Evano Oruvan - Review

Evano Oruvan captures your attention from the very first frame till the very end – with some power-packed performance by Madhavan and Sangeetha.

At the outset it may look like a usual story – where the protagonist takes into violence to cleanse the system. But if you get into the detail you will find that it’s not in the league of films like Gentleman, Anniyan or Ramana. That is the plus and minus of Evano Oruvan from a commercial success point of view. Most people might tend to put this into the Anniyan kind of movies and outright reject it. And there can other section of crowd that may understand that it deals with the emotional side of an individual and appreciate the movie and even call it a classic. And "yours truly" certainly belongs to the latter crowd.

The movie is about an individual (or should I call it “You”) who leads a mechanical life and is frustrated about the system – where anything and everything is tied to money. Though all of us would have undergone one such humiliation or frustration – we don’t end up taking it too personally – rather try to put up with the system and keep moving forward with some “hope”. Sridhar Vasudevan is also one such individual – but the continuous push from the system makes him “out-of-mind” – where in from the state of having just unanswered questions in mind – he moves to a state where he vents out his anger. Imagine if all of us get into such a state of mind!!! As the movie progresses – you too get engrossed into the emotional journey of Sridhar Vasudevan. In specific watch out for the emotional out burst of Sridhar Vasudevan in the middle of the night – where he talks about the greediness and why majority of the people are willing to go against the rulebook – or rather why very few individuals tend to go by the rulebook – there by alienated from the society and seen as jokers. Nishikanth Kamath (Director) made a smart move by having the police officer (Seeman) character as general public’s conscience – by making him go through the pain & agony of Sridhar Vasudevan. What makes this movie a classic is that by the end of the movie the police officer kills Sridhar Vasudevan in an encounter attack and then comes to know that the pistol carried by Sridhar Vasudevan didn’t even have a single bullet – thereby making a strong statement that society will always try to curb the ones who asks fundamental questions and fight for ones fundamental right – even though he/she didn’t intend to do anything wrong!!!!

Madhavan as Sridhar Vasudevan has given a fantastic performance and he is surely one of the actors who could make you cry. Watch out the scene where Sridhar Vasudevan calls his wife (Sangeetha as Vatsala). And you have to give it to Sangeetha – all I could say is Tamil cinema has missed out to capitalize on her talents. If she was a revelation in Pitha magan – she has now proved that it’s not a flash in the pan.

Seeman as the police officer is not too convincing. There are far more actors who could have done a great job in this role.

And the key thing to mention here are the dialogues. It’s mind-blowing and I was really surprised to see Madhavan has the dialogue writer – with supervision from Seeman. It’s simple yet powerful.

Nishikanth Kamath is the director of the movie – who did Dombilivi Fast (the original) in Marathi. A special thanks to him – for providing one of the best movies in Tamil Cinema. And hats off for his guts to make a movie without even a single song or comedy track or any other masala items – and yet making it very short and racy.

Evano Oruvan will certainly be a milestone in Tamil cinema and let’s give a warm welcome to Madhavan for getting into the league where we have the likes of Balachandar, Kamal Hassan, Prakash Raj, Bala, Radha Mohan, Ram (Katrathu Tamizh).

Polladhavan - Review

Polladhavan’s story line is no different from the movies like Dhil, Krieedom, Malaikottai and so on. Its about a guy who lands up in a freaky encounter with the villain and how he ends up running around and towards the ends run behind the villain group – and kills them violently.
And yes, our hero will also have a love interest – so that the viewers can see some catchy duets.

So is Polladhavan yet another run of the mill movie? I wouldn’t say so – the reason being the way in which the movie is taken with some truly great shots. The screenplay is fantastic and director vetrimaran seems to have taken enough precaution about how Dhanush should be shown. Had he not taken this caution, Polladhavan could have well become a disaster like Sullan.

It’s good to see Dhanush pick up movies that will work for him. One only wishes that he had taken this maturity 2-3 years back – in which case we would have all seen him doing movies like Kaadhal. And looks like he had taken serious note about the comments passed on his body type – he seems to have put on some weight and by the looks of it he will get into a six-pack shape by his next movie. As usual his acting in Polladhavan is mind-blowing and has proven again that if given a good script, he can shoulder a full movie with ease.

Divya (erstwhile Kuthu Ramya) doesn’t have anything major to do – but looks stunning in the song sequence (especially Nenjodu song).

Murali has Dhanush father is A class. Karunas and Santham do the usual job of hero’s friends.
One wishes that the director could have avoided the stereo-type north madras based villains. It looks too repetitive.

Though the songs are catchy – it certainly acts as an obstacle – for the otherwise racy movie.
Though Polladhavan does have it share of clichés (like North Madras Villains, usual love interest and songs), watch it for Dhanush and the novel script written by debutant director Vettrimaran!

Om Shanti Om - Review

Watch OSO and get a reconfirmation that Shahrukh Khan is the most clever and shrewd film-maker in India. Its very rare to see someone who is touted as the super-star of Indian Cinema taking up a re-incarnation based story (that is beaten up to death now) and promote as such it’s the best ever movie made in the last 2 decades. After watching the movie, I feel such a promotion is indeed required for this movie – and King Khan has done a very calculative move in terms of promotion.

OSO is a very ordinary movie and if not for King Khan, it would have been a disaster and got back into the cans within a few days run. But King Khan does an impossible act and then support it with never-seen movie promotion by having OSO events all over the place. As he rightly pointed out the only thing he didn’t do is write Om Shanti Om in his forehead.

But when you sit in the theatre and watch OSO – never have me found even a single scene as boring. Ofcourse, you have to keep away from logical thinking for 2.45 hours and what you get by doing this is – you get entertained royally. You have mushy romance, comedy, sentiment, over-acting by Khan, feel good one liners (like sachhi – muchhii) and above all get to see all your favorite stars in a song – that is choreographed in a fantastic manner.

I’m not even going to talk about the story. What is interesting is the backdrop in which the story is told and get into some risky areas by mocking at others in the film industry - and King Khan excel in laughing at himself – which I guess he and his close friend Karan has mastered (laughing at yourself)

Deepika Padukone (as Shanti Priya) is looking awesome and she doesn’t have anything major in the movie. She has all it takes to give a tough fight with the current crop of bollywood actress. Guess a south Indian has finally arrived to take up the legacy of Sridevi.

Farah Khan has proved that she has everything to become a sooper-duper masala movie maker and she doesn’t seems to have put a false face by saying she is here to make a different movie. OSO is a movie that you can watch and come out with a smiling face – as the movie does have “Happpys-endings” – and be rest assured that picture baki nahin hai!!! And yes don’t miss the end credits – one of the most innovative credit rolls seen in Indian cinema!!!

Katrathu Tamizh - Review

Was waiting for this movie since its preview in Anandha Vikatan a few months ago (earlier known as Tamil M.A). I kind of have a mixed feeling about this movie.

Katrathu Tamizh will certainly find its place in the top 50 movie list since the origin of Tamil film industry. Please note that this is certainly NOT an exaggeration by any means – watch it to believe it – though I don’t necessarily agree with certain views in the movie.

Getting into the details right away – Katrathu Tamizh is about a Tamil teacher earning hardly 2000 rupees per month – finding difficult to cope with loneliness especially living in a city like Chennai – trying to find out his lost love – unable to withstand the societal imbalance created largely by IT industry – therefore becoming a psychopath. Yes, you are right – this is freaking complicated!!! But what blew me away is the way in which this script is handled by the debutant director Ram (from Balumahendra’s school). The entire movie is told in the way of a first person narrative – first few scenes through Jeeva’s voice over and then through the camera of Karunas – who is apparently hired or rather forced by Prabhakar (Jeeva) to shoot his testimony.

When the movie ends, you cannot help but feel that the director is confused in terms of finding out a reason to establish the psychopath character – especially why compare a Tamil teacher’s salary with that of a IT guy. But if you really think through this, there are number of people living in this city doing a variety of jobs to ensure that they are able to meet the ends every month. And given the luxurious life led by the IT folks – it’s quite natural that there will be a sense of frustration, dis-satisfaction that may creep in for the otherwise unfortunate souls. May be that is the reason for the increasing number of kidnap cases registered in the last one year in cities like Delhi and Hyderabad. You must watch the shot where Prabhakar meets his ex-roommate who is currently working for an IT company earning around 2 lakhs – also where he bumps into a call centre employee earning 40K per month. At the outset it may look like it’s an over-kill of ranting against IT industry. But when you try to get into the details, I feel it’s indeed true that IT has created a wide gap between the “haves” and “have-nots”. 10 years back, it’s only in dream that a middle class family may want to own a flat and a car. But that’s certainly not true today – where in thousands of middle class family became fortunate enough to see their dream coming true – just because a kid from their family got into the IT industry. But there are still people who get almost the same salary (even after inflation) - if I were to tell in the way BOSS said, “rich is getting richer and poor is getting poorer”. And this story is about one such guy who is frustrated because of not being able to withstand this gap – fuelled by other factors like loneliness, lost love and being insulted for being a Tamil teacher on a day to day basis. So I finally concluded that the director’s characterization of Prabhakar and the reasoning to be fair enough.

Jeeva (as Prabhakar), I guess is a director’s delight. He gives a top-notch performance in this movie and has proved that he can shoulder a complete movie given a taut script. He has quietly surrendered himself to the director and got Prabhakar’s soul into his body. And what you see is a power-packed performance! And what is more interesting is, Jeeva has found a knack of figuring out what kind of roles will suit him and his selection so far has been almost flawless (discount his first two movies).

Anjali (as Anandhi) is probably the find of the year! But I’m afraid that the current Tamil industry would spoil her as well – look at what happened to Priya mani in Malaikottai after a stunning performance in Paruthiveeran!

Karunas (TV cameraman) is the one who makes you laugh at regular intervals – otherwise a movie like this would certainly not have many takers.

Cameraman Kathir rocks!!! Especially in the shot where the junior Prabhakar and junior Anjali gets into the hill-top - truly awesome!!!

Music certainly deserves a mention. Yuvan is as good as his father when it comes to background score – and especially identifying the scenes where he needs to keep it simple – as in no music. He has mastered the art!

And the movie certainly belongs to the director. He seems like a veteran throughout the movie and way in which he has tried to provide explanation for each and every action of the protagonist – that too in a first person narrative mode is commendable. Though I still have some reservations for some his views, he is a director to be watched out in the future. To my mind, another Bala is in the making!

A disturbing movie made in a classic way. If you don’t like serious cinemas, I wouldn’t recommend Katrathu Thamizh. Nejamma than solren!!!

Chak De India

After reading the “All Positive” reviews of Chake De India, I went into the theatre amidst a great hype about the movie. I guess many reviews have said almost everything about the story, sub-plots and various other good things about the movie. I don’t intend to repeat the same and if you find something repetitive – the fault is not mine – after-all the movie is too good.

Once I came out of the cinema hall, I felt no one other than King Khan could have done so much justice to this movie or rather I should say to the character of a deplored hokey player (unfortunate to have born as a Muslim) and a fantastic coach who took the challenge of getting together a bunch of women hockey players and make them win a world cup for India. That’s chake de India for you.

While Lagaan, Chennai 600028, Iqbal were all movies of sports genre – the am-junta could really connect to those movies because it was Cricket – which is all said and done a religion in India. It needs real guts to make a Chak de India with hockey as a background and that too focusing on women’s hockey is something that could have failed miserably – but for tight script and taut execution of the same. Kudos to Yashraj and Shimit Amin, the real captain of Chak De India!

We all would have seen King Khan portraying the roles of villain, hero, guest appearance with his trade- mark stammering and flamboyance. It needs real guts to show King Khan as loser from scene one – that too grim faced, serious looking eyes and pre/hockey-occupied mind through out the movie. And I was totally stumped by the way he fits into this role of Kabir Khan. Where were you Mr. Sharukh all these days? The last time I saw you were in Swades, I guess. National awards committee can surely not neglect this performance. Hats off to Yashraj and Shimit Amin, the real coach of Sharukh Khan!!

Girls in Indian cinema are portrayed as glamour dolls, weeping wife/mother/sister, witches, feminists, social activists and so on. It needs guts NOT have a leading lady in a movie and that too having King Khan call sheets. It needs guts to get a bunch of new faces (or almost new faces) and get them to act in a sports movie and that too play hockey and win a world cup. Fantastic job done by Shimit Amin!!!

All in all, it’s a must watch and I wouldn’t recommend a DVD for this movie. You need to see it in bigger screen – isn’t it a great fun to watch a sports match amongst a cheering crowd rather than sitting alone in front of the TV? Don’t miss the fun and I bet, when you come out of the theatre you will have a sense of pride that Indian movies have truly arrived in the world space!!!!

Kreedom - Review

WARNING: DO NOT GET CONNED BY AJITH INTRODUCTORY SCENE - you may even end up walking out of the theatre by this first scene thinking that it will be yet another mindless flick like Anjaneya or Alwar. Patience most of the time would be rewarding. And Kreedom's first scene (Ajit's fight seq) is a classic example.

Kreedom also clearly indicates that Ajith does have the potential and charisma to make it big - the only thing is he needs to choose scripts like that of kreedom and not get into a self-indulgent mode like that of Alwar or Anjaneya.

Ajith ROCKS in kreedom and there a couple of noteworthy performance that will make you sit up and watch this man - just before interval scene and the climax where he cries out. All this man needs is to submit himself to a good director and not worry about punch dialogies (can also be read as Vijay bitching dialogues) - he can go places and can compete with the likes of Vikhram.

If Rajkiran was a reveletion in Thavamai Thavamirunthu - with kreedom he has joined the league of some of the greatest character artists in Tamil cinema - like Rangarao, Sivaji, Nagesh, Subbiah and so on. Rajkiran is the real hero of this movie and though I'm sure he would surely be a contender for a National award - I only wish that he gets it this time around. Ideally this man should have got the national award for Thavamai Thavamirunthu. What a performance!!!!

Though Trisha's role is insignificant - she is definitely watchable and she looks ravishing in Akkam Pakkam song. Watch out!

Looks like Saranya has become the ONE AND ONLY choice for doing the role of a mother. Her performance is as usual great.

Vivek's comedy is a big let down - though in my opinion in a movie like Kreedom he cannot do much. "Vairam Pancha Kattai" is a typical Vivet comedy and it was well echoed in the theatre as well. Santhaman and Sathyan are the other comedians in Kreedom - and well there is nothing much to say about their role - except that they come as tailor made Hero's friends.

I was told that the villain is a new comer - well all I can say is you can see him in similar roles in future. One more villain added to the already impressive list of Kollywood Villains. Director Vijay needs a special mention here for this character selection.

Music is by G.V Prakash. To sum it up - background music is awesome and songs could have been much better - though I liked the father-son son.

Vijay is the director and apparently Kreedom is the first movie. If my prediction goes right, he would soon become a more sought-after director in the coming days. Has a great potential - especially the way in which the Ajith introductory fight is picturised. At first it will look like there are lot of logic flaws in the introduction scene and you may also feel that you are watching a movie directed by an amateur director. But the scenes that gets unfolded after that is fantastic and more than anything else it is realistic. The only thing that Vijay should be wary of is NOT to fall in trap of star power and rely more on story and screenplay - just like what he did in Kreedom.

Over all Kreedom is a good movie - more realistic & mature - and if you have Ajith in this kind of a movie - what else do you need. I only wish that Ajith learns from this success and never ever attempt to do another crap like Alwar or Anjaneya or Jana. If that becomes true, I'm sure this Kreedom will NOT be his last crown and there will be more to follow in the future.

AAradhe NaaviNAAL Sutta Vadu

Not sure whether you folks read the "so-called" review of Sivaji - The BOSS by Ms. Anuradha Sengupta of CNN-IBN. In a nut-shell she declared Sivaji is the Boss of Crap (I could hear people shouting Ading.....). She also termed the record crowd that thronged the theatres all over the world as "pigs" - without even understanding the context in which THE BOSS uttered the punch line.

And now comes the amazing point and the real power of THE BOSS. Within a couple of hours, there were 965 comments logged in for this post. Anuradha Sengupta wouldn't have imagined this even in her wildest dream. Find below a couple of comments that I found as be-fitting response to the absurd review posted by Anuradha Sengupta.

This one is from Mr. Praveen.
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There is a very simple way to find out who can inlfuence whom. Though there have been a lot of people expressing angst at what has been written by Ms. Anuradha, I would put it down to sheer desperation for publicity that has prompted her to be extremely violent in her blog. The fact is that by doing such things, Ms. Anuradha will not even get that many hate mails as probably Rajini will get love mails for the movie. Also the other thing is that if Ms. Anuradha is indicating that millions of people are pigs, then it is in absolute bad taste to be telling that. Which therefore also gives us the right to call her by any animal's name we wish to and I would think that jackass would be the right terminology. Everything has a purpose and the purpose of particularly these kind of movies are just to entertain. Trying to make any intellectual sense of it is only a waste of energy. The other thing that also happens is that such blogs fan the geographical divide to greater heights with people on other side taking stances. So directly IBNlive is becoming responsible for creating these rifts. Please try and avoid such blogs which have no purpose, no meaning, are so self centered and try to prove that the author's are more human and intellectual than anyone else.
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This one is from Prashanth
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Absolutely disgusting review.How could u review a movie without understanding a word of it?Seems like a review from a deluded and deranged person.There are two ways to earn fame:By working hard or by defaming someone who is famous.Well done! U have earned it by latter means.Mind you,U cant just scribble something just for the heck of it.The 3 hrs I have spent on watching sivaji was far more enjoyable than the 10 minutes I took to read ur review and write this comment.What a waste of precious time reading your Blog!
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This one is from Vignesh - and it is really mind blowing...

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The two wheeler and four wheeler parking Collection for this crap moive has crossed the total Box office collection of Jhoom barabar Jhoom.

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This one is from Krish

You have taken Blog Writting to a different level, is this a shameful attempt to gain publicity by cursing the movie?Agreed, the movie wasn't the best we have ever seen, but still it deserves credit for the technical brilliance and hard work put in by the crew.You would do better to stay away from writing abt movies for some years..if u call this CRAP..i wud call ur blog the WORST EVER PUBLISHED ARTICLE on the internet.may be CNN-IBN deserves the credit for having u on board.
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And this is the BEST ONE

looks like you did'nt manage to get an interview from him... lol.

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PS: The comments are put in as it appears in the blog...