Movie Reviews

One of the admirable qualities of Susienthiran, even in his weakest films, has been the assuredness in his  filmmaking . But his previous film, ‘Nenjil Thunivirunthal’, and now, ‘Genius’, seem to indicate a crisis of confidence. The filmmaker chose to remove the portions featuring the heroine from the previous film – after it had been released, showing us that he isn’t making the right choices as a writer. And now, the writing in this film, which is about a man (Roshan) who has forgotten his cherish the smaller moments in life to the demands of an overbearing father (Aadukalam Naren), is filled with convoluted, preposterous scenes, only reinforces the fact. But more worryingly, even the filmmaking seems to have deserted him as he gives us flatly staged scenes with melodramatic acting that one might find in TV serials. Even when taken as a message film, ‘Genius’ makes the didactic films of Samuthirakani seem livelier. In a crucial scene, the protagonist drives himself to work con

Quite annoyed with the troubles of living the life of a lower middle-class person, Satya (Jai) decides to go to any extent to make money to run his family, which involves mother and sister. Along with his friend Paari (Daniel), he meets Samuel (Ilavarasu), who promises to provide him money if he can forge documents. Satya and Paari open a travel company and start dreaming of a happy life. But a cop (Bose Venkat), who knows about the fake documents, threatens to put them in jail if they fail to arrange a sum of ₹10 lakh in two days.  Satya sends his family away and starts searching for money with Paari. Gajendra (Robo Shankar), a rich man who's madly in love with Keerthi (Reba Monica), offers to give them the money but only if they help him succeed in his romance. However, circumstances force Satya to kidnap Keerthi, which earns him the wrath of a human trafficking group. With a wafer-thin plot, which is developed through a slew of characters, Jarugandi has some engaging mom

No other genre casts a spell like family entertainers for the festive season and Hello Guru Prema Kosame makes good use of its timing. Set in a light-hearted vein for the most part, although peppered with a staple cinematic mix of middle class sentiments and romance, the film has a good share of sparkles to keep you engaged. Hello Guru Prema Kosame endorses that typical middle class dream, of a boy from a smaller town who isn't willing to move out of his comfort zone, but yet is forced to do so for his parents. This film takes this trope to another level and even has a song on how nothing beats your 'native place'. Sanju from Kakinada comes to Hyderabad in lieu of a comfy job and stays in a government job-holder Vishwanath's house in the city. Even before Sanju hits it off with his IT colleague, the youngster strikes a strong rapport with a much elder Vishwanath. The guy also has a soft spot for his daughter Anupama, putting their equation in a quandary. There&#

In Sandakozhi 2, the protagonist, Balu, and his father, Durai Ayya (Rajkiran) are often compared to a couple of lions, and the two characters do actually behave so. This is why when Pechi (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) and the men in her family try to hunt down Anbu, the last male in a clan that they have sworn revenge against, they are unable to do anything.  Lingusamy raises the stakes for Balu by having Ayya get injured grievously. But Ayya wants his son to ensure that Anbu is saved at all cost, and that the week-long thiruvizha that the seven villages of the place are conducting after a gap of seven years, remains peaceful.  The broader set-up of Sandakozhi 2 - of a young man whose life is threatened during a festival - has shades of Vamsam (where it was the protagonist who had to save himself), and also calls back to the first Sandakozhi (where the villain wants to murder a young man at all cost). And director Lingusamy, for the most part, gives us a film that is as much a masala

Vada Chennai opens with a murder, but we do not see the murder or the victim. Instead, we get a blood-stained sickle and a conversation between the murderers. These are Guna (Samuthirakani), Senthil (Kishore), Velu (Pavan) and Pazhani (Dheena). The guy they have killed is a big shot gangster and they discuss how they can now take his place. This is 1987. Cut to a year later, and we see that the four men have become rivals - Guna and Velu on one side and Senthil and Pazhani on the other. The action then shifts to 2000, when we are introduced to Anbu (Dhanush), who is remanded to prison for a minor scuffle with Guna's henchman Siva (Pavel Navageethan). To save himself from Guna's gang, which controls one block of the prison, Anbu gets closer to Senthil's gang, and even earns the trust of Senthil. Meanwhile, the narrative keeps shifting a few years back and forth - to 1991, when Anbu meets Padma (Aishwarya Rajesh), an intrepid local girl, who he falls in love with; to

“This is a very old dialogue but let me still say it. Punishment for one murder and two murders are the same’,” says DYSP Aana Esthappan (Sidhique) in the climax sequence of the movie to Kallan Pavithran ( Biju Menon). In this film it is true with the film as well.  An old palace, a skeleton found in its attic, an investigation and so many suspects- Aanakkallan has that storyline which Mollywood has seen multiple times.  The movie initially reminds one of the comedy thriller Kilukil Pamparam that was released two decades back. The new version of the Jayaram film will definitely persuade the viewers to admire the previous one more. Aanakkallan is an old wine in a new bottle and the question that one should frequently ask is how much of it is new?  Seems like director Suresh Kumar and writer Udaykrishna are still living in a century ago. Ananthapuram palace which was locked for ten years is handed over to government to convert it as its guest house. The palace is opened for renovati

A holier-than-thou Bela Kapoor (Prabhleen Sandhu) dedicates her life to the betterment of the society and leaves her sex-deprived, middle-aged husband Gagan (Govinda) craving for nights of sheer passion. Frustrated, the flamboyant theatre actor indulges in a steamy affair with a person half his age, Bindu (Digangana Suryavanshi) and decides to bring her home after his wife leaves the city for social work. In the meantime, Rajiv’s sinking career as a salesman needs just one customer and that’s when the eccentric Kapoor couple come in to the picture. Varun Sharma as the small-town boy, stuck with the travails of life in a big city, is quite relatable, so is his performance and comic timing. Govinda’s dialled-up performance though mirrors his over-the-top style from the 90s and that’s one of the many problems this no-brainer comedy has to contend with. The script of ‘FryDay’ drags on for a little too long and the humour showcased in the film, isn’t even at par with what the trailer

T he only connect between the title and the film is the fact that the four bachelors in the film live at Maal Road, in Delhi, which is supposedly an area where bachelors stay. The friends in the film Baljit (Rohin Robert), Karan (Atul Srtiva) and Abhijeet (Samarth Shandilya), are all regular middle-class working men with bad love lives with the exception of Nitin. His love life is rocking given the fact that he has a steady girlfriend Pooja (Sonia Kaur). Just three months shy of their marriage, Pooja gets an offer to walk the ramp and become a supermodel. She takes it on and travels to Mumbai which has Karan become nervous. His worst favours are realised when she chooses to break-up with him when he travels to Mumbai and slaps around Pooja’s bosses and acquaintances more than once.  The fact that it’s a film based on Delhi, you hope that at least the dialogues will be fun and reflect the flavour of the city. What you get instead are cheesy, misogynist and sexist quotes in a film t

 Sunita Rao’s lilting ‘Pari Hoon Main’ playing on radio welcomes you to the world of Eela Raiturkar (Kajol). A budding singer of the 90s, she doesn’t live in the past, but her world now revolves around her 20-year-old son Vivaan (Riddhi Sen). She follows him around in the real and virtual world; all the way to his college, where she turns up as a fellow student, too.  It’s an exciting premise and director Pradeep Sarkar sets the stage for a generational confrontation right at the beginning. However, he chooses to spend the first half taking us back into the good ol’ nineties, where Indie Pop ruled music charts and Baba Sehgal’s raps were a rage.  In the first half, writers Anand Gandhi and Mitesh Shah convey the ups and downs in the life of a young couple (Kajol and Tota Roy Chowdhury) with conviction. The film stays on course with light banter between the characters and the story progresses consistently without much melodrama. A fun soundtrack by Amit Trivedi, with quirky lyrics

 The best form of horror is one which plays with your mind. The fear of the uncertain and the unknown is what evokes the strongest emotions. Tumbbad is a perfect example of a film that creates a surreal illusion. This psychological horror has its traditional moments of blood and gore, but the most promising part of this terrifying fable is that it makes monsters out of ordinary men. A greedy human can be a lot more malicious than a cursed supernatural entity. Ideas like that make Tumbbad a real mind-bender and the film's top-notch production design makes it a movie that truly reinvents the horror genre for Indian cinema. The film kicks off with a CGI sequence of gods and goddesses and a strong allegory of the destructive nature of greed. Tumbbad, an actual village in Maharashtra, becomes the fabric of this tale. Incessant rain becomes the wrath of gods, and you can’t really tell what’s more grey, the characters or the locales. The film is set during the latter part of the B