Movie Reviews

Story:  Chiru has been brought up by five strong women who don’t believe any girl is suitable for him. What happens when he falls in love? Review:  Kishore Tirumala’s  Aadavallu Meeku Johaarlu (AMJ)  seems terrific on paper. You have a sensitive man and an independent woman as the leads – breaking stereotypes that are oh so often seen in Tollywood. There are comedians who exist in the universe just for comedy, nothing wrong with that. Families run by women who know their mind, acceptable. But despite having such terrific scope in hand, the director ends up delivering a film that’s passable at best. Chiranjeevi aka Chiru (Sharwanand) is the apple of everyone’s eye. He has been brought up by five women, including his mother (Radhika) and aunt (Kavitha Ranjini). There are men in this family, the husbands, but they don’t matter in the bigger picture because it’s the women who take decisions in this family. Decisions like who Chiru should marry, because no girl is ever go...

  Story:  A sub-inspector and the egoistic son of an ex-MP get in an egotistical war when the former arrests the latter for bringing in liquor from Telangana to AP. Review:  Whenever there’s a remake announced and Pawan Kalyan headlines it, you know the original will not just be remade but will be adapted to ensure his fans remain happy. So if the original is a drama about two men’s bid to show up each other with class and caste disparity making for an imbalanced power dynamic, the remake will have ample fight scenes, massy moments and a touch of the actor’s political ideology thrown in. While sometimes such films work and other times they don’t, Saagar K Chandra’s adaptation of  Ayyappanum Koshiyum , with screenplay and dialogues by Trivikram Srinivas, definitely works for the most part. Sarhad Bheemla Nayak (Pawan Kalyan) is a sub-inspector at Srisailam tehsil in Andhra Pradesh. He belongs to the tribal hamlet and has a haunting past. Daniel Sekhar (Rana Daggubati)...

  Etharkkum Thunindhavan Movie Review:  In Etharkkum Thunindhavan, Suriya plays Kannabiran, a lawyer who stands by the side of justice and protects the innocents. At home, he is the doting son to his parents Aadhirayar (Sathyaraj, whose presence lends more weight to the character than the writing) and Kosalai (Saranya Ponvannan, in a role that she can, by now, play in her sleep). And in the eyes of Aadhini (a fine Priyankaa Arul Mohan), his love interest, he is like Murugan. In short, he is more or less an avatar, and without straining too much, director Pandiraj establishes the myth of his protagonist. The plot takes this idea forward with Kannabiran trying to protect the dignity of women. The evil man who is doing the 'disrobing' here is Inba (Vinay Rai, taking off from where he left off in Doctor), a central minister's son. Inba and his gang exploit unsuspecting young women in the name of love and shoot videos of them in sexually compromising positions, and later use the...

  Hey Sinamika Synopsis:  A wife who feels suffocated by her husband's incessant attention hires a psychologist to make him fall in love with her so that she can separate from him. Hey Sinamika Review:  For at least the first half of Hey Sinamika, Yaazhan (Dulquer Salmaan), its protagonist, comes across as the answer to the loosu ponnu characters that populate our screens. He is a house husband to Mouna (Aditi Rao Hydari), who works in the construction industry. He dotes on her 24x7. He is the kind of guy who walks in when she's showering to force-feed her cake! Obviously, she feels suffocated by his 'love'. She even gets a transfer to Pondicherry so that she can have some me-time, but he lands up there as well as he doesn't want her to miss him. Enter Dr Malarvizhi (a miscast Kajal Aggarwal), a relationship counsellor, who thinks all men are cheats, and has facilitated the separation of many couples. Mouna approaches her as a final resort. The idea is to get Malarv...

  H Vinoth's Valimai begins with a series of chain-snatching incidents and smuggling committed by masked men on bikes in Chennai. The public is up in arms against the police force, who are clueless. In an internal monologue, the police chief (Selva) wishes for a super cop to prevent such crimes. The action then cuts to Madurai, where a temple procession is underway.then we are introduced to ACP Arjun (Ajith Kumar), the film’s protagonist, whose introduction is intercut with scenes from the procession. Like a God who is held up high, we see this character rising up from the depths. In short, a whistle-worthy hero-introduction scene. We expect that Vinoth has done away with the mandatory fan service given his star's stature and will get around to making the film he wanted to make. And it does seem so for a while when Arjun gets posted to Chennai and starts investigating a suicide case that seems connected to the chain-snatching and drug-smuggling cases from before. Like in his pr...