Kanthasamy Movie Review
 After a long two year wait, Kanthaswamy is released today all over the world. Its a Tamil cinema’s first official superhero movie. Producer Dhanu gave enough hype for this movie. but the movie is not up to the expectation, Its a big letdown for Vikram. The story is all about black money, Swiss bank accounts and one man’s mission to bring it all back to where it belongs, India. Yes, it is a crusade against black money led by Kanthaswamy. The hero transformed as Kandaswamy and fight againts the black money with multiple get ups as superhero, senile man, middle aged lady and divides the money among the poor people. The same story line we have seen in several movies.
This is one of the movies in which shreya has looked her best, but she is in the movie just for her belly dance.
Dhanu's too much hype is another important negative point for the movie. A big budget doesn't make a good movie. |
Achchamundu Achchamundu
 Nothing explains the essence and emotion of the movie as much as one seemingly insignificant sentence that the flick’s lead lady Sneha mouths: She unsuspectingly refers to the man who is sexually attracted to her 6-year-child and says “He is old enough to be my father.” An emotion so uncommon in India and among Indians that the NRI Sneha doesn’t suspect the man she invites to paint her home to be a pedophile. Yes, you heard it right: child abuse, a theme we have so rarely seen in a Tamil film, despite India registering the highest number of such crimes in the world. The most gripping thing about ‘Achchamundu! Achchamundu!’ is that it deals with a fear lurking in the country: not with ghosts or the supernatural kind, but a real, looming issue. Everything seems picture perfect in Senthil (Prasanna)’s life, a gorgeous Malini (Sneha) and an adorable six year old Rithika. They’re living the ‘perfect’ life, like the kind that regularly goes on tours every weekend, attends obscure birthday parties and randomly visits temples and then, a jaded corner of a wall in the basement requires a good paint, and thus enters John Shea as the painter Robertson. Things are never the same at home again.  So when was the last time you saw a Tamil film explicitly deal with child abuse? And has it ever been taken as the central theme of a movie? The film has been written and directed by NRI Arun Vaidyanathan, and just when you think the film is going to capture the essential Americanized life of Indians there, he gives you a slice of the Tamil way of living. Often, you wonder if the so naturally shot ramblings between the couple Prasanna and Sneha have been captured with a spy cam at an NRI couple’s home. Arun’s vignettes of how hard the NRI couple strive to live like other Indians is a treat to watch, definitely a first time in Tamil cinema. It is to Arun’s credit that the film, with such a plausible storyline, has been executed completely by the three pivotal characters, Sneha, Prasanna and John Shea. A good few scenes have been devoted to establish the characters, and it instantly helps to connect with them. Sneha’s earlier reprisal of a similar role set in another paradigm, in ‘Pirivom Sandhippom’, has sure helped the actress get into the skin of the character easily. John Shea’s character has been intelligently scripted, and he breathes life into the film, despite being the villain. Did Karthik Raja really inherit his dad Illayaraja’s cascading violins? The background score is one of the finest you would have heard in recent times, and you really wish he does more films. The songs, USA and Mithra, are well composed, but you get the feeling the second song though interestingly made, do not gel well in the first half. It is when it is continued in the latter half, that you think the movie’s mood fits it right. Lyricist Andal Priyadarshini, Sowmya and Karthik Raja ensure this is a song that’ll linger long after you’re out of the movie hall. In fact, that’s something you’d feel about the film itself, with a topic that’s too significant to be forgotten after seeing the movie. The film will haunt you, wrench your guts, make you feel uneasy, and therein lies its success. Bottomline: A world class flick, dealing with an utterly local issue. Intelligent movie goers will not want to miss this one. |
Vamanan
 There’s a chance you’ll enjoy Dream Valley Corporations’ ‘Vamanan’ a lot more, if you went in looking at it as some mindless comedy Or a film with decent action and a lot of glamour. The film is packaged to seem like an action entertainer. Sadly, most part of the film has turned out to be an entertainer of the unintended variety. Why does the film’s storyline give you a sense of deja vu? May be because you have seen a film lesser than a month before called ‘Muthirai’, with a premise similar to this one. The film is about how a video tape unintentionally records the death of a politician (Delhi Ganesh) by another Anbu (Sampath), and how people in possession with the tape are being killed. But the director Ahmad doesn’t stop at this, making it more complex by roping in many more characters. That turns out to be the film’s biggest strength and weakness. While these characters, from “Neeya Naana” Gopi, Thalaivaasal Vijay, Raguman to Lakshmi Rai are involved in the tape, there’s ample scope for making the screenplay more interesting. Instead, it ends up looking too complicated or too silly, with a climax that looks highly out of place. This is Jai’s first film after the blockbuster ‘Subramaniapuram’, and expectations are bound to be high. Jai plays the role of an aspiring actor, Anand. So one does wonder if all those scenes in the film in which different people discourage him saying he can’t act at all, are meant to be real life accusations. Be it in his voice modulation, or getting out of the grumpy look he wore for ‘Subramaniapuram’, Jai has a long way to go. But it’s not perhaps his fault that such a big success in the name of ‘Subramaniapuram’ came so early in his life that his experience isn’t able to do justice to it.  Needing good acting is Lakshmi Rai too, who is definitely better off having someone else dub for her. She plays a model Pooja in the film and the director has clearly gone by the usual portrayal of all beauty no brains, in etching her character. Debutant Priya, enacting the role of Divya, Jai’s love, doesn’t have a lot to do. Santhanam- That’s someone you’ll look forward to in the film, as he keeps most of the film going but, his character holds no merit as the cameraman of a serious channel. Urvashi, much like her act in ‘Siva Manasula Shakthi’, hardly gives her vocal chords rest as Priya’s mother, but her facial expressions are a delight to watch. Sampath’s role as the politician Anbu, makes you wonder why he is relegating himself to stereotype villain roles. Thalaivasal Vijay, one of our more seasoned character artistes, is as convincing as ever. Raguman’s character is a give away from the start, and Jai’s trust in him is nothing short of silly. The camerawork is interesting in parts, but there’s definitely nothing exciting to suggest. Yuvan Shankar Raja doesn’t go beyond rehashing his earlier tunes. Lucky Star is a captivating number though. As the case with most films these days, the first half entertains. The second half stutters. Bottom line: Much ado about nothing. |
Gnabagangal Movie Review - Lost Memories
 Memories! That is really the only thing that belongs to us. But you will loss all your memories after watching Gnabagangal. Gnabagangal is one of the worst movie of this decade! Hopefully this movie would be his last movie.ok, Lets come to the story... A young villager comes to the city with the aim of making it big. But, he loses his focus after falling in love with a girl. He forgets what he actually set out to achieve. Unfortunately, he has to face defeat even in love. With great difficulty he forgets what happened and tries to reclaim everything that he had let go for his love to succeed.  Lyricist Pa. Vijay makes his big screen debut with Gnabagangal. He has penned the story, dialogues and his forte, the lyrics. So, one who expects the movie to have a poetic touch about it will see nothing like that. The movie is Directed by Jeevan, we can feel pa.Vijay's interference at lot places spoiling the movie. The movie has Sreedevika as Pa. Vijay’s heroine. She plays a North Indian girl and to her credit has dubbed for herself. Gnabagangal has been shot in a wide range of locations ranging from Ooty, Madurai, Salem, Delhi an Agra. The climax scene of the film, which was shot for three days on the premises of the Taj Mahal is a highlight of the movie. When was the last time that a movie’s climax was shot at the Taj Mahal? A set replicating a huge bungalow in Haridwar and a set in front of the Pariyoor Amman temple are other highlights of the film that have come out very well. Music for Gnabagangal has been scored by James Vick. Better luck next time James Vick! Bottomline: Watch this movie at your own risk! Scoring 1/10 |
Indira Vizha Movie Review
 Here’s a film in which its three heroines, Namitha, Hemamalini and Ragasiya, compete to the maximum of their natural abilities on who can reveal a bigger cleavage.(Like how Ragasiya displays her barely clothed body and says ‘I’m completely natural’ to a stony-looking Srikanth). There’s hardly a chance you will notice anything else in a movie with such a poorly executed script like ‘Indira Vizha’ whose focal point of attraction seems to be the thunder thighs, wide waistlines and above. To be fair, the movie may not be perceived as a rip off of ‘Aitraaz’ or its more captivating English version, ‘Disclosure’. Isn’t the story of a vengeful lusting woman criminalizing the man who refused to bed her as old as Shakespeare’s works? The film is the story of Kamini (Namitha) getting back at her ex lover Sridhar (Srikanth) by reentering his life as the wife of his boss, played by Nasser. Srikanth plays the creative head of a television channel Teen TV (though it does indulge in political exposes), who is married to debutant Hemamalini.  His life turns topsy-turvy when Nasser reinstates Namitha as the head of the TV channel, a promotion Srikanth anticipated for himself. Following this, it is the simple story with Namitha hurling sexual harassment accusations at him. The film has an age-old, yet watchable story line that lends itself to many twists and turns but it suffers from a screenplay technique that’s older than our hills. The three heroines, who gyrate in regular intervals in skimpy clothes, give the film a sleaze flick look, while its hero Srikanth managed to do a decent job as the suave youngster. Comedy is supposedly the department of Vivek, who hardly makes you smile, while Y Gee Mahendra, as the conniving lawyer, elicits more laughs. But the courtroom scenes are a joke in themselves, given the callousness with which they have been filmed. Vivek’s antics at the courtroom are anything but enjoyable. The show stealer of the film is clearly Namitha, who needs to shed more kilos before deciding to shed her clothes for more oomph. The actress is at her glamourous best, even if it is in the courtroom. Namitha does come across as stylish and fits the bill for her character, with a dubbing voice (Suchithra) that suits her well. Hemamalini needs a check on her weight, even as her performance for a new comer is decent, much like Ragasiya. Music for the film is by a new comer Yatish, and you still may not want to go kind on the youngster who has remixed ‘Oru Kinnathai” from ‘Vasantha Maaligai’, highly misplaced during the course of the court investigations. Bottomline: Watchable, only by strict Namitha fans. |
