Rajapattai

My review : Rajapattai



“Rajapattai”- a lots of expectation were on the movie especially on its director Suseendran who has given 3 successful & critically acclaimed movies so far. Also this movie showcases Vikram in pucca-masala movie action hero role after a long time. But the end result is poor & boring.

Though the movie is short (just about 2 hours) one can’t but feel the discomfort watching this movie as it is tiring to spend even that 2 hours. One wonders what has happened to that promising & talented youngster who came on to the scene as a whiff of fresh air with his “Vennila Kabaddi Kuzhu”. And to think of Vikram , the most unluckiest of stars in Tamil Cinema , one just has to feel for the man.

Vikram has tried his best to give his 100 % & he looks dashing and brawny . But his acting in this movie is bad for he tries to imitate KamalHassan of “Vasool Raja”. In certain sequences he acts plain ridiculous & makes one wonder what was he thinking while doing so. Deeksha Seth is yet another beauty queen who has nothing to do but to stand like a set property & cat-walk in the song sequences.

K.Vishwanath has a meaty role after a long time & shows his vast experience in enacting it well. Sana as the main antagonist has done her part well. Pradeep Rawat has a minor role as does Avinash. Reema Sen , Shriya & Saloni have item numbers to perform.

Songs & background score of Yuvan Shankar Raja are below average.

Mathi’s cinematography is good & adds gloss to the movie.

On the whole , “Rajapattai” is movie which none seem to have shown any interest in making it in the first place which shows on screen.

Bottomline : Bore

2/5

New Year's eve

My review :New Year's Eve



Ensemble cast , most romantic & festive day of the year , good support from technical team & a wonderful music , you would expect Gary Marshall’s “New Year’s Eve” to be that special movie that you can go and watch it with your loved one for this holiday season. But unlike his previous attempt at a similar movie with even bigger ensemble “Valentine’s day ” , here Gary Marshall falters.

The movie is soulless , artificial , contrived & not engaging enough. In the process of bringing in many characters & trying to give them equal opportunities director has lost focus on the script. It is an assortment of opt repeated mushy romances, break-ups & reunions , casual dates , serendipities , father-daughter & mother-daughter relationship issues , all occurring in the backdrop of the new year’s eve.

Among the many the ten or so sub-plots , the interesting ones are very few. Lady in her midlife crisis trying to fulfil her series of new year’s resolutions with the help of courier delivery person is an interesting plot enacted by Michelle Pfeiffer & Zac Efron . Though the plot seems interesting & Zac energetic , Michelle looks jaded & goes through her motions.

Ashton Kutcher & Lea Michelle as the unfamiliar neighbours caught up in the elevator provide some sparks , but Ashton is uninterested while Lea overacts. Halle Berry as a nurse who chats with her husband who is in army posted in Afghanistan does a good job .

Katherine Hegel as chef Laura who happens to meet up with his ex-boyfriend , famous musician Jenson (Jon Bon Jovi ) who dumped her just after proposing to her an year back is radiant in her role. Russel Peters also has a brief blink-you-miss kinda role as an assistant chef to Laura but he doesn’t have any scope to perform or kindle the funny bones.

It is sad to see Robert Di Nero in the role of dying cancer patient who rues the mistakes he has committed in his life & finally finds redemption by enjoying his last day of his life with his daughter (Hillary Swank). Meanwhile Hillary Swank as the vice-president of the Times Square Alliance making arrangement for the “ball drop” is adequate but somehow one feels the magic is missing in her this time around.

And yes , there is Sarah Jessica Parkar in there too , not one but in two of the subplots. In one she is a divorced middle-aged mother of a teenage girl with trouble in their relationships because of her over-protective nature & in the other as the mystery woman Josh Duhamel is waiting for the past one year. “Little Miss Sunshine ” star Abigail Breslin comes as the teenage girl of Sarah who is pissed off with the over-protective mom of her’s.

The most ridiculous of plots is the one in which there are two couples who are expecting their baby competing with each other to deliver first in the new year in order to get 25,000 dollars prize money for the first baby born in the new year. Seth Meyers , Jessica Biel , Til Schweiger & Sarah Paulson star in this plot which must have been kept with hilarity in mind but sadly failing to achieve the aim.

In the end , none of the plots stays in your mind . And to make the matters worse , there is an inspiration speech thrown in between by Hillary Swank on how one would look back at the year passed by before entering the next one , yawn.

With a running time of 2 hours , the movie is lengthy & tiresome .

On the whole , “New Year’s eve” is the last thing you would want to do on the new year’s eve.

Bottomline : Too many cooks spoil the broth

2.5/5

OSTHI

My review : Osthi



While watching “Osthi” I was reminded my younger years when after watching good action movies especially movies with cop stories me & my friends used to imitate the hero & the action scenes during our play times. Just imagine if kids like we were provided with money & all the properties that they have used in those movies and asked to do our level best in re-enacting those movies. That is the exact feeling I got about how STR aka Simbu might have felt seeing him do a “Dabaang ” Salman Khan.

Seeing STR playing the hero in “Osthi” is like fulfilling one’s own childhood fantasies. He is like a kid trying to emulate men onscreen. Trying to do a cop , mouthing innumerable punch dialogues (which even the seniors in the industry are trying to get away from) , doing over the top super-heroic action sequences & mixing needless gymnastics in the name of dance (though he dances wonderfully well otherwise ) STR has gone two steps back from all the gains of “VTV” & “Vanam”.

Filmmakers should realize that not all movies which are successful in one language necessarily mean it will be a hit if remade in other languages too. There are numerable examples for the same. And if you try to remake a movie which is in itself made by mixing & matching countless redundant aspects from your native language & became hit only because it was fresh & new to that language audience your are digging your own grave. No aspect of this movie is novel or unseen before except may be a “kid” playing cop for the first time in Tamil cinema..!

These are the days were even if your are Rajnikanth , you have to have the backing of solid story , interesting screenplay , novel ideas , extra bit of variation in acting from the routine , change of get-ups etc to give a successful movie. Hence it is sad to see young & upcoming actors like STR resorting to the convenient simple route which is certainly not enough to make the audience take notice.

It is understood one should not look into logic & reasons while watching a movie which is made only with entertainment as its objective . But there are loopholes in the basic premises itself & many are laughable ones at that. The protagonist not an ingenuous person himself why he specifically chooses Daniel , the Villain of the movie to lock horns with is not clear. It is understandable that an young child having aversion towards his step father but why would a mature man hate his young step son without any justifiable reason. And the most comical & ridiculous sequences are the ones where heroine giving reasons for not willing to marry the hero , heroine’s father response to it (come on..! it is a case of plain concrete thinking on the part of the writer . Daughter saying i can’t marry leaving my old alcoholic father alone doesn’t mean he should die , only then she can get married....sigh!) & the manner in which heroine agrees to marry the hero readily as soon as her father dies. These are only few absurdities of many which readily come to one’s mind.

STR has tried his best to look convincing as a cop but to no avail. Except mouthing punch dialogues & trying to flex his muscles both in action as well as dance sequences nothing much can be expected from him in a movie of this kind. Richa sleeps walks through her brief role . Ramesh tries to discover his acting talents one more time but success eludes him as usual. Sonu Sood looks disinterested. Loads of veterans line Nasser, Revathi , VijayKumar , “Nizhalgal” Ravi , “Thambi” Ramaiah are wasted in routine caricatures. Shanthanam do evoke few laughs here & there with his impeccable timing but he is getting too predictable.

Thaman’s songs are already huge hits. All songs are foot tapping numbers especially “Neduvallli” & “Vaadi Vaadi cute pondatti” . “Unnale unnale” is a delectable melody. Background score however is loud & noisy.

Barathan’s dialogues are tailor made for movie like these with everyone extolling the noble virtues , courage & intelligence of the hero. Almost everyone , even the heroine has a chance to mouth a punch dialogue.

Gopinath’s cinematography is good & glossy . CG works are done subtly.

Dharani has missed his shot at redemption after his previous failures like “Bangaram” & “Kuruvi” where his successful career hit a speed brake. It is time to introspect not only for Dharani but also for STR.

On the whole , “Osthi” is nothing the name suggests.

Bottomline : FAKE

2/5

The Dirty Picture

My review : The dirty picture



Disclaimer claims that the movie does not resemble any one’s life live or dead .With what intention they have put that disclaimer is up to the makers but the truth is that the movie “The Dirty Picture ” actually does not resemble any one’s life especialy Silk Smitha. Just by christening the lead actor as Silk , making the backdrop as Madras & releasing the movie on the day of birth of Silk Smitha , the makers can’t fool people that it is a biopic of the deceased actress.It can best be described as an attempt to trace the rise & fall of an "item girl".

Milan Luthria who has only 2 significant movies so far in his career spanning 6 films (Taxi No 9211 & Once upon a time in Mumbai) has teamed up with his trusted writer Rajat Arora (who has written almost all of his movie so far) once again for this “The Dirty Picture.” What might have been a serious tale of small town girl making it big in the tinsel town before succumbing to the fame & adulation has been made in very B-gradish & rudimentary manner.

The makers have made it sure that no one should take it seriously but just have silly gratification & guilty pleasure in fulfilling the voyeuristic instincts in them. Instead of banking on a solid script the makers have found recourse in flaunting the anatomical assets of the lead artist & loads of raunchy bordering on gross dialogues. As a result even if one tries hard to relate to the happenings of the movie & try to have some sympathy on the travails of the protagonist one can’t due to the ludicrosity of the writing & making.

The first half is actually works out as a spoof, ridiculous one at that . One wonders which cinema industry they are portraying where movies are made with such ludicrous scenes & tasteless titillations. Naseeruddin Shah & Tushar Kapoor characters are mere caricatures where the makers have failed miserably in trying to portray the superstar culture of the south cinema industry. Almost all those concerned in movie making down south from actors , directors, writers , producers as well as the audience are all shown in such ill-informed stereotypical manner.

Yes agreed Vidhya Balan has acted well , has put in her soul & whole in to the role , but there are too many distractions to take notice of her histrionics for it is difficult to focus on anything else but what the normal human instinct perceives. So even in the most tragic of sequence in the movie when one actually should have noticed the pain the failing actress going through , mind & the eyes focus on something else which is instinctual. This goes to show that to show boldness on screen one need not actually flaunt their nature’s bounty on your face rather facial expressions , voice modulation & knowing how much to expose & how much to conceal is more important. That is what made people like Silk Smitha ,the phenomenon she was ,down south.

Vishal-Sekhaar’s songs are already a hit but the songs in the movie especially when “Ishq sufiyana” comes everyone burst into laughter for it is nonsensically placed & picturised totally out of sync. And the background score is downright dismal for nowadays even the daily soaps have better background score unlike this street drama like background score.

Bobby Singh’s cinematography is voyeuristic to put it simply. (It is difficult not to make pun with his name while describing his work but due to self restrain I am abstaining from it :P)

On the whole , “The Dirty Picture” is a super hyped movie but in reality a B-grade movie made by mainstream production house , promising writer-director & top class actress as the protagonist.

Bottomline : It is a “Dirty Cinema”

2.5/5

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

My review : The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn



“The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” is one of the finest motion capture animation movie yet . It is made with Steven Spielberg at its helm is no surprise for he is master in using the latest technology to the hilt for the benefit of his movies.

As a person not exposed to the “Tintin” series of comic novels in his younger age I went into the theatres with an open mind , excitation of watching a movie in 3D boosted by very nice things written & told about the movie in the media as well as word of mouth.

The most striking & prominent thing that comes to once mind is that watching the first sequence only made one go speechless about the technical wizardry of the creators. One has not come across such an awesomely made animation in 3D so far. Except for the comic book like humans everything else look better than the natural ambiences.

The house , books , birds , deserts, ocean , river , ship , palaces , ....all are done with such minute precision & flavour that one can’t but appreciate the hard work of all those involved in its creation.

When it comes to the movie per se since I was naive to the “Tintin” series of comics , I found the story & the happenings on screen a bit childish. The story of a young journalist trying to solve the secret of the Unicorn , a ship which carried loads of treasure onboard which got sunk when pirates attacked it in one of its voyages with the help of the descendent of the captain of the original ship. That there is another person , Ivan Sakharine , who is supposedly descendant of the chief pirate who attacked the ship in the past , is also on the pursuit of the treasure that got lost along with the ship. The ensuing cat & mouse game is the story.

Story wise there is nothing much to expect considering it is based on a comic book catering to the age group of 3 to 15. May be the story might have enthralled those who are familiar with the comics when they were younger & might have given them the chance to relive those days of innocence & liveliness . But those who are not familiar with the comic series it won’t affect much , myself being one such.

Technically as said earlier the movie is top class. It will be the bench mark for all other live animation movies to follow to emulate. The technical team at Weta Digital should get all the credits that are due for them.

John Williams background score is good aids in transforming the viewers to the comic book world.

On the whole , “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” is an enthralling piece of work best enjoyed in a 3D digital theatre & is worth every penny spent.

Bottomline : For the child in you...

3.5/5

That girl in yellow boots

My review : That Girl in Yellow Boots



Maverick is back with his latest “That girl in yellow boots” a shocking tale of a daughter searching the whereabouts of her father who disappeared from her life all of a sudden. The discovery in the end why he left her & her mother and what made him contact her at the present may be too much for the weak hearted to take. Anuragh Kashyap has like always jolts the audience with surprises abound.

The narration is sluggish , intentionally at that , so that the viewers also get to travel along with the protagonist. Like he explored the underbellies of Delhi in “DevD” here he does of Mumbai. The shady streets & massage parlour , the visa office , police stations , the local trains of Mumbai , local dadhas of different lingual origins ....all that is stereotypical of Mumbai is shown in this movie too. Perhaps that is the negative side of the movie. There are numerous stereotypes & routine beaten to bush sequences in between new bolder scenes that mars the impact.

More than the writing it is the acting which steals the show. Kalki Koechlin is brilliant Ruth who comes to India in search of her father after receiving a letter from him stating how he misses her. She comes here on a tourist visa but later she is forced to stay longer because she is not able to trace her father in that time. Forced to join a massage parlour for her living she takes the extra mile to save enough to trace her father. The anguish , the pathos , the happiness (though few & far in between) are effortless emoted on screen. That she is a seasoned theatre artist shows evidently on screen.

Naseeruddin Shah has a brief role , more like an extended cameo . His role doesn’t have wnything to do with the main story but he is as convincing as ever in his role.

Prashanth Prakash as the drug addict boy friend of Ruth is convincing in his role.

Gulshan Devaiya as the kannada speaking goon in a role which is very cinematic & contrived. Though he manages to bring in few laughs , the character as such lacks enough depth & is a case of poor writing & thinking on the part of the director.

Rajeev ravi’s cinematography explores the dark streets of Mumbai astutely .

Anuragh has this time has thought of only “elite” audiences & tried on an abstract movie but not totally convincing with the end product. The most difficult thing in cinema is presenting something in a simple manner that everyone can understand & appreciate your work. But sadly that is not the case with “That girl in the yellow boot” . Somehow one gets a feel that whole movie is enacted rather than one is peeking into the lives of those involved which is a new for a Anuragh Kashyap movie.

Bottomline : For the “Elite”

3/5

Porali

My review : Porali




" People with mental problems are our neighbors. They are members of our congregations, members of our families; they are everywhere in this country. If we ignore their cries for help, we will be continuing to participate in the anguish from which those cries for help come. A problem of this magnitude will not go away" . It is a famous quote of former US first lady Rosalynn Carter on Stigma surrounding the mentally ill. “Porali” is an attempt to address this issue of stigma associated with the mentally ill & tried to show that people with mental illness also have ambitions and desires as rest of us do & they are no different from rest of us. Kudos for the team to think of such an important & under-represented issue as far as movies are concerned.

Director Samuthrakani has tried to sensitize that it is our duty to support people with mental health problems, not to ridicule them. We also need to educate against the myths surrounding the mentally ill, and not perpetuate stigma. Eradicating stigma will make the world a better place for people with mental health problems.

All said & done , howsoever noble the intentions of the director be , the message he tries to put across gets lost in sluggish screenplay & contrived situations abound in the script. Story is a novel one accepted but the execution of the material onto the screen leaves a lot to be desired. Screenplay is so bad that while grudgingly sitting through the first half one is reminded of the amateurish teleplays we have come across in the 80’s in Doordharshan. The pace is so lethargic that few laughs here & there (though some are very juvenile) props up the sleepy viewers on & off. To make matters worse the acting by the supporting cast like “Badava” Gopi , Sandra , Naresh irritates the already battered viewers.

Interval point has a twist & succeeds in waking up the viewers from the deep slumber. Second half is better than the first & is purposeful with better pace , narration & performances. M.Sasikumar , Suri & Vasundra have done well in the second half & it is their performances that makes the viewing worthwhile. Though second half is full of contrived situations like the age old evil step-mother , step-brother property feud , Hero suddenly becoming macho from being an innocent village bumpkin & bashing up tons of villains etc. The climax is a big joke.

As said it is mixed bag when it comes to acting. Sasikumar , Vasundra , Swathi , Nivedha, Suri have done their parts well. Naresh , “Badava ” Gopi , Sandra , “Kanja” Karupu irritate with their amateurish acting. Especially the scenes involving “Badava ” Gopi & Sandra will make you squirm in your seats.

Background score is pathetic to say the least. It is right out of the yesteryear Doordarshan serial. This one makes even Vikraman- S.A.Rajkumar movies’ background score a classic. No songs are worth mentioning in Sunder.C.Babu ‘s music.

S.R.Kathir’s cinematography is adequate & supports the narration. Editor should have been more proactive while editing the first half & saved us from the misery.

Samuthrakani after his successful “Nadodigal” has slipped this time with his “Porali”. His noble intentions have got undone by poor execution & therein lies the problem. And there is an overdose of sermonizing which gets unbearable after a point when each & every character give their share of moralistic one-liners. There are few instances of brilliance but they are few & far in-between getting submerged in the gargantuan mediocrity.

On the whole , for good intention to have an impact on the viewer execution needs to be spot on which is not in “Porali” .

Bottomline : Spineless warrior

2.5/5