Review: Dhoni

                                          

“What is he trying to say anyway, that there shouldn’t be Maths, Physics, Biology etc. in Schools?” muttered, a gentleman seemingly in his late 20s to his friend as I was making my way out after the movie.

Subbu (Prakash raj) having a hard time with the
education system in 'Dhoni' 

Two things come to my mind, pondering this question.. First, the movie poses larger questions like “Why a simple process of learning has become so much like a race that children should actually study HARD?”, "Why the learning place called school has become such an ‘hostile’ entity as children label them as jails?".. That these questions have been asked at a time when we are grappling with the news of a student murdering his teacher inside the campus in our very own city, Chennai, only makes the questions all the more relevant. Second, the movie doesn't try to make its protagonist, a middle class intellectually-not-so superior common man, an expert in education overnight. He only has questions over the system - his innocence, ignorance and naivety are kept intact as he desperately tries to find answers.

        The film centers around Subbu (Prakash raj), a widowed single parent who lives hand-to-mouth working in the Registrar's office. He sells pickles just to make the ends meet but still finding it short, only to lend often from Kandhu Gani (Murali sharma)…but that doesn’t stop him to admit his children, Karthik (Aakash Puri) and Kaveri, in one of the ‘best’ schools in the city. Karthik however is not into studies, has innate ability and passion to be a cricketer. The cry over imminent public exams starts and the school officials insist that either Karthik be detained or transferred to some other school as they cannot afford anything short of 100% pass result..Now comes the time when Karthik has to either choose to follow his dreams or follow the world. Subbu pushes the latter but Karthik - persistent on the former..In a violent confrontation Subbu pushes too far, Karthik suffers a blow on his head accidentally and slips into coma..

        This is where the movie takes a slightly different course from what one would guess- which may not go down well with some viewers, but one of the aspects I liked much. Rather than just blaming himself and making amends, Subbu puts the blame on the system, says “ ‘they’ have made me hit him”. In one of the best scenes of the movie, Subbu rushes into a classroom, asks the teacher "what is 17*8?" ( to which she says "I am only a history teacher!”) and orders her to stand up on the bench..  

        The movie scores great points in this original and rigid characterization of its protagonist. He is not our typical hero who would be an all-mature-and-do-the-most-reasonable-thing guy - this one has his own flaws and imperfections..Knowing what his neighbor (Radhika Apte) does for a living, he doesn't just ignore her like most of us would do or ask her why she’s doing what she’s doing like a reasonable person would do, but confronts her and talks to her as harshly as one could, only to apologize later profusely. This would explain the not-so-reasonable course that he takes on to vent his anger on the system in the later half of the movie…

        The first half of the movie sprinkled with some lighthearted humor and interesting characters, moves in its own pace, which almost everyone will like.. It is the second half which has some powerful sequences that some will hate, some will think it has taken the movie to the next level- I for one that believes the latter.. We know of the acting capabilities of Prakash raj and as always he doesn't disappoint—maybe because we have seen so much of him, we are not genuinely taken aback by any scenes—I know I am being unfair here, how can we hold a fact that ‘he doesn't disappoint as always’ against him.. One thing that distracts largely is the lip sync of actors in certain scenes especially those of the boy - one of the reasons why his character didn't affect us as it should have.. Maybe in a bilingual, these are certain compromises - but seem costly compromises to me.

        The dialogues by T.J.Gnanavel and Prakash raj are crisp, help greatly to mellow down some inherently sentimental scenes. Yet there are moments that go overboard and sound preachy and overtly melodramatic- but those are things I was happy to overlook...After a while in Tamil cinema, we see songs and bgm that are truly part of the movie. They not only just blend with the movie but also elevate the experience greatly..Ilayaraja is a master in doing that, due credit must also be given to Prakash raj the way they have been picturized.

        I like dramas that take place inside a family, movies that doesn’t take extraordinary/extravagant strides but only few gentle steps to reach the destination..Those kind of movies are always realistic, original and closer to us. I gather they are easy to make too, financially..Wonder why those movies are of rare breed yet and hope Dhoni ushers in a trend of such movies.

           


Well,Your turn now..
Did you like the movie? Anything you think they could have done better? How about the review? good, pathetic, anything at all, pls let us know what you think.

Review: Nanban

                        

   
If you were to ask every engineer in India, 'Why you chose to be an engineer?", I bet a shockingly large percentage of them would tell you "I don’t  know”, "It just happened” or some other variant of that sort, but still they do what they do for the rest of their lives. The system we have is just acting like a machine, which takes in children of various capabilities, talents and knowledge and spews out ridiculously large number of engineers and few doctors in a process that takes about 15 odd years. No parents worth their salt,these days,want to see their child doing anything ‘short’ of it, thereby (un)consciously stopping them to do anything far greater than that, that they might be capable of. This is the message that this movie carries with it, with light hearted humor and feel good characters as its vehicle- the message, riders, vehicle and the whole shebang have already been tested to resounding success. So what more do you want, unless you do an unbelievably terrible job in the execution, the movie will work,and it does here..

  The movie pans out in flashback, as Venkat (srikanth) one of the three close friends back in the college, remembers (and narrates) how their friend Paari (Vijay) has changed their lives for good, how much he has influenced them and made them find themselves and then just disappeared. Its been 10 years since they have seen him,they are now off to find him, accompanied by Srivatsan (Satyan),who is out to declare himself as the winner to Paari in a ‘battle’,he thinks he has defeated him and Riya (Illeana) ,who is out to find him and marry him.

 ‘He is something different,isnt it’,observes Venkat..’yeah he is different,so we have to be a little careful about him’, cautions Senthil (Jeeva),on seeing Paari outsmart the seniors and the Principal. Paari,Senthil,Venkat et al. join the much-coveted 'Ideal College',each with their aspirations or even compulsions to drive them. In one of the earlier scenes,the school Principal (Satyaraj) lays out simply that life is nothing but a race. In fact the system is the one that has been ill designed to be a race, we see now, that has been extended to life itself, and we have our Paari who has not the slightest regard for the system. Others who are not that self determined which is natural and understandable (for a teenager,yeah they are!), accept to run the race with different levels of readiness. Srivatsan raises his hand instantly ‘I am ready, sir’, some others just convince themselves ‘we should be ready’ and raise their hands..

 This is a movie that doesn't follow a traditional plot where each and every scene should intensify the conflict in the beginning and then later plant things for the resolution, finally bringing in the denouement.In fact more than half of the scenes are there, just to establish that this guy, Paari, is different and the friendship they have between them. Then we have some scenes thrown in for the love segment and at last one or two scenes, set in for the resolution. For example, Venkat doesn't change his mind and convince his dad because his passion for photography doesn’t let him be an engineer. But rather beacuse Paari does what he said, so its time to stick to his end of the deal. I mean the course doesn't bring any change to his character.

With this loose structure (maybe because of that), the movie runs for well over 3 hrs. We have seen only movies which have epic stories and plenty of action take 3 hrs- not a feel good movie like this- but still it does,because it has sucked you into its world so well that you actually don’t realize it runs that long- that was the case with me..I still can't believe how it ran for 3 hrs..

         The cast as a whole does a fine job here. Vijay is such a likable actor when he does roles that are reasonable, he is somebody who is inherently subtle and would underplay any role you give him, he just glides effortlessly as Paari..Talking of subtlety, unlike the lead, everything in this movie is so blatantly ‘un’subtle. You don’t need about 5 or 6 scenes to drive home the ideology of Paari, which we get in the first few scenes, after a while we almost feel 'oh don’t start again'..and Why is it that the people in that classroom act freakishly unanimous all the time- they laugh as a whole at barely funny times and make those scenes totally unfunny. The chemistry, which is essential, is there between the friends and that is the testament to Jeeva's and Srikanth’s neat rendering- nothing much, nothing less. Much of the scenes keep Satyaraj at a distance, as a stereotype. However the veteran shows shades of class in one of the best scenes in the movie- when he reasons why pencil can't be used in the space. Satyan excels in certain scenes, though at times he goes overboard.

       
           Illeana does what is expected of her, and yeah, thinking about her, brings to my mind, the most disgusting five minutes of the movie- I refer to that misplaced-not-at-all-belonging duet that comes in the second half. If I am right, it comes after Senthil attempts suicide, that song nearly threw away every emotion the movie had built and I felt like ‘back to square one’..Only thing I can see that song would achieve is, after some years, when an Illeana fanboy types in ‘illeana hot’ in youtube, he would find this song right up there in the first page. Wonder when our filmmakers would treat their material with some respect and seriousness, only then they can expect us to.

          I don’t agree with some critics who say there is no need for this remake  and I quote ‘the entire project was made just to make a lot of money’. Shankar says that he felt ‘elevated’ by the original ‘3 Idiots’ and he wanted the audience to experience those emotions-and he has every right to do that. After all,the movie was funny, inspiring and feel-good and who knows someone even might want to change his career to follow his passion..what more reasons can be there for a movie to come into existence?



Well,Your turn now..
Did you like the movie? Anything you think they could have done better? How about the review? good, pathetic, anything at all, pls let us know what you think.

Review: 7am Arivu

7am arivu's story didnt need this,
but this is what we get.

                                           
                                 

                         7am Arivu, much hyped and much self-proclaimed as a movie that would make all tamil people proud, not only failed to make me feel proud but also made me feel sorry for the makers. Though the movie disappoints largely, you would not want to hate it as the hard work of every actor especially Surya and every technician behind the movie is so visible; you can only feel- ‘a good attempt-nothing more.’

The movie starts with a briefing on the significance and relevance of Bodhidharma today, as most of us don’t know about him, then we travel to an era, 1600 years ago and land in Kanchipuram, the capital city of Pallavas and meet young prince Bodhidharma, who has a genius for lets say almost everything, leaving his home to China. The first 15 odd minutes were truly breathtaking with some beautiful imagery- though the documentary-style of it may not go well with some viewers. Watch out for Surya as he pulls off Bodhidharma without much of an effort- I really doubt if some other actor could have made such an impact in such a brief appearance .

            The mainstay of the story happens in the present day where you have Dong lee(Johnny Tri Nguyen), who kicks off the bio-war against India by infecting a stray dog with a deadly virus, Subha Srinivasan (Shruthi Hassan), a research student doing a research on genetic stimulation who may or may not have the solution for the problem dong has perpetuated, Aravinth(Surya), a circus artist who may or may not be the solution. The greatness of Murugadoss can be seen in how beautifully he has constructed a complex plot.

           
            But when dealing with such a plot you cannot still want to or even afford to ‘cheaply’ please the audience, a ploy he assorts to,with frequent cuts to songs which terribly mar the movie. I don’t quite understand who exactly are those audience who still want their stars to dance in exotic locations while the entire country may be in danger of a deadly disease. Because from what I saw, everyone around me was equally annoyed at those songs which come and bug you at the most incongruous times.

            Another problem I had with this movie was a montage scene with which apparently the director tries to show our ignorance of Bodhidharma,but how people from China know so much about him. I always believe that in a movie you talk to the audience only through the characters you have created or the ‘mini-world’ you have established or you can have a narrator talking from the high..and we see neither of these here- remember how cleverly Shankar makes use of a montage in Anniyan to preach us-it is clever because the montage plays inside the movie not outside the movie-like 7am arivu does here.

             As I earlier mentioned, the hard work that is so visible, is what that can save this movie; but I also think some of that could have been easily avoided, yet they just want to show us they have the time and resources to do those things but not a valid dramatic compulsion. For example Surya’s character is a circus artist, he could have easily been a student or a X and all that ‘hard work’ Surya says he had to, could have been avoided…Similar way I felt during that scene when everyone gets crazy with Lee’s 'nokku varmam' and try to take our protagonists down..and seriously do we need that extravagant opening number to introduce a circus artist- come on.. maybe these are just ploys employed to trick the audience or maybe you know, to give a ‘grandeur-big budget’ feel to the movie- because you see they think ‘largeness’ is what we want from a movie-what we expect is some genuineness; what we want from them is to stay true to the story they wanted to tell, which are just the very basics of story telling.

              The cast does a fine job here. We have talked a lot about Surya. Shruti, though at first ,her voice and accent may trouble you,you will get used to it. She seems fine but sometimes she gives blank and bland expressions. Johnny Tri Nguyen at first scares us then inevitably falls into banality because he does not get to do anything new as the movie progresses..The funny thing is that, the scene which almost unanimously got applauded was not a scene in which any one of these main players show their prowess, rather it was simple scene where a small character utters, with a mouthful, daaaaaaang lee..

             With such an ingenious idea and a huge canvass, Murugadoss could have easily drawn a masterpiece, but he chooses to draw a superficial cartoon -only has himself to blame for it.