dint have a weighttu character?
10. Karunanidhi and Bush share the dias in Chennai with Kamal. Kamal is a saddist. If not his gibberish is enough, he dons the role of bush, who is the king of gibberish
11. Pchh...no more questions...saving one...why the hell did an animated butterfly come on screen. Was it a screensaver to tell, the story is inactive for long or was it to say this movie and the thought behind it can be explained only by "chaos theroy"?

Ada pongappa!

Dasavatharam - Kamal in a Vijayakanth Starrer

I was never comfortable about Indian movies that took gimmicks as the USP. They can never make them to perfection like hollywood, nor can they leave out song-dance-fight-sentiment sequences.

I was hoping Kamal would never do such a film loaded with irritating gimmicks stretching his physical endurance to the limit. He has done that, in good style and very little substance.

The movie starts with 17th century Shivite-Vaishnavite ideological tussle with Kamal as the Vaishnavite protogonist who would kill himself than acknowledge Shiva as the supreme God. He gets crucified in the style of Jesus (save us) and gets sunk into the ocean along with the statue of Narayana. What makes me wonder is why this episode is needed? Is it all to say that Lord Narayana created tsunami 3 centuries later to save us from biowar? Or is it to show that Kamal has a muscular physique and he has a fetish to flex his biceps even as he lifts his hands to reach out to god?

Besides all these, the song sequence that lead to the immersion of the statue and the way the ocean has been created in graphics, does make us sit up and expect stunning visuals all through the movie. You will not be disappointed on this account (saving the last tsunami scenes).

The movie cuts forward to the present day USA where Govind (Kamal) works as a bio-scientist creating biological weapons. You may please avoid asking questions like "Why is Govind working as a bio-weapon scientist, when he does not believe in killing lives?". No stakeholder of the movie seems to care. The movie has a USA portion, there is Mallika sherawat, Kamal, car chases etc. Who has time to think about stichting holes in the story line?

So Govind develops this weapon and the owner of this venture funded lab decides to trade it with ..er...dont know who it is. Govind promptly removes the weapon (an NVS pattanam mooku podi sized dabba, which carries a deadly virus) to a safe (or thats what he thinks) place.

The next half hour of the movie is about swanky cars, fast chases, helicopter combing and some stylish encounters typical to hollywood. In the process we get introduced to the conman "Fletcher" (Kamal again) who brings loads of gore within minutes of settling down in the screen. (You are better off bending down to pick up your pop corn than witnessing the jigsaw style killing of the japanese wife of Govind's friend).

While you still wonder why an American could not have been hired for this role, the movie shifts base to India, where the bioweapon has been transported to. (accidentally in a cargo flight). Much to our relief, Govind encounters a gult supercop (Balram Naidu) who mistakes him for a terrorist that came with the cargo flight. This gult role a class act of Kamal. Strengthened with Crazy Mohan dialogues, the scenes involving Balram, Fletcher (who has followed Govind to india) and Govind set the floor on a laughter spiral. Kamal's role as a Andal's (asin) paati is another highlight of the movie. Kamal pulls off the 90 year old's voice modulation and amazingly, even the withered physique...

The bioweapon which gets to India as a cargo delivery, gets delivered to Andal's paati in Chidambaram. The weapon, through a sequence of rip roaring comic events get into the Narayana idol which is on a procession in the street. The rest of the movie is all about where the weapon travels and how the entire cast camps at Chidambaram to get the weapon. Its hard to reason out why Avtar singh (Kamal again) decides to come to Chidambaram for his live concert. He probably knows a thing or two about crowding metros and second rung cities being the growth drivers? Whatever! Jeyapradha is his wife (Kamal will never get enough of her I guess).

We also dont understand why the 7 ft muslim and his family (nagesh, KR Vijaya) were needed there, nor do we understand what Kamal tries to convey through Santhanam-Dalit leader Vincent (Kamal again) stand off. The kanyakumari-Trivandrum fishermen dialect could not have been delivered better. Vincent's body language, dialogue delivery and make up are sure case studies in their respective areas.

After a protracted chase laced with some amazing stunts and entertaining crazy mohan-esque climax chases, Govind, Fletcher,Balram naidu and the Japanese Kung Fu brother of the slain japanese girl all meet up in the skating rink in besant nagar beach (all trying to take possession of the weapon).

At this point, since we were all given liberal dosage of intolerably foolish and sub-standard logic and turn of events, we dint bother to check if indeed "Sodium Chloride" (Salt) is the solution to de-activate bio-weapon. We give in to believe that it is the case. Thats the only way we can end bio-war and the war on human kind (Dasavatharam-the movie).

What 10 avatars of Kamal (including that of Bush) cannot achieve, Lord Narayana achieves by creating Tsunami and heaps millions of gallons of NaCl (kadal thanni ba!) on the bio weapon.

When we think the movie should have ended, Govind goes into the lecture of atheism and picks a caricatured (courtesy: sriram, for this thought) iyengar girl's unrefined ways of proving God's existence, to prove his point that God indeed does not exist or even if he does, he is not better than bio-terrorists.

Firstly, Kamal should understand he is not a thought leader in the areas of existence or lack of god.

Secondly, even if he does believe he is, we are not there to pay for his movies to get his sermons..We are there to watch a movie. Period

Thirdly, when choosing some contrived stories with choppy execution (which he admits by bringing chaos theory unnecassarily to support to disjoint script) he should have spent less effort and donned just one role (that of the scientist) and should have left the rest of the roles for actors who have their real skins and acting flavors than pasting tons of plaster of paris and looking like disfigured ghost for most parts.

Better it would have been if Kamal had decided to direct the movie and let Vijaykanth act as the scientist. We would not have had much expectation and we would even have not minded if the cargo plane landed in Afganisthan instead of Chennai. Vijaykanth has made these things possible and believable in all his blockbusters.

No! As an afterthought, Vijaykanth as an old paati would have been the worst thing, even more dangerous than the bio weapon itself!

Narayana!

Review - Guru

Guru - Villager, Visionary...winner?
Guru is a Mani Ratnam movie and that’s good enough a reason for it to succeed in the box office. A storyline that closely resembles that of Dhirubhai Ambani - perhaps the most powerful businessman during his period, a star cast that is certainly capable and a background score by A.R.Rahman who is fresh from his mind-boggling numbers in Silnu Oru Kadhal, you would expect the movie to be another re-inforcement of Indian mainstream Cinema reaching world-class in terms of story-telling and treatment.
Guru, for most parts, flatters to deceive! A movie-maker's strength is in eliminating competing stories, picking the right ones, treating them well and conceiving them as screen stories and then having the cast perform what is expected!
Guru is a fascinating opportunity to take what is the most drama-filled and larger-than-life real life achievement and recreate it in silverscreen. You could not have seen a more defining personality in the last few decades.
Guru starts with the mark of Maniratnam, with sharp dialogues from the Gurukanth Junior, out of the world photography by Rajiv Menon and a very engaging narration style, typically in portions where Gurukanth spends his early days in Turkey or when he is back in Bombay (of those days).
Maniratnam's movies are for audience with a taste for the finer nuances of life. His audience will not be disappointed. Scenes where Abishek Bachchan plays verbal chess with Aishwarya Rai, his newly married partner or when he elegantly claims the thrown to the local yarn mandi or Vidyabalan-Madhavan-Abishek exchanges, put the stamp of Maniratnam and prove beyond debate that he is the badsha of scene-conceptualization.
Mithun Chakraborthy is re-invented in this movie as a truth-obsessed clean press editor, who has a soft corner for Gurukanth, whom he considers as his own son. We hope Mithun da takes up more such roles and makes up for the talent wasted.
Madhavan plays a slightly longer cameo with style, depth and more importantly- ravishing looks. As a reporter, as a lover, as a human being with a purpose in life Madhavan excels as an actor yet again.
If there has been an Oscar nomination category for the best smile, Vidyabalan would win a lifetime award. Her smile is shadowed only by the élan and ease with which she fits into the role of a terminally ill and terminally positive daughter of Mithun.
For Abhishek this movie is a life time chance to prove his mettle as a versatile actor. Carrying the heavy burden of having to synchronize with a real-life inspiration and the physical challenges of sketching an evolution of life and differentiating phases of life through dialogue delivery, body language and style, Abhishek has certainly arrived, safe and in style!
With all these pluses, the movie still fails to live up to the expectation. Maniratnam's conundrum is in deciding which portions of Dhirubhai's life to highlight and which ones to leave and how to treat the character. Where Gurukanth slips as a character or rather falls short of completion is when it glaringly lacks punch in the last half hour of the movie.
Dhirubhai is a quintessential businessman who single handedly re-wrote Indian Business 101. He did not confuse between capitalism and socialism. He dreamt big for himself and his company, in which there were a few crores of shareholders. Social welfare spillover was a byproduct of his success and since he had his priorities right, Dhirubhai had a single-minded focus on overcoming obstacles to build an empire, albeit not all his victories were through just business acumen. He had a reach where things could be made to happen with a movement of an eye!
This essential clarity of the real life character does not come into Gurukanth's characterization. Gurukanth, a sound businessman and a negotiator-par-excellence could just say "namaste" to life-crippling manipulation charges levelled at him and when pressed to react before the verdict, he just wields patriotism and does a cry baby at the famous Indian red tapism.
Nay! The real life Bhai knew how to numb legal quagmires and keep going!
May be Maniratnam should take a pause, revisit his B-school topics of understanding consumer (audience) behavior and how we have changed over years to know more about real-life figures better than we would have, in those non-google days!
And finally.. a word about Aishwarya Rai. She did act well within the confines defined for a typical Indian heroine. She did not however have to try hard at anything in this movie. Perhaps, with marriage on the anvil, is she busy rehearsing for the best moment, than worry about yet another movie, playing (a distant) second fiddle?
In all, Guru is a must watch, for streaks of brilliance and inspiration. After all movie tickets cost less these days!

Movie Review- Veyyil

Veyyil. The heat permeates in every screen and manifests itself in all the characters, sometimes with a shining glow and many a time through its suffocation.Murugesan and Kadir, played by Pasupathy and Bharath, are brothers from a rustic village near virudhunagar (madurai).

Bharath is as exuberant and shiny as the sun is and Pasupathy is like an eclipsed sun, full of feared energy lying dormant.Pasupathy's crush with Pandi (played by Shirya, as the character reaches middle age) comes to a grinding halt, when Kumar (Pasu's dad) man-handles and strips him naked in hot sun, for giving a miss to school and relishing MGR movie (in the midst of rings of smoke, perhaps).The scorch of the sun in his life starts here, as Pasupathy sets off to a destination that he never reached. Losing money, jewels (taken from home), Pasupathy carries hope and MGR in his mind.

The story then is about his love for the smalltown movie hall where he is the operator. Carefully scripted poetic relationship between him and his gaurdian, Pasupathy's handlebar mouthstache, all add to director's meticulousness and focus in story telling.Pasupathy falls in love with Thangam, the opposite door food stall owner's daughter. Their love raises heat like mercury but fades soon like twilight, as the girl's family takes revenge on Pasupathy for the couple's pervious day's initimate moment in the operator room.Pasupathy escapes death even after strangling, while thangam kills herself seeing his plight!Much like the mercury suffocating you in the summer, life's travails melt pasupathy, who finally decides to go back to his dusty village.

The scene where pasupathy meets bharath and introduces himself, one where his dad refuses any emotional sidekicks to pasupathy moves you like ghee that melts in hot air. Special mention about Vasanthabalan, the debutant director, for his characterization and casting.Bharath plays the anchor for Pasupathy in the house now and rallies everyone around to show their love for their lost-and-found elder brother. While their mother (another fitting display of the characterization) shows ample love, its second to what she has for Bharath, who took the family to where it is, with his banner advertising company.Pandi, Pasu's childhood crush is another manifestation of suffocated life who is now a single mother. She offers motherly affection to quell Pasupathy's emotinal starvation.When the whole family keeps him away and still doubts him (mistakenly) for jewels that disappeared the second time, Pasupathy's reaction to the characters and props, tell you that he is the next big thing in tamil cinema.

Bharath also scores will in choosing his movies and getting into the character. As an angry rustic youth with immense desire to excel, Bharath truely epitomizes the can-do rural youth.His heroics in the advertising auction, humility in front of the business man, love for brother, care for family and romantic overlays spiced with anger, for Meenakshi, all gel well with the character and Bharath has done his role proud.The movie does not trivialize sibling relationships like other tamil movies have did. Murugesan lays his life for his brother who was chased to the edge of death by the rival business gang and saves his brother and his family's existence.Only then the family realizes that Murugesan is not a run-away kid but their savior, albeit, after the heat of life had consumed him.

Veyyil, in all, is a must watch classic that touches upon the helplessness of a cursed soul as it tries to win over life and does not live to see it, as it wins life!

Must watch!