Thalaimuraigal Review from Rediff!!

After more than four decades in the film industry, ace filmmaker Balu Mahendra, who has given us some memorable films in Veedu, Sandhya Ragam and Moondram Pirai, makes his acting debut in Thalaimuraigal. He has also written, directed, edited and wielded the camera for the film.

This is the first time that the 74-year-old director, who started his career as a cinematographer, has shot a film in the digital format with a still camera, the Canon 5D DSLR. Thalaimuraigal is produced by M Sasikumar`s company, Film Productions, and he also makes a cameo appearance in the film.

The film stars Ramya Shankar, Vinodhini, S Sashi and Master Karthick. Ilaiyaraaja has composed the music for the film. The story opens with a phone call to Dr Siva (Sashi) from his childhood friend Govind, who informs him that his estranged father is recovering from a massive stroke.

It is 12 years since Siva has last seen his father Subbu (Balu Mahendra). Siva was thrown out of the house by his orthodox father for marrying a Christian girl, Stella (Ramya Shankar).

Though deeply upset at the news, Siva is in a dilemma as he is not sure that his father will accept him back. Stella, however, convinces him to go and Siva makes the journey to his village to see his ailing father. Subbu is rude and overbearing initially, but he cannot hide the joy and pride at seeing his son, a successful doctor.

Stella, who is very keen to give their son Aditya (Master Karthick) an opportunity to know his grandfather, also joins him after a couple of days.
At the very first glimpse of his grandson, Subbu is overjoyed, and all the anger and hatred just seem to melt away. Even the contempt for his Christian daughter-in-law vanishes.

Subbu is now just an old man trying to understand his grandson, who does not speak a word of Tamil. Unfortunately, Subbu not only does not understand English, but even hates the language.

Is there a common meeting ground? Can they break the strong barriers of caste, religion and language and find love and respect for each other? All this is revealed with a lot of sensitivity and simplicity in the second half of the film.
Balu Mahendra’s effortless performance in Thalaimuraigai proves that acting is yet another skill to be added to his already long list of accomplishments.
He plays an angry father, who eventually comes to regret his orthodox beliefs; his perception of caste and language differences are changed by his grandson and daughter-in-law.

Despite all the differences, the underlying love and pride between the father, son and grandson is brought out beautifully. Master Karthick plays the bright and intelligent grandson, whose curiosity and earnestness will definitely make you smile. All the others too, have excelled in their respective roles.

There are no songs to mar the narration and the background score by Ilaiyaraaja remains inconspicuous, subtly bringing out the depth and intensity of the film, while enhancing the natural sounds of the singing birds and the flowing water. Balu Mahendra is a master of cinematography and his love for shooting in natural light is evident throughout the film.

Director Balu Mahendra's Thalaimuraigal is a heartwarming tale of a grandfather coming to terms with his own conservative values and beliefs, while at the same time instilling in his grandson, a sense of pride and appreciation in his language and culture.

Rating:***1/2

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-thalaimuraigal-is-brilliant-south/20131223.htm

Ezhu Sundara Rathrikal Reviews from Rediff!

Everything goes wrong in the first 30 minutes of Malayalam film Ezhu Sundara Rathrikal, and the people involved in it try their best to salvage the situation. Finally, everything gets untangled in the last 15 minutes and the audience goes home happy. There are a few guffaws, a couple of heartaches and one or two action sequences punctuating the narrative. This description is suffice to summarise Lal Jose's Ezhu Sundara Rathrikal, with his actor friend Dileep in the lead. Aby (Dileep), a hotshot ad-maker, decides to finally get married. He has a painful history, where the girl he had loved left him just days before their wedding.

After getting intoxicated in his own bachelor’s party, Aby decides to invite his old flame Sini (Rima Kallingal). When he reaches there, she is alone and both boast about their respective life partners. Sini is married to a boxer called Tyson Alex (Murali Gopy) and Aby is engaged to one of his models Ann (Parvathy Nambiar).

Their meeting results in complications that compel them to meet again and again. How they do it dodging their partners and their large circle of common friends before the hell breaks loose, is what the film is all about.So, this is the story of seven beautiful nights from the day of the bachelor’s party to the day of the wedding, penned by James Albert (who had first scripted Classmates for the director). The narrative goes back and forth every now and then.

Tyson Alex is presented as an uncouth person, who seriously is a threat to Sini as she tells Aby once that their relationship exists only because they have a child. The rest of the ensemble cast that includes Harisree Asokan, Tini Tom, Vijayraghavan, Sreejith Ravi and others provide comic relief at a sporadic interval. Parvathy Nambiar, who makes her debut in this film, has an angelic smile that makes up for any deficiencies in her performance.

Rima Kallingal, who has to look distressed in her post marriage scenes, is good as nothing much is demanded of her. Dileep has to have two distinct looks as a young photographer (which he does with a wig of shoulder length hair and stubble) and his age today as a matured ad-maker. Wishing for any other distinction in his character would be asking for too much. Ezhu Sundara Rathrikal may have been an attempt to look at the fickleness of relationships in today’s times in a humourous way but it does not have the desired effect.

Rating:**

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-ezhu-sundara-rathrikal-falls-flat/20131223.htm

Madha Yaanai Koottam Review from Rediff!!

Popular music director G V Prakash Kumar's maiden production, Madha Yaanai Koottam, is directed by Vikram Sukumaran, former assistant of the legendary Balu Mahendra.

JSK Film Corporation has acquired the distribution rights of the film. The film features newcomer Kathir and Oviya in the lead roles supported by Viji Chandrasekhar, Vela Ramamoorthy, P Gopalakrishnan and others.
Madha Yaanai Koottam, when translated means ‘Group of mad elephants’. The characters of the film do exactly what a herd of mad elephants would do, go on a senseless rampage destroying everything in sight for no apparent reason.

The film opens with a death scene and every 15 minutes there is another death.

Jayakodi Thevar is unfortunately the man whose death is being celebrated in a grand manner with loud music, dancing, fire crackers, and a continuous supply of drinks and food.  As a eulogy, the artists sing about the greatness of the dead man and the film shifts into a flashback.

Jayakodi Thevar has two wives and is currently staying with his second wife and their son Paarthi (Kathir) and daughter.

The older wife also has a son and daughter, but is living under the protection of her brother. She wants nothing to do with her husband as she feels he has betrayed her.

The enmity between the older wife’s brothers and his children and Paarthi is the crux of the story.

The minute the former hear about Jayakodi’s death, they carry his body out of Paarthi’s house stating that only the older wife has rights to the body.  They don’t allow Paarthi, his mother or sister to join in the rituals.

Paarthi, who initially remains passive, is forced by circumstances to join in this stupid, mindless fight, where there is absolutely no regard for life.

The first half of the film reveals the various rituals followed after death, in great detail. We also get to know about an interesting custom called seimurai, where the relatives have to buy new clothes and even gold jewellery for the surviving members of the family.

The second half is the usual revenge saga, which is totally unimaginative and boring. Oviya plays Kathir’s love interest and has absolutely nothing to do in the film.  Kathir seems to walk around like Vishal and though he does have the height and built to carry off the role, his face looks too innocent and guileless to express the intense hatred and anger. All the other characters, however, have been chosen well: menacing lungi-clad tough guys, with the ever present aruva in their hands and of course the authentic dialect of Theni.

The songs and background score by N R Raghunanthan and cinematography by Ragul Dharuman, who has skilfully captured the mood and setting of the film is definitely a plus.
Director Vikram Sukumaran’s Madha Yaanai Koottam deals with many emotions: hatred, vengeance, betrayal, fear. But pride and anger seems to take precedence and the film eventually ends in a mad rampage of revenge, brutally slaughtering everything in sight.

Rating:**

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-madha-yaanai-koottam-shows-senseless-violence-south/20131226.htm

5-Star Rating for Dedh Ishqiya Review by Raja Sen!

Raja Sen feels Dedh Ishqiya is a genuinely smart film.

Public recitation is as fine an art as poetry itself, and -- like in a magic trick -- so much depends on the reveal, on teasing the audience into expecting a certain completion to the thought, a certain rhyme, and then to deny them that (but with a flourish.)

It is this taunting of the listener that makes shayri so special, the wizards of Urdu repeating their half-lines over and over, forcing those present to fork over applause even before the punch line.

And when that final line falls into place just right, surprisingly and cleverly, the abracadabra moment is one of rapture.

Abhishek Chaubey’s Dedh Ishqiya, true to its fractional title, lives for those half-lines, teasing and wheedling and coaxing its audience so that we fall in love even before the charms of the final act are upon us.

Calling a film "One and a half" instead of "Two" could signal varied intent -- including tributes to Federico Fellini and/or the Naked Gun franchise -- but I’d like to believe Chaubey’s superb sophomore effort shies away from the obvious name because it’d rather be called an equal than a sequel.

Rarely is a Hindi film as mischievously besotted with wordplay, but one look at Chaubey’s co-conspirators confirms that no syllable has been picked accidentally. In this sleight-of-hand tale where gangsters point with iambic-meter before pointing with guns, Chaubey has master wordsmiths Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar alongside him, making for a script that balances words as deftly -- and, crucially, with as much nervous energy -- as a knife-juggler with a case of the hiccups.

It’s a marvel.

(It’s also a marvel we may not have been able to understand. Most of us, even those who drop stray Urdu words into conversation, could scarcely navigate the many nuances on offer without the sharp subtitling job. Having the lines present in spirited (and non-literal) translations helps enormously, and it’s a very wise decision to keep the subtitles around even for us Hindi-speaking philistines.)

Set in the fictional town of Mahmudabad, the film sees returning anti-heroes Babban and his dear Khalujaan Iftekhaar back and, as ever, on the run.

The two ignoble opportunists are, in a way, like a very amoral Asterix and Obelix: one shrewdly has his eye on the prize while the other frequently squanders his menhirs in the name of love. Questing thus for inaam and inamorata, the leads -- played by Arshad Warsi and Naseeruddin Shah -- wade through increasingly muddy waters.

Yet is it fair to call these lovable oafs the leads? For this is the tale also of an enchantress, a bonafide beauty whose gorgeousness and fortune brings forth many a suitor from across the land, poetry-lined notebooks in hand.

Because, you see, this winsome widow wants to be charmed by couplets, swept away by sentences, ribbed by rhyme. And thus we have a swayamvara where instead of bows and arrows -- as her sassy handmaiden explains -- a line must be tossed into the air and a challenger must shoot it down with a lyric. The one and only Madhuri Dixit is the suitably unattainable lady in question, with Huma Qureshi as her first mate, so to speak.

Speaking of challengers, however, Dedh Ishqiya may perhaps be the story not of the first-billed impostors or either woman, but of the yearning lover who kidnaps poets to furnish his chance at romance.

A slaphappy politician who is a bully, one suspects, because brooding isn't considered macho enough. A plum role played masterfully by the scene-stealing Vijay Raaz, this gent too is part of the mix, then, putting the ‘verse’ in ‘adversary.’

Voila, what an ensemble.

Unlike the first Ishqiya which was -- even to those like me who loved it -- at best a glorious mess, the plot this time, while rollicking enough, is fiendishly simple. The focus, instead, is on the characters.

And, as mentioned, on what exactly they say.

A fair bit of the film admittedly takes its time staring at Madhuri, and this is no complaint for the legend gleams brighter than we’re used to seeing in our movies nowadays.

She’s old-world, breathtaking and so utterly graceful it’s like someone draped a saree around a Rolls Royce. Her performance -- one that demands small, precise shifts in tone instead of showy histrionics -- is pitched perfectly. And it’s a privilege to see her dance the classics.

The actors are uniformly smashing.

Naseeruddin Shah is great, wistful and dreamy and unashamedly wicked, chewing luxuriantly on the dialogues as if they came wrapped in betel-leaf.

Arshad Warsi has always been instantly loveable, but he equips his character with a flammable fury that makes him very compelling indeed. Huma Qureshi uses her fiercely intelligent eyes to great effect as she keeps things unpredictable, while Manoj Pahwa and Salman Shahid make themselves impressively indispensable with mere scraps of screen-time.

And then there’s Vijay Raaz. Too often do we Hindi cinema audiences unfairly sideline villains and comedians, but here is a gem of a part, a truly meaty role -- the kind of character that, in a Hollywood film, would have been played by Christian Bale or Javier Bardem -- and Raaz sinks his teeth into it magnificently.

A lanky man given a leonine mane, Raaz here looks disconcertingly like the director himself, and it may even be this doppelgangering that sees his character so well-etched.

He performs with an all-knowing weariness so masterfully that he emerges not just a memorable villain, but, like the most memorable villains of all, impossible to root against.

Rating:*****

http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-madhuri-dixit-dazzles-with-dedh-ishqiya/20140110.htm 

Biriyani Review From Rediff!

Director Venkat Prabhu, who is known for offbeat entertainers like Chennai 28, Saroja and the mega hit Mankatha, is back with a dark comedy called Biriyani. The film stars Karthi, Hansika and Premgi Amaren, along with a host of supporting actors.

Produced by Gnanavelraja's Studio Green, the film has all the ingredients of a Venkat Prabhu film. The sheer number of characters in an offbeat story with its unpredictable twists, liberally laced with humour and flavoured with great music makes Biriyani a well-packaged treat for the viewers.

Karthi, who seems to have had a style makeover with his trendy clothes, new hairstyle and coloured eye lens, plays the role of a casanova, Sugan. Despite having a gorgeous girlfriend, a media reporter, Priyanka (Hansika), Sugan flirts with all the pretty women he meets and they too, are besotted by him.

Premgi Amaren is his usual quirky self as Parasu, Sugan’s childhood friend and sidekick. Both travel to Ambur, for the inaugural of their Company’s new showroom.

The chief guest at the inaugural ceremony is a business tycoon, Varatharajan (Nassar), who is also suspected of several shady dealings and is currently being investigated by the CBI. On the return journey, Sugan insists that they stop at a roadside eatery for biryani, his weakness.

It is here that they meet the sensuous Maya (Mandy Takhar), who insists that they join her in her hotel room. Unable to resist the temptation, Sugan and Parasu accompany her and after several glasses of alcohol, they are totally disoriented and before they know it, it is morning and they are being hunted by the police for the murder of Varatharajan.

What actually happened in the hotel room and how Sugan and Parasu get out of this mess, forms the rest of the story.

The number of characters in the film is sure to make your head spin. Besides Premgi, there are several other regulars of a Venkat Prabhu film, who either play a supporting role or make a cameo appearance. Sampath Raj plays Riyaz Ahmad, a CBI officer; Jayaprakash is the Commissioner of Police, Nithin Sathya and Sam Anderson play Sugan’s friends, Uma Riyaz Khan, Subbu Panchu and Ramki play important roles. Hansika is forgettable while Uma Riyaz Khan gives an excellent performance.

Venkat Prabhu also continues his association with cousin Yuvan Shankar Raja, and incidentally this is Yuvan’s 100th album as a music director. He has made Biriyani special by adding some interesting touches, there are a couple of remixes, a rap song by Gaana Bala, but the highlight is the motivational song Edhirthu Nil sung by popular contemporary music directors, D Imman, G V Prakash, S Thaman and Vijay Antony.

On the downside, the film has a slow first half, and too many flashback scenes. Premgi is also getting repetitive and boring.

Though the film takes its own sweet time to get a move on, once it gathers momentum, there is no stopping till the end, where there is an exciting climax, as well as an anticlimax, in typical Venkat Prabhu style.

Rating:**1/2
http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-this-biriyani-is-well-made/20131220.htm 

Dhoom 3 Review by Raja sen!

Dhoom 3 is a children’s film made for children who’ve never seen a film, writes Raja Sen.
Twenty minutes into Dhoom 3, reeling from the assault of cinema so amateurish it’s hard to believe it was put together by grown men, I began to ask myself precisely what this film was trying to be.

There was an annoying kid borrowed from the melodrama of Subhash Ghai movies, complete with a moist-eyed Jackie Shroff. There were the cheesiest of dialogues, Kader Khan in Dickensian mode.

There were stunts seemingly executed in slow-motion and shown to us even slower, resulting in yawnworthy chase scenes. There was Aamir Khan running down the side of a building for no apparent reason. Everything -- repeat, everything -- looked too goofy to be either thrilling or realistic or compelling or even plain fun.

And then it hit me. Dhoom 3 is a children’s film made for children who’ve never seen a film.

How else can you explain this famine of originality? How else can you possibly justify the lack of a single interesting scene right up to the intermission? And how, after that, can you account for Aamir Khan’s blatant exploitation of yet another Christopher Nolan masterpiece that the actor (by his own admission) doesn’t understand?

Look here, I liked the first and second Dhoom films. The first was brisk enough to breeze by, the second was sheer masala but presented well, an utterly preposterous but very good looking film. The reason I’ve been looking forward to this film, however, was the fact that I was one of the half-dozen people on the planet who actually liked the director’s first film, Tashan. All I wanted from Vijay Krishna Acharya’s third installment, then, was a film that made like a firecracker and went boom -- even if it didn’t make sense.

But this is a Christmas debacle.

We start with Chicago in the year 1990, though it may as well be a hundred years ago. An old magician (Shroff), his labrador-brown eyes eternally wet with tears, runs a circus housed in a massive structure the size of the New York Public Library. The bank moves in to cut off his loan and Shroff, instead of perhaps leasing out the place and moving to a humbler venue, decides to kill himself. For how dare the evil bankers remain unmoved by his clown-nose wearing son? 

Said son grows up to become Aamir Khan, a frequently shirtless man who sleeps in corduroy trousers. Oh, and robs banks, since banks = evil.
American police seem ill-equipped to handle things (The Rock must have had the month off) and thus, naturally, help is imported from back in India. Where Uday Chopra’s Ali spends several minutes talking up his boss to goons -- in “Don’t you know he’s Dirty Harry?” vein -- before the aforementioned boss shows up flying through the air in an auto-rickshaw with stickers of Salman Khan film optimistically on either side. 
Abhishek Bachchan’s Jai Dikshit seems a nice enough fellow, if somewhat surly, but he happens to be a remarkably incompetent police officer. (I mean, if not from Dad, at least take some pointers from Iftekhar Uncle’s movies, Abhishek?) Here’s a fellow who, when he traps a fleeing motorcycle on a bridge, helpfully tilts it up to offer the fugitive a convenient ramp. The rest of the time he scowls. 
Ah, and then there’s the girl. Apparently all the “hot Asian ladkiyan” in Chicago have been auditioned for Khan’s Great Indian Circus act but none has enough “liquid electricity,” whatever in innuendo’s name that means. Enter Katrina Kaif, all stuntwoman-flexible and whippety hairdo, looking like a million bucks and speaking, disconcertingly enough, like a 12-year-old. 
The rest of the film is, essentially, a dumbed-down version of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, arguably the greatest movie ever made about magicians. Aamir Khan, who claimed Ghajini was a great story but that he didn’t understand Nolan’s groundbreaking Memento, will probably say some such about this bit of shameless pilfering as well.
Oh, and he uses a Joker sign too, to boot. (I can already picture ambitious young screenwriters lining up outside Khan’s bungalow with easy-to-understand song-filled scripts titled Sapne Mein Sapna.) 
The other thing in this film is The Face. If you’ve seen the trailer or the songs or the posters, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the perplexingly weird expression Aamir sticks onto his face throughout, and the smugness with which he wears the A-Face makes me wonder if we’re all -- inadvertently and inescapably -- seeing his vinegar strokes over and over again. If we’re eskimo brothers now, Aamir Bhai, must say you messed up. Big time. 
Not that Khan’s acted badly. Oh no. Outside of The Face, he’s pretty solid and has the charisma to power this film through, especially when he’s being all summery: i.e. all cutesy smirks and grins and chortles, a happy part of his repertoire the actor seemed to have left behind awhile ago. He also deserves credit for being a massive superstar who has agreed to look, occasionally, like an Oompah-Loompah; he’s been shot most unflatteringly. It is purely because of Khan that the (three) dramatic twists in this movie have any heft at all, but even he can’t help the vacant nothingness that engulfs the script before and after those stray moments. 
But, you might persist, having already bought into the exorbitantly priced weekend tickets, aren’t the stunts good? Or IMAX-worthy? Well, the locations aren’t bad. It’s mostly shot in Chicago, and some of the vistas used as backgrounds for the bridges look pretty awesome.
The stunts themselves, however, are both pointless and badly edited. Khan’s bike (which is a Transformer, for some reason) is flung around excitably enough but hurling action figures isn’t the same as choreographing an action set-piece. So much time is spent in slow-motion, and so long do we linger on each shot, that the chases appear sluggish. There is no sense of urgency. At one point, stationary police cars randomly start to do cartwheels, perhaps only to indulge Acharya’s inner Rohit Shetty. Like I said, if your child doesn’t know what movies are, he might be amused. For a bit. 
The trick, of course, is on us. Shroff might have called his act The Box In The Box, but producer Aditya Chopra goes one better, knowing we’ll show up to watch a Dhoom film if only to laugh at it. This time around, Aamir’s The Boy In The Box Office.

Rating:*1/2
http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/raja-sen-reviews-dhoom-3-its-dumber-than-the-first-two/20131220.htm

Thagaraaru reviews from Times of India!

Synopsis: Four thick as thieves (literally) friends earn a lot of enemy with their roguish behaviour. When one of them is murdered, the other three thirst for revenge. But who among their foes is behind the deed?

Review: Saravanan (Arulnithi), Senthil (Pawanjiy), Pazhani (Sulile Kumar) and Arumugam (Murugadas) are orphans who are close-knit friends since childhood. They are bureau pullers who do not really think anything of life, drifting along as the wind blows. They invite the wrath of a local inspector when they steal from his house as an act of bravado. They also rub the big shot (Aruldas) who had hired them for a job on the wrong side by demanding more money. And, when Saravanan falls in love with Meenakshi (Poorna), he and his friends become the target of her goonda father (Jayaprakash). When Pazhani is murdered, the other three thirst for revenge. But who among their various enemies is behind the deed?
If there is one thing that Ganesh Vinaayac's Thagaraaru has going for it, it is the director's intention to not turn his film into a typical action film. The film is actually stock full of elements that we have seen in earlier Madurai-set films — as in Thoonganagaram, we have four friends who are the protagonists, they are aimless drifters resorting to a life of crime like the guys inSubramaniapuram, like Sriya Reddy in Thimiru, the heroine, despite all her love for the hero, has an arrogance, her father, who like the father in Kaadhal, is a fearsome man in the area, a self-important cop, who is one of the adversaries of our heroes, as in Aadukalam. And yet, the director manages to spring in a surprise or two in this tale which is a conflict between friendship and love.

At the same time, while the twists and turns help the film from never turning into a boring affair, we also wish that the film was sharper (like the countless sickles we see in it). It has tension but that isn't nail-biting. It has romance but that is so run of the mill. It has some emotional moments but we never feel that much for the main characters. The performances, while competent enough are never compelling (Arulnithi tries to be a charmer in the romantic portions but he is not helped by the broad characterization; neither his wooing in gaudy clothes nor his Dhanush-like lungi dance endear the character to us). Even the climatic twist, which is very good, at least on paper, is surprising but not truly shocking.

Rating:***
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/thagaraaru/movie-review/27118433.cms

Escape from Uganda review from Rediff!

Malayalam film Escape from Uganda is a film that tries to thrill but fails to do so, writes Paresh C Palicha.

Sometimes title of a film is enough to tell you what it is about and your interest in watching that film is merely to know the approach of the director in tackling the subject.

Escape from Uganda is one such venture by director Rajesh Nair with Rima Kallingal and Vijay Babu in the lead. The story is said to be inspired by real incidents, but we can see influences from Indian and foreign films especially from the genre called prison movies.

Shikha Samuel (Rima Killingal) and Jayakrishnan (Vijay Babu) have eloped and made Uganda their home with the help of Advocate Firoz (Mukesh), who is practising law there. The couple is leading a happy life with a girl child of their own. Jayakrishnan is employed as a manager in a coffee shop and Shikha runs a designer boutique of her own. The tranquillity of their life is shattered when Shikha is arrested on the charges of committing two murders, one of the victim is the daughter of the local Mayor, who has pledged to keep her in jail for the rest of her life.

The situation is grim and the atrocities against our lady in jail increase. To add to this, Firoz is shot dead in his office, making Jayakrishnan sure that it will be impossible for him to free his wife by the book, so he calls Antony (Parthiban), who had offered to help him for money claiming that he was the only one who had successfully escaped from that high security prison.

The major part of the second half is devoted to the planning of the escape with characters moving from one place to next as if taking us on a guided tour of the African country. All this compels us to wonder how Antony, who has supposedly broken free from a jail, is moving around without a worry in the world. This is just one of the many questions that occupy our minds much after the movie is over and we are back in the comfort of our homes.

There are a few twists in the tale with the good guys and the bad guys turning tables on each other a couple of times before heading towards a very predictable end.

22 Female Kottayam as far as suffering in the jail is concerned. Thankfully the similarity ends there, here the lanky lady has to indulge in physical action like kicking and boxing policemen double her size. And, as if this was not enough, she is made to sprint with her leading man at a speed that would put Usain Bolt to shame!

Vijay Babu has to be consistent in keeping his face sombre throughout, except for the time he is shown taking care of his daughter virtually as a single parent.

Parthiban has to double up as the action man and the comedian, which he tries to do uttering the lines that would make the front benchers happy.

Escape from Uganda is a film that tries to thrill but fails to do so as desired.

Rating:**

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-escape-from-uganda-is-not-up-to-the-mark-south/20131202.htm

Bicycle Thieves reviews from Rediff!

Paresh C Palicha says debutante director Jimson Joy tries to combine an old-style narrative with so-called ‘new gen’ cinema in Bicycle Thieves, but fails to get it right.

Two steps forward one step backward is what you feel after watchingBicycle Thieves directed by newcomer Jis Joy.

It begins with an orphaned child Chacko narrating his Dickensian life story of debt-ridden parents committing suicide and being raised by his evil uncle and aunt, who treat him worse than a servant.

One night, after watching the 1990 film Kalikkalam, Chacko runs away with his cousin’s new cycle and joins the gang of Bose Prakash (Salim Kumar).

The gang specialises in robbing cycles. There are two other kids with him, Ramesh and Rahim.

The grown up versions of the kids are played by Asif Ali (Chacko), Saiju Kurup (Ramesh) and Bineesh Kodiyeri (Rahim). They become more ambitious and plan to loot a rich businessman on the highway.

After the theft, Ramesh runs away with the bounty. The others accuse Chacko of being an accomplice of Ramesh. The gang splits due to this misunderstanding.

From here on it becomes Chacko’s story; the other three just vanish into thin air.

Chacko continues his thieving activities. Enter Meera (Aparna Gopinath), who eventually becomes his love interest.

Kashi (Vijay Babu), an alcoholic criminal lawyer employs Chacko as part-time chauffeur. KPAC Lalitha plays the owner of the house where Meera is a paying guest, and is the mother figure. We wonder where all this is headed as there is no connection between the initial build up and where the proceedings stand at the end of the first half. By the end of the film, your head is reeling connecting all the plot points.

Asif Ali does his best as the melancholic orphan who opens up when he finds love in people around him. But he needed a stronger storyline to make his efforts pay.

Another actor we feel sorry for is Vijay Babu, who gets out of his comfort zone to play a loud mouthed lawyer.

The rest of the cast, including seasoned campaigners KPAC Lalitha and Siddique, look clueless in a film that seems to have gone haywire from the first scene itself.

The director tries to combine an old-style narrative with so-called ‘new gen’ cinema, and falls somewhere in between. The film is neither here nor there.

Rating:**

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-bicycle-thieves-fails-to-impress-south/20131203.htm

VediVazhupaddu Review From Rediff!

Paresh C Palicha says that Vedivazhipadu tries too hard to ‘new gen’ formula and fails miserably.

Young and upcoming directors in Malayalam use ‘shock and awe’ tactics to get the audience’s attention. They also believe in creating controversy if the content is weak.

Young director Shambhu Purushothaman does both, intentionally or unintentionally, in his first film Vedivazhipadu, a word that means something really gross. The censor board refused to issue it a certificate the first time round, which helped create the controversy.

The film follows the ‘a day in the lives of’ format and that day happens to be Attukal Pongala, the world famous ladies-only festival.

After establishing the festive atmosphere of the capital city in documentary style camera work by Shehnad Jalal, the focus shifts to the plot.

Three friends, Sanjay (Saiju Kurup), Pradeep (Sreejith Ravi) and Rahul (Murali Gopy), have made secret plans for the day when their wives will be away attending the festival.

Sanjay, who is a cashier in a bank, is married to Rashmi (Anusree), a bold and outgoing TV journalist who is a star in her own right. She has been covering the Pongala live for her channel. It does not take us long to guess who is the boss here.

Pradeep is an investor in stocks and does his business with the help of stockbroker Joseph (Indrajith). Pradeep is married to Vidya (Mythili), a French teacher. They are mismatched, as he looks rustic and she is sophisticated.

Rahul is a geeky video games tester working from home. He is married to Radhika (Anjana), a docile housewife.

On the said day, the friends gather in Rahul’s apartment. They have booze and a woman (Anumol) and plans to enjoy themselves.

The film swings from being a crude sex comedy (with many dialogues beeped) to being a philosophical exploration of the man-woman relationship, and ends up being nothing.

A couple of subplots--like the one where Rashmi handles sexual advances by her foreign-returned boss--try to make a point. Likewise, the conversation between Vidya and Joseph about long distance relationships and being physically faithful in such a relationship, tries to add some depth to the proceedings.

The ensemble cast is not utilised to its full capacity as every male actor except Indrajith seems to act in a uniformly loud manner in an effort to be funny. If you are interested in knowing who is the loudest of them all, Saiju Kurup will win hands down. The women fare a little better.

Vedivazhipadu makes an effort to add sparkle to the so-called ‘new gen’ formula, but ends up being a damp squib.

Rating:*1/2

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-vedivazhipadu-is-a-damp-squib-south/20131213.htm

Ivan Veramathiri Review from Rediff!

Ivan Veramathiri lacks the simplicity, depth and magic of Director M Saravanan’s last film Engeyum Eppodhum, writes S Saraswathi. 

Director M Saravanan hit the jackpot with his first film, Engeyum Eppodhum, which won him both critical acclaim as well as box office success. 

For his second venture, Ivan Veramathiri, which is already the talk of the town (releasing in over 500 screens worldwide), he has teamed up with Vikram Prabhu ofKumki fame. 

The film also stars debutant Surabhi, Ganesh Venkatraman, Vamsi Krishna and Hariraj. 

Ivan Veramathiri is produced by UTV Motion Pictures in association with N. Lingusamy's Thirupati Brothers. 

The film opens with a violent incident in the city law college, instigated by the law minister Sadasivam, who is angry that his demand for seats under the minister’s quota was not met. 

Even as the students are mercilessly beaten to death, indifferent policemen, curious onlookers and the media stand around doing nothing. A few insensitive ones even take pictures and shoot videos. 

Three lives are lost and as the incident is reported by all the TV channels and radio shows, people are outraged, but feel completely helpless because the culprit is a powerful minister. 

Gunasekaran (Vikram Prabhu), a student in search of a job, is deeply affected by the incident and decides to take matters into his own hands. 

The minister’s brother, Eeswaran (Vamsi Krishna), is out on parole for a couple of weeks and needs to be handed over to the police before a particular date. 

Gunasekaran kidnaps Eeswaran and keeps him hidden at a deserted construction site. His plan is to have the minister arrested for parole violation and helping a criminal escape. 

Malini (Surabhi) plays his love interest. She is a cute, happy and naïve engineering student. Surabhi is perfectly cast and brightens up all the scenes she appears in with her bubbly, innocent character and seems totally natural and fresh. 

Ganesh Venkatraman as Aravindan, a police officer, turns up only after the first half and though he has very little to do, he seems competent. 

Vamsi Krishna appears quite intimidating and has given an admirable performance. . 

Vikram Prabhu, who impressed us with his realistic performance as a simple lungi-clad mahout in Kumki, seems comfortable in the urban setting of this film. 

The spark, however, seems to be missing. His romantic scenes with Surabhi seem awkward and stilted and he really needs to work on his dance moves. 

His character of a common man, frustrated, angry and saddened by the unlawfulness and senseless violence that people have come to accept as an everyday occurrence, is not very convincing. 

The plot of the film seems to have been taken from the Chennai Ambedkar Law College violence that happened a few years ago. The film starts brilliantly but does not maintain the suspense or pace. 

It picks up pace in the second half, but some of the scenes are too cinematic. 

Director M Saravanan raised the bar for himself with his incredible debut; unfortunately, Ivan Veramathiri lacks the simplicity, depth and magic of Engeyum Eppodhum. 

Music by C Sathya, editing by A Sreekar Prasad and cinematography by Shakthi are all well done. 

Rating:**1/2

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-ivan-veramathiri-is-an-average-entertainer/20131213.htm

Jackpot Review from Rediff!

Jackpot is a very confused film, feels Paloma Sharma.

Kaizad Gustad is back with Jackpot after his last film, Boom.

Yes, that Boom.

Much like Boom (I shudder every time I say it), Jackpot too stars a creepy old rich man and a young cunning seductress.

Only this time, he does you the courtesy of adding a creepy young-ish guy and his 'lukkha' friends -- just to keep it original, you know?

Doublechin Joshi... I mean, Sachiin Joshi... stars as Francis, the leader of a group of conmen. He and his friends plan to con a casino owner -- who goes by the name of Boss (Naseeruddin Shah) -- with the help of Boss's secretary/girlfriend/casino manager/squeeze Maya (Sunny Leone).

But Boss has bigger plans for them and when things go downhill, loyalties shift.

Or at least I think that's what it was about.

Since Gustad uses extremely complicated storytelling techniques like non-linear narratives and hot girl breasts to distract you when things get too confusing, I decided to look take a man's perspective as well.

18-year-old theatre actor Arnav Thakker shares his views on the film, in a conversation with me:

He says: I don't think that even Kaizad Gustad knew what he was trying to say through the film.

She says: I honestly think he was trying to say, "Money, boobs, money, boobs, money, boobs."

He says: Boobs? Yeah, both male and female.

She says: Well, Joshi really did give Sunny Leone tough competition.

He says: (laughs) I don't know why he was in the film. (pauses) Didn't his wife produce the film?

She says: Forget that, why did Naseeruddin Shah even sign it?

He says: Money, boobs, money, boobs, money, boobs? Or maybe the head-mop he got to wear?

She says: Was that a mop? I thought it was a dead octopus.

He says: No, no. The octopus was Sunny Leone.

She says: (shocked) I honestly thought you liked her. I mean, all the guys are crazy about her.

He says: (blushing) Well... She's okay.

She says: And what about that scene where she strips down to her lingerie?

He says: Been there, done that -- the Internet way.

She says: So what if she's a porn star?

He says: I know people have judged her before she even started. But I have an issue that she doesn't even try.

She says: Fair enough. But the lead pair seemed to be trying too hard in that song, Kabhi Jo Badal Barse. It was such a nice song until the two of them walked into the frame.

He says: People were actually whistling at the end because it finally ended.

She says: It wasn't that bad. At least Makrand Deshpande played an extremely entertaining Goan Inspector Clouseau.

He says: (exclaims) Quarter of a star for Makrand Deshpande!

I was quite surprised to find that the Sunny Leone factor did not work even for the male half of the audience (and I'm secretly glad about it).

But I personally feel that we're coming down to hard on Sunny. It was Sachiin Joshi who was the real star of the film.

He's proved that he doesn't even need acting lessons -- because they won't change a thing.

Only go for Jackpot if you sat right until the end of the titles of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag and yelled encore.

Rating:1/2

http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-jackpot-is-only-about-money-and-cleavage/20131213.htm

Weeping Boy Malayalam, by Rediff!

Rating:**

Off lately we have seen a few Malayalam films tackle the subject of anti-abortion, but Weeping Boy handles it very poorly, writes Paresh C Palicha.

Sreenivasan is a name that guarantees a certain standard for whatever project he is associated with, whether as actor, writer or director.

Filmmakers have used his star power and self deprecating humour to propagate causes they believed in.

But, you cannot help wondering what a new director like Felix Joseph intends to do by giving him the title role in Weeping Boy.

Sreenivasan plays a veterinarian named Sahadevan, who is so sensitive that anything can make him cry. He is locked up in jail and cuts a sorry figure.

He seems mentally unstable as he keeps talking to someone who is invisible to others. This brings on the flashback in which he narrates to a psychiatrist how he had married late and his wife (Lena) had gone through a few miscarriages.

When she got pregnant again, her doctor had ordered complete bed rest and Sahadevan was fully involved in taking care of her.

At this crucial time he gets a posting to a remote village called Kannadikkara. He reluctantly reports for duty as his job was at risk.

Communal animosity runs high in Kannadikkara. Sahadevan is privy to the love affair between Faizal (Arjun Lakshmi Narayan) and Geethu (Shritha Sivadas) and he gets involved in stopping it from culminating in a disaster, which ultimately lands him in jail.

We have seen a few anti-abortion (the crux of this film) films in Malayalam in recent times like Akku Akbar’s Kaana Kanmani(2009) and Anamika (2009), but this film handles the subject very poorly.

The storyline, credited to the director himself, not only depends very heavily on Sreenivasan, but it is confused about whether to tap into his comic image or to make the character a serious one.

This shows in Sreenivasan’d performance--he seems stranded between being outright funny and being sentimental.

Other actors make fleeting appearances, whether it is Jagadeesh, who plays Faizal’s father, or Praveena who plays his wife.

As one witty viewer remarked while leaving the theatre after watching the film, the film is not about the Weeping Boy but about the weeping audience.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-malayalm-film-weeping-boy-will-make-the-audience-weep-south/20131206.htm 

Kalyana Samayal Saadham Reviews from Rediff!

Rating: ***

S Saraswathi says Kalyana Samayal Saadham is not just about a big fat Indian wedding but also highlights the emotional and sensitive topic of stress-related erectile dysfunction that is becoming an increasingly common problem among the modern youth.

Prasanna and Lekha Washington team up for Kalyana Samayal Saadham, a romantic comedy written and directed by debutant R S Prasanna.

The film is co-produced by Arun Vaidyanathan, director of the critically acclaimed Achamundu Achamundu, and distributed by C V Kumar's Thirukumaran Entertainment along with ABI TCS Studios.

Despite its title, Kalyana Samayal Saadham (Marriage Feast) is not just about a big fat Indian wedding.

Besides all the rituals and ceremonies that form an integral part of a traditional wedding, KSS also highlights our belief in horoscopes, blind superstition and the various ego issues that crop up between the families of the bride and groom before and during the wedding.

In addition to all this, the primary focus of the movie seems to be the rarely spoken of and intensely sensitive subject of impotency.

KSS has been in the news since the release of its innovatively presented promotional video song, Mella Sirithai that went viral on all the social networking websites.

Raghu Viswanathan (Prasanna) and Meera Chandrasekaran (Lekha Washington) are both engineers belonging to typical Brahmin families.  Too busy with their respective careers, they decide to outsource the job of finding their life partners to their parents.

After carefully scrutinising the various matrimonial websites and taking into account the job profile, annual salary and family background, Meera’s parents zero in on Raghu. 

After the traditional ‘bride seeing’ ceremony, the families believe that Raghu and Meera would make an ideal match, and the couple gets engaged.  The wedding is eight months away and the beautiful period of courtship begins.

Raghu and Meera slowly get to know one another, while their parents are busy making rounds of wedding halls, decorators, caterers and musicians.

Then, with just a month to go for the wedding, there is a big twist in the story.

It is Meera’s birthday, and after a huge party with friends, alcohol and wine, the couple feel that with the wedding just a month away, it would not be wrong to get intimate. To Raghu’s shock he realises that he is impotent.

What happens now? What do the couple decide? Will they call off the wedding and disappoint their families? All this and more in the second half.

Prasanna deserves special credit for playing a role that most actors would hesitate to take up.

Lekha is perfectly cast as the modern bride, who knows exactly what she wants from life and at the same time has a healthy respect for family and traditional values.  Director R S Prasanna has chosen to handle an extremely sensitive subject with humour rather than being overly dramatic.

He also manages to bring in all the fun and excitement of a typical Tamil Brahmin wedding; the Kancheevaram-cladmamis, who love to gossip, and the silk-dhoti mamas, add a nice touch.

The background score by Arrora is also a plus, especially the popular Mella Sirithai and the Pallu Pona Raja number sung by actor Prasanna himself.

Kalyana Samayal Saadham is a creative, funny, yet thought-provoking film.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-kalyana-samayal-saadham-is-funny-and-thought-provoking-south/20131206.htm 

Bullet Raja Review Rediff!

Rating:1/2

Bullett Raja is more ego trip than cinema, according to Paloma Sharma.In order to enjoy Bullett Raja, it is important to remember that this is not cinema -- it is simply an ego trip. 

Unless you can relate to the characters, Bullet Raja will bore you to death. 

Saif Ali Khan stars as Raja Mishra (pronounced: Miss-raa), a well-meaning yet trigger-happy local boy with a fiery temper. 

Raja is being chased by goons when he sees a wedding procession and joins it in order to escape. The wedding procession turns out to be headed for the local strongman's daughter's wedding.

Raja immediately befriends the bride's cousin, Rudra Tripathi (Jimmy Shergill).

After a day of dancing, leeching and drinking, Raja sneaks into the forest for some sexytime with the unnamed item girl (Mahie Gill) when he overhears a plan to assassinate his new BFF and the rest of his family. 

Raja decides to pick up arms for protection but unbeknownst to him, this decision gets him sucked into the dark, murky world of Uttar Pradesh politics. 

Saif Ali Khan's Raja Mishra is the less sophisticated country cousin of Agent Vinod. Aside from the diction and the tikka, they're both basically the same guy. All that Khan does in the film is look angry. 

Even his hair has more range than him.

Between him and Jimmy Shergill, the latter seems to be the more seasoned actor. Shergill's Rudra Tripathi is the right blend of slick and believable. 

Sonakshi Sinha is back to being the typical middle class, homely Bengali girl with big dreams -- dreams which she gives up at the drop of a hat to run away with her beloved Raja.

Ravi Kishan was handed an amazingly interesting character but unfortunately, the film chose to not explore its potential.

Also, it must be noted that the true star of the film is not Saif Ali Khan but Vidyut Jamwal despite him appearing only in the last half hour or so of the film.

Bullett Raja claims to be an action flick but despite the desi guttas firing almost non-stop throughout the film, Jamwal is the only one who can pull off the tough guy act with ease.

The soundtrack is mediocre and the background score inappropriate at times, almost in contrast with the emotions that the actors are trying to portray.

Bullett Raja is rife with predictable scenes, bad editing and a lack of control over the script, which spirals into an unending loop of absurdity. The pseudo-patriotism blends into personal enmity with the corrupt without much warning, leaving the viewers confused. 

While no two people can like the same kind of films or even agree on the definition of a good film, it is difficult to judge if even hardcore Saif Ali Khan fans should go for this one.

Irandam Ulagam Review from Rediff!

amil film Irandam Ulagam is a visually stunning fantasy story set in an imaginary world that describes a love that transcends human understanding of time and space writes S Saraswathi.

Be it Kadhal Kondein, 7G Rainbow Colony or Mayakkam Enna, romance has always played an integral role in director Selvaraghavan’s films and he has always approached it with his own distinctive style, ignoring the time-tested formula.

With a tagline that reads ‘How far will you travel for love’, his latest film Irandam Ulagam, starring Arya and Anushka Shetty, has been generating a lot of buzz.

And just as the tagline suggests, the film is all about a love that transcends time and space, exploring the possibility of a parallel world.

The music too has been creating quite a sensation. Harris Jayaraj handled the initial soundtrack, while later Anirudh Ravichandar was signed to compose the film's background score. Vairamuthu has penned the lyrics.

Irandam Ulagam, which is dubbed in Telugu as Varna is produced by Param V Potluri for PVP Cinema and is also being released in other languages such as Hindi, Georgian, Russian and Turkish.

Irandam Ulagam revolves around two love stories simultaneously occurring in two parallel worlds. One is the real world we know and understand and the other is a fantastical world filled with mythical creatures, enchanting forest, mysterious hills, and majestic views of the horizon.

In the real world, Anushka plays Ramya, a doctor, who is in love with Madhu Balakrishnan (Arya), a college professor. While in the fantasy world, she plays Varna, a high spirited, warrior-like character who deeply values her freedom. She is desperately pursued by Maruva (Arya again), who is madly in love with her.

Alternating between both worlds, the story progresses smoothly, like your average love story, until just before the interval, when the director introduces a dramatic twist.

The visual experience created by cinematographer Ramji is truly spectacular. He deserves full credit for bringing to life a beautiful new world, a magical place shrouded in mystery and filled with brilliant colours.

The music heightens the atmosphere and Anirudh has done exceptionally well. The songs, the lyrics, the picturisation as well as the vocals, everything fits beautifully.

Both Selvaraghavan and Arya are known to experiment with their films and characters and have been quite successful. In fact, 2013 has proved to be a great year for Arya, who had two back-to-back box office hits, Raja Rani and Arambam.

Anushka not only shares equal screen space with Arya, but also plays quite a significant role. In fact, the story revolves around her and she has performed admirably.

Though a lot of effort and hard work has been put in by the entire team, the result is not quite what you expect.

The film has an unreal fairytale-like quality that prevents us from feeling the intensity, passion and pain of the characters. It seems more like a child’s bed-time story.

Everything from the unique costumes, make-up and body language gives the film a storybook and dream-like quality.

Irandam Ulagam is an ambitious project by a director who always strives to give a different and unique experience to his audience.

Rediff Rating: ***

http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-irandam-ulagam-is-a-mystical-love-story/20131122.htm