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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

Veeram Review from Rediff!!

After the huge success of Aarambam, expectations were sky-high for the Ajith starrer Veeram. Directed by Siva, who gave the commercially successful Siruthai in 2011, the film is produced by Vijaya Productions, the prestigious banner of the late producer B. Nagi Reddy.
Set in a rural backdrop, Veeram is a slow-paced family drama that revolves around Vinayagam (Ajith) and his four brothers Vidharth, Bala, Munish and Suhail Chandhok. All of them are known to be extremely violent and get into fights at the slightest provocation.
Vinayagam has brought up his brothers single-handed and is determined to stay unmarried as he fears that bringing a woman into the house will disrupt the family and cause a rift among the brothers.
The brothers, however, have other plans.  Two of them are already in love and believe that the only way to make Vinayagam approve would be to make him fall in love, too.
On a mission to find an ideal match for their brother, they zero in on Kopperundevi (Tamannaah), who is part of a group that restores old statues in temples.
Along with Santhanam, who is their lawyer and friend, they devise several plans to bring Vinayagam and Kopperundevi together. After a few hiccups, the two do fall in love, but now there is a decided twist in the story.
Will it be Vinayagam’s violent past that destroys his chance at happiness or will Kopperundevi and her family’s past come to haunt them? All this in the second half that seems to be just as slow as the first.
The film seems to pick up momentum only during the action sequences. 
Ajith sports a different look in the second half, reminding us a little of the good old boy-next-door Ajith of Vaali and Villain.
After Billa, Ajith seems to have acquired this all-powerful indestructible image that seems to have struck a chord with the audience, and all his directors seem to be bending over backwards to nurture this image.
Though his dark glasses, black T-shirts and expensive suits have been replaced by a snow-white dhoti and shirt, he still maintains his larger-than-life persona in Veeram and effortlessly destroys the enemy with his power-packed punches and equally powerful dialogues, guaranteed to send his fans into a mad frenzy.
Tamannaah is totally unsuited to this sad, saree-clad boring character and has little to do in the film.
Santhanam lacks his usual spark, but Thambi Ramaiya in the second half provides some laughs. 
There are no terrifying villains in the movie either; their sole aim seems to be getting bashed up by Ajith.  The action sequences choreographed by Silva, however, do deserve some credit.
The song Nalavannu Solvanga has become quite popular, but otherwise there is nothing remarkable about Devi Sri Prasad’s music in Veeram.
Though there is no denying that the super cool, ultra stylish Ajith can carry off any movie on his broad and powerful shoulders, there is nothing remarkable about Siva’s Veeram. 
With an ordinary story line, an average screenplay and characters that are all overshadowed by one man, the film seems like an ode to Ajith and should be dedicated to all his fans.

Rating:**1/2

http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-veeram-is-a-treat-for-ajith-fans-south/20140110.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