Laal Kaptaan: Captures Ancient India Perfectly

Ever since the Bahubali series ran riot at the ticket counters, there’s been a rapid explosion in that genre with a lot of film-makers rushing to milk the so-called cash cow. When the promos of Laal Kaptaan were out, there was a deja vu. However, you can trust Saif Ali Khan to break stereotypes and genres and that is probably the USP of the film.

Laal Kaptaan is set in the 18th century Bundelkand where a ruthless naga sadhu Gossain (Saif Ali Khan) is in a killing mode, except that there are rewards for these murders. So basically, he is a bounty hunter making a living. Whenever Gossain isn’t finishing off people, he spends his time with his ally Sancho Panza (Deepak Dobriyal) who has a unique dog-like ability to detect people by their smell, even from a distance.

While Gossain is primarily a compulsive hunter, he also has an agenda. His arch-rival Rehmat Khan (Manav Vij) is an assailant from a Pathan background. The year is 1764, soon after the Battle of Buxar and the East India Company has gradually spread its wings across India, steadily usurping kingdoms at will. There is a political undercurrent to the storyline and conflicts that are both loud as well as subtle. As the film moves further, Gossain’s motives are unveiled.

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

October 19, 2019

Edakkad Battalion 06: The goody-two-shoes act is trite

Edakkad Battalion 06 is the story of Shafeeq Muhammad (Tovino Thomas), an army captain on furlough. He is the ‘Nanma Maram’ (a virtuous being) who has a positive influence on all those around him in his village. The captain has a project at hand—he wants to reform local youngsters who are into drugs. Kids using drugs is now the go-to topic for Malayalam cinema as a way of getting the average Malayali parent to identify with this trope but it has begun to get tiresome now.

The film begins with someone describing each of the characters we are about to see during the opening credits. And it looks as if they shot a few scenes in Ladakh-Leh region and then made a movie around it by placing the character in Kerala during his holidays. I watched the film after the NFDC propaganda video about Sardar Vallabhai Patel and I felt the propaganda was far more riveting than what followed.

Tovino is someone who has been having plenty of releases of late with many of them, with him in the lead, not doing well commercially. Many of those films at least had something interesting about them in terms of the genre or narrative even if they did not together all that well. You could well understand why he chose those projects but this film is so pedestrian that it is hard to comprehend why he acted in this. One possible reason could be the chance to work on a P Balachandran script whose previous outings include worthy projects like Ulladakkam, Pavithram and Kammattipadam.

Movie Review, Movies

By Tom Babu

October 18, 2019

Thelivu: A mishmash of a film

The biggest reason for watching Thelivu was Cheriyan Kalpakavadi—the writer who gave us classics like Sarvakalashala and Lal Salam in combination with Venu Nagavalli, acclaimed films like Ulladakkam, Pakshe, Aardram, Sakshyam and a gem of a comedy in Minnaram, in the late 80s and 90s. But, of late, his writing has been wanting and the films he had been associated with were mediocre at best. Going for Thelivu was hoping against hope.

Though just under 120 minutes, sitting through M A Nishad’s latest felt like an unending ordeal. For starters, the director seems confused about the genre. It starts off as an investigative thriller, which becomes a family drama post interval and finally, a film with a socio-political message. It ends up being to none of these. The anachronistic narrative just adds to the confusion.

The story revolves around Gowri (Asha Sharath), who is on the run from the police after killing a lecherous local feudal lord and her employer at the orphanage, to apparently save a girl. They are helped by a Good Samaritan played by Nedumudi Venu. Though her husband Khalid (Lal) takes the blame and surrenders, he is killed by the dead man’s son and his cronies. Gowri struggles to raise her daughter, who, along with others, live on Munroe Thuruth—the island—which plays a major role in the film.

Movie Review, Movies

By Toms Varghese

October 12, 2019

Petromax: Has Its Whacky Moments

It’s hardly been a fortnight since Tamannah set the screens ablaze with her performance in Chiranjeevi’s magnum opus Sye Ra Narsimha Reddy, and the actress is back with Petromax. Directed by Rohin Venkatesan of Adhe Kangal fame, Petromax is a comedy-horror film. Going by the box office trends of this decade in Kollywood, comedy-horror has been among the most profitable genres in the industry—so, does Petromax hit the bull’s-eye?

Saravanan (Prem), who is settled in Malaysia with his wife, learns about the floods in Wayanad, Kerala and starts searching for his mother who was reportedly stranded in the region. With the help of his influential cop friend, Saravanan comes across an unrecognizable, highly-decomposed body that bears some resemblance to his mother. No with his parents no more, Saravanan decides to sell his ancestral home before heading back to Malaysia. However, it isn’t as easy as he thinks.

There are rumors that spirits possess the house and that’s a dampener for potential buyers. Saravanan’s cop-friend along with local businessman (Mime Gopi) dress up conmen as spirits to cash in on the confusion so that the prices drop and, they can buy the house. This is when Senthil (Munishkanth) advises Saravanan that the property can be sold for a hefty sum if a group of people can survive a couple of nights in the house. The latter agrees and also offers to give a substantial commission if the plan works.

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

October 11, 2019

Manoharam: A feel-good drama that delivers the goods

Manoharam, which translates to beautiful in Malayalam, is the second directorial venture of Anwar Sadiq, While his debut film Ormayundo Ee Mukham was influenced heavily by the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore film 50 First Dates, Sadiq has chosen a plot similar to the films of the eighties and nineties in Malayalam, with a struggling common man as the protagonist, in Manoharam.

Manoharan aka Manu (Vineeth Sreenivasan) is a talented artist who makes a living by painting billboards and banners in a small Palakkad town along with his childhood friend Prabhu (Basil Thomas). When Manu’s nemesis Rahul (Deepak Parambol) foils his marriage and plans to start a flex-printing centre in the town threatening Manu’s work, he decides to something about it.

With the help of Prabhu, his well-wisher and, his benefactor Varkey (Indrans), Manu manages to realise his dream. He learns Photoshop and in the process falls in love with his instructor Sreeja (Aparna Das). But things do not go well for him as he finds that the printer he had ordered from a scrap shop was dead on arrival. With his reputation, livelihood, home and his love at stake, Manu is forced to take drastic steps. The subsequent struggle forms the rest of the film.

Movie Review, Movies

By Toms Varghese

October 10, 2019

The Irresistible Charm of Sports-Centric films

In 1999-2000, when the pre-production work for Lagaan was underway, director Ashutosh Gowariker was in talks with Shah Rukh Khan to play the lead. Shah Rukh had concerns about the box office feasibility of the film, given that sports films were few and far until then. Of course, Lagaan wasn’t just a sports film but nevertheless, cricket was a major part of the film. Highly skeptical, Shah Rukh opted out of the project and eventually, Aamir Khan was on board. The rest, as they say, is history.

Almost two decades since then, we see a plethora of sports-centric films being released. Some are biopics while others have fictional plots with a certain sport as its focal point. As long as the screenplay is engaging and packaged neatly, the viewers are always happy to lap it up. The latest sports flick set to join the club is Tamil superstar Vijay’s upcoming Diwali release Bigil, which is set in the backdrop of football, wherein a group of women are coached to glory by the protagonist. The synopsis does instantly remind us of the Bollywood hit Chak De India.

Sports films are guaranteed to set the cash registers ringing, provided they are made well. As a bare plot line, every film in this genre ends up having a rather similar theme of underdogs fighting against all odds to achieve success. But that’s its appeal factor. If we look back at some of the most famous sporting achievements, there would be enough and more of such tales. Maybe, it’s the effect of real-life sports incidents on our psyche that enables us to believe even the fictional tales from this genre. Sports biopics generate a lot of buzz right from the time of its announcement—Ranvir Singh’s upcoming Kapil Dev biopic 83 being an example.

Features, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

October 7, 2019

Jallikattu: The Hunt for the Beast

Lijo Jose Pelliserry’s film Jallikattu is symbolic of the de-civilising of society—the savagery that lurks just below the surface of a progressive one comes to the fore—like a beast that breaks loose and is on the rampage. Centuries of the so called “culture” and “civilization” have only managed to contain or suppress the primordial beast within us but not annihilate it.

The story is set in a nameless, high range village where the staple diet of the highlanders is buffalo meat, which is relished in various combinations: buffalo meat and toddy, buffalo meat and tapioca, well, you can say buffalo meat in any form is a must. No caterer is worth his salt unless he serves up the piece de resistance: buffalo meat fried with bow-shaped coconut pieces.

The best cuts are available only at butcher Varkey’s (Chemban Vinod Jose), picked up by the villagers on their way to church for morning mass. It’s a ritual that is as important as the spiritual one, the purchase of fresh meat being given slightly more reverence. The priest of the church too swears by Varkey’s meat and, a warm, bloody parcel is delivered to him straight after the morning mass.

Movie Review, Movies

By Minu Ittyipe

October 5, 2019

Asuran: A Gory Revenge Tale

Amidst all the conflicts in this world, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots remain the most fundamental of all. With the society becoming increasingly money-centric, there is no denying the influence that the wealthy have, especially in the rural areas where law and order is often reduced to a farce. In such circumstances, violence is an inevitable byproduct. Vetrimaaran uses this premise as one the themes of his latest film Asuran, starring Dhanush and Manju Warrier in the lead roles.

Sivasaamy (Dhanush) and his wife Pachaiyamma (Manju Warrier) have three children. The eldest son is in his 20s while his younger brother is into his teens. The youngest, a girl child, is little. The lower caste family earns their livelihood from a portion of the forest that has been inherited from their ancestors. However, the other part of the forest belongs to an upper-caste landlord Narasimha (Naren), who runs the show in the region on the strength of his wealth. Needless to say, tensions are rife.

Due to the non-linear narrative, the film opens with the murder of Narasimha by Sivasaamy’s younger son, forcing the already wounded family to be on the run. Narasimha’s vengeance-seeking family is in no mood to relent as they comb the nook and corner of the region. Amidst all the mess, Sivasaamy doesn’t get triggered into violence and instead, focuses on saving his family, even if it means swallowing his ego. Why was Narasimha murdered? What is Sivasaamy’s past? All this and more is what Asuran is about.

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

October 3, 2019

War: Roshan and Shroff Prop It Up

When it comes to high-octane action films in Bollywood, there is an age-old obsession with spy films propped up with a huge budgets, serene locations and good-looking heroes. Siddharth Anand’s latest directorial venture War treads the same path while also bringing the two action heroes of the industry—Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff—in one frame. In such films, you don’t expect much of a storyline and the only requirement is an engaging screenplay which, along with finely choreographed stunts should do the trick.

Agent Kabir (Hrithik Roshan) is touted as the finest undercover resource in India but one fine day, he turns a mission upside down and thereby becomes a threat to the country. Colonel Luthra (Ashuthosh Rana), to whom Kabir used to report to, appoints the young and feisty Khalid (Tiger Shroff), to get rid of Kabir. The two lead heroes have a history, with Kabir having been Khalid’s trainer at the agency in the past, thus sharing a deep bond. With the country’s security on the line, Khalid is left with no option but to go after his former guru.

With two fantastic action heroes at his disposal, Anand’s intentions are simple–to take the viewers on a roller-coaster ride packed with stunt sequences. The natural ability of Hrithik and Tiger in this genre is a major plus indeed, as are the fabulously shot action and chase sequences in the film. The stunts are surely on an international level.

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

October 2, 2019

Sye Ra Narasimha Reddy: A Visual Extravaganza

The Baahubali series was a game-changer for Indian cinema, setting new benchmarks as far as period films were concerned. Its pan-India success instilled belief in producers that recovering huge investments shouldn’t be concern if the product is good. Chiranjeevi revealed that during the promos of his latest film Sye Ra Narasimha Reddy, a tale of the first-ever rebel who revolted against the British East India Company, in the 19^th century. The film is a journey of courage and grit mounted on a huge scale.

The story is set 10 years prior to what’s widely regarded as the first battle of independence fought in 1857. Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy (Chiranjeevi), emperor of Rayalseema in Andhra Pradesh, decides to take on the British East India Company’s harassment of the peasants in the region. After the initial reluctance, the neighboring kings also join him in the war for freedom. With the unending resources and manpower commanded by the British, winning is next to impossible but Narasimha Reddy and his men vow not to go down without a fight.

One of the major reasons behind the making of this film was the relative ‘unknown entity’ factor associated with Uyyalwada Narasimha Reddy when it comes to freedom fighters in India. Not many have heard of this legend. Of course, it’s difficult to be inch-perfect in terms of facts with regards to events that happened in the 19^th century and a certain amount of cinematic liberty is permissible.

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan

September 28, 2019

Namma Veetu Pillai: Clichéd Entertainer

In 2018, Pandiraj’s Karthi-starrer Kadaikutty Singham set the cash registers ringing when it extended its successful run in the B and C centers of Tamil Nadu. Family entertainers in rural settings have become rarer in Kollywood these days and that’s a factor the film had cashed upon. Buoyed by its mammoth success, Pandiraj is back with another family drama that’s set in a village, Namma Veetu Pillai starring Siva Karthikeyan in the lead.

The film revolves around the brother-sister bond between Arumponn (Sivakarthikeyan) and Thulasi (Aishwarya Rajesh). They live a jolly life along with their mother, with a plethora of relatives who also live in the same area. As is the case with most joint families that don’t stay together, there are plenty of ego clashes too. A series of events lead Arum to get his sister married to Ayyanar (Natarajan), despite the two nursing a rivalry between them.

The film deals with how Arum manages to get out of this mess. So, what’s there in this film that we haven’t seen before in other Kollywood family dramas? Nothing really. In fact, the film is a twin brother of Kadaikutty Singham in many ways, given the premise and the squabbles in a large family. Also, the grandfather-grandson bond is eerily similar (Bharathiraja dons the role of the patriarch here).

Movie Review, Movies

By Hariprasad Sadanandan