Thuppakki First look

The much awaited Tuppakki first look is here, he holds a Cuban cigar in this. A different look for vijay. With the words in the background "Mobile network jammed in mumbai," "secrets," "hospital,"  "vandalism,"  "body found,"  "beheaded,"  "following blast"  "crash"  "terrorist".... with all these its obvious that he plays a cop role based in Mumbai.

Santhosh Sivan's prestigious American Society of Cinematographers tag will come up in ads only after he gets official certificate in hands and this is the official first look. Both the news are confirmed by A.R.Murugadoss. So its official.

HQ version of first look is here Thuppakki first look, Thuppakki second first look

Post your comments below about the first look.

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Dammu - Same old story, with new stars.

Junior NTR's same old mass entertainer, directed by Boyapati Srinu, who gave the mass hit Simha. The movie ensemble a good star cast with NTR as hero, two heroines, Trisha and Karthika. Suman and Banumathi play the role of father and mother respectively. Furthermore, this film almost has a lot villains like Nasser, Sonu Sood, Sumanth and Kishore. M.M. Keeravani is the music director of the film and Cinematography by  Arthur A. Wilson. Movie is rated "A" for high action sequences so be careful if you are planning to take your children to the movie.


Story:
The story begins with dispute between Suman's family and Nasser family to extend their sovereignty in the village. They have this special practice during Sankranti, where no police will interfere between their fights. During the battle, Suman will lose and will pledge that his new-born son; NTR will come back after 25 years to fight them all. Now NTR will grow all alone in Hyderabad; he will fall in love at first sight with Trisha, while Karthika will try to woo NTR in the palace. Nasser will who will rule the village for 25 years will test the calmness of NTR by numerous killings. Finally, how NTR tries to explain about the importance of human life to Nasser; what's his counter reaction? How he ascends to the power and how he rejoins the family is the rest.


What works?
Junior NTR had a tremendous screen presence; he tickles our comic bones at the right time; he makes us feel in the sentimental scenes, also he demolishes the baddie with huge power, and as usual; he has rocked with his dance movements. All through the film he was portrayed as a powerful superhero, and he carried the film in his shoulders. Karthika looks dashing; Trisha looks old, and they along with Ali and Brahmanandham provides some decent comic relief at times. Songs have been shot well with excellent dance movements except for the ruler song. Venu and Abhinaya's portrayal as supporting characters was good.


Negatives:
It is the same old formulaic story mixed with romance, action, sentiment scenes. Fights are unrealistic. He can throw more than five people with a single hand. What's more frustrating is that, whenever he hits someone to the ground, they bounce back like a ball and fall again, was it meant to show the power? However, that was very unrealistic at times it gets funny too. A father who is living in a closed room for more than twenty long years was unbelievable. Story is very predictable and Boyapati tried to convey the message of how important is a human life, but has taken a movie with full of bloodshed. 


What to do? 
Give it a miss, you have watched it a zillion times in the past.


Rating: 2/5

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Billa 2 - Songs Review

Ajith's Billa 2, the sequel to the successful Billa(2006) is now ready for release. Yuvan Shankar Raja has scored the music again and the audio been released with huge buzz around it; thanks for the teaser record youtube hits and to some vast campaigning by SONY MUSIC. Yuvan has not been on top of his game with flops albums like Rajapattai. It's been a long time since he gave some scintillating numbers. Adding to the misery is Harris Jeyaraj, and G.V. Prakash has emerged with some good numbers, so Billa2 is surely a big ticket for Yuvan to get him to the top position and show his capability, let's see what he has done with it.

Billa 2 - Track list:

Track 1 : Gang Gang Gangster

Singers: Yuvan Shankar Raja, Stefany

Track 2 : Idhayam

Singers : Shwetha Pandit

Track 3 : Yedho Mayakkam (Club Mix)

Singers : Yuvan Shankar Raja, Suvi Suresh, Tanvi Shah

Track 4 : Madurai Ponnu

Singers : Andrea Jeremiah

Track 5 : Unakkulley Mirugam

Singers : Ranjith

Track 6 : Billa 2 Theme

Yuvan Shankar Raja – Instrumental

Lyrics : Na.Muthukumar

Track 1 : Gang Gang Gangster
This song, might be the introduction for Billa. It was in all praise for Billa, hopefully will have some stunning visuals in some beautiful locales. There are a lot of repeat portions in the song, mostly the club music.  Billa theme in the middle and stefany's final part makes it a good number.

Track 2 : Idhayam
This is surely the pick of the album; Shwetha Pandit has rocked it. It's a solo song a slow melody with some classical tunes in between and was paused at right moments. This is the only song where we can feel Yuvan in the whole album. This is surely a pleasant treat to all Yuvan fans.  One of the heroines seems to be in very deep love with Ajith. Watch out for this song; it will top the charts for few weeks.  I have been hearing it in repeat mode. 

Track 3 : Yedho Mayakkam (Club Mix)
This song has the best start up, unlike any other song in the Billa2 album. Starting music was peppy and the female voice just soothes us and makes us feel good. However, when Yuvan comes into the picture, it turns down. For a change, Yuvan has sung it in low pace, and he remains in the same pace all through the song. It could have become a great song; Yuvan was bang on, but missed it all by himself with repetitive tunes and low pace.

Track 4 : Madurai Ponnu
It starts off with a classical tone; Andrea has done it in her own style. Yuvan has given a lot of variations in this song. Its a kind of folk song with some breaks followed by techno. This song can be termed as one of the better songs in the album maybe next to Idhayam and Billa theme music.

Track 5 : Unakkulley Mirugam

This song, will come in the most important portion of the film according to the lyrics this could be the song where common man, turns Billa 2. It might have some stunt sequences or sequences where he trains to become Billa. Its contains some hard Rock portions, with some heavy music. Ajith's screen presence only can turn this song into a hit otherwise this song is a pure let down.
Track 6 : Billa 2 Theme

Billa(2006) theme music was fantastic; it created a lot of vibes and made us all woo for it, but here it starts off with "azeem o shaan" music, subsequently later move on to "The Dark Knight" theme for a small portion after that comes to the Original Billa soundtrack. It's just a variant to the old theme music, but this is the best of  the album. It still creates the same goose bumps which was created in the first edition of Billa.
To sum it up, Yuvan hasn't redeemed himself. This album lies between average and above-average type. Idhayam is sure to soothe your ears, while Gangster and Theme music will make you feel Billa. Other songs are kind of okay type. Many tunes have been repeated time and time again in the song. Hope Yuvan will rise in the future and recreates his magic, but he failed to create the magic with his music in Billa 2.

Rating: 2.75/5

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Oru Kal Oru Kannadi(OKOK): Santhanam as Hero, Villain and comedian.

     
          Oru Kal Oru Kannadi, third instalment of Director M.Rajesh and Santhanam duo after their successful SMS &Boss Engira Baskharan(BEB). It is yet again a comedy entertainer with no substance. Right from the initial promotions, Udhayanidhi has clearly set the expectations that Santhanam’s role will have equal importance in the movie. The immense popularity of “venam Machan” and tall expectations from Rajesh- Satnthanam combo have ensured tremendous opening. With no other big release planned for the next few weeks; Udhayanidhi has found himself as a winner in this.

Cast:

Udhay as “saravanan” and santhanam as “partha” play the role of ticket collector and food dispenser at Sathyam Cinemas. Hanshika plays the role of an air hostess as “Meera” at Kingfisher Airlines. Saranya Ponvannan aptly fits into the role of hero’s mother. Azhagam Perumal plays the father of Udhayanidhi. It is odd that he never spoke a word for more than twenty years with his wife, Saranya,  just because her family cheated him during their marriage claiming that, she holds a bachelor's degree. Aarya; Sneha and Andrea have done guest appearances along expected lines.

Story:

Story is very simple, Just like any other hilarious movie of Rajesh. It is all about how Udhayanidhi woos hanshika; the problems that he faces during the course of it. Udhay will fall in love at first sight in a traffic signal. Eventually, he follows her, leading to a warning from Hanshika and her father Sayaji Shinde, who works as  Deputy Commissioner of Police, Chennai. As always it is Santhanam’s witty one liners which makes the film a happy ride. When udhay settles his problems, Santhanam comes in and spoils the relationship. He does this spoiler act thrice knowingly and unknowingly at different times. Finally, what happens to Udhay is the climax

Positives:

The Unique selling point for the movie is Santhanam; Udhay has sensed it skilfully and he has a keen awareness of what he is capable in his debut movie. Udhay has done well in his debut, the way in which he converses in English with Santhanam was hilarious. Timing sense of Santhanam was impeccable, this time it's not just the dialogues, he woos us with some comic body languages too. Santhanam is really at his peak of his career. Cinematography by Balasubramaniem  was superb; he has excelled in the song sequences.

Negatives:

When you consider negatives, there are myriads of logic loopholes to name a few, one between Udhay’s dad who haven’t spoken to his wife for twenty years will precisely speak on a day, when she went out for few hours without informing anyone, it doesn’t gel at all with the characterisation.  Talents wasted in the form of Azhagam Perumal. Sluggish dance movements by Udhay and Hanshika tests our limits of tolerance.  Harris’s tracks are not so fresh and the tunes sounds repetitive.

Final word:

Santhanam is the Hero,  Villain and The comedian, it is his comic relief which makes us forget logical loopholes and shallow storyline in the film. he just comes in, makes us laugh out loud(LOL) all through the movie. Director Rajesh has made it clear that you should not expect a serious or message oriented story from him; One cannot help but appreciate Rajesh’s guts for remaking the same wafer thin story line from BEB & SMS. It's a movie made for pure entertainment, and it DOES entertain you all the way, on that basis alone it’s a good movie.

P.S: Maybe you shouldn't be surprised if Rajesh casts santhanam alone playing a Triple role, without any other artists in his next venture.

Rating: 3/5

My official review links:
Network18 - in.com : http://www.in.com/news/entertainment/oru-kal-oru-kannadi-is-mindless-fun-22804713-in-1.html
Moviecrow: http://www.moviecrow.com/News/846/oru-kal-oru-kannadiokok-review

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Masters- Malayalam - Review

Image credits; channel7movies.com

Masters is a murder mystery and the story revolves around five people who swap identities to cover their tracks. They also use their covers (of mistaken identities) to take revenge on the villains. The two big stars Prithvi and Sasikumar obviously are the main attractions in the film and they have lived up to their expectations. There's one good thing about the narrative – the two biggest stars are not introduced in the film at one go but they appear on the screen (along with the other main characters) as the story unfolds gradually.

What's it about?

The first half is very slow and the plot mainly deals with introduction of the characters. The first half clearly tries to set the base for an action-packed second half. In the first half, three people get killed and the audience is not sure whether it is a murder or a suicide. The people who are murdered seem to have no connection with each other. Enter Prithvi, who again plays a cop after his critically acclaimed 'Indian Rupee' where he dons the khaki too. It becomes clear that he will unravel the reason for each murder (suicide?) and the identities as well as the relationships between the dead and the living. The film gets into some pace from here. The length of Prithvi's role has much less scope for great performance when compared to his earlier flick, but he has managed to do a good job of this. This film is Sasikumar's debut in the Malayalam industry and he has done justice to his character too. The only minus point may be his shoddy dubbing which surely could have been better. Talking about the two heroines Pia and Ananya – they just reprise a very short but pivotal role, exactly what is expected out of them in the script. Salim Kumar walks away with the prize of the best actor in the film. Actually, his character is the only saving grace in the otherwise slow paced first half.


The second half starts off on a quicker pace. Prithvi quickly proceeds with his investigation and finds out how the murders were engineered. The film also has Biju Menon and Sandhya in a cameo but both of them come at a very crucial moment in the story and carry the murder mystery forward.


The climax scene is the best part of the film. In the last 20 minutes of the film, you will get a feeling that you are watching a true action-thriller as there are some genuine edge-of-the-seat moments. The main cast has done a very good job of the climax.


To sum up, the ends has positives like Prithvi and Sasi's acting, no commercial surrogate advertising and a good story. On the downside, there is basically no strong bonding between the five main characters as the film progresses. In the end, we find out that all the murdered were school mates. We also feel that there could have been a stronger reason to lose their life than what is shown in the script. Director could’ve changed the guiding leitmotif of thee film which goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."


Film has an omnipresent voiceover carrying forward the story and it sometimes slows down the pace of the film. The film lacks heart - except for Salim, we neither get pleased by someone nor annoyed with the villains. The audience doesn't get involved too. Furthermore, every time Prithivi interrogates someone, he just has to hold their collar and they start spilling the beans. These high-voltage interrogation scenes start looking unrealistic when the same thing is played out again and again.


John Antony has done a fair job of directing the movie. The story, screenplay and the dialogues have been written by Jinu Abraham. Jinu is a young talent and somebody to watch out for. He has cooked up the story-line in such a way that the suspense is maintained until the end of the movie. He surely deserves credit for that. Gopi Sundar's music could've been better and it is irritating when one hears the same background score getting repeated all the time. Couldn’t there be another tune too? Madhu Neelakandan's camera work is good and Kevin Thomas editing could have been sleeker – he doesn't seem to be editing a thriller in the first half though one must admit that he has done a good job of the climax.


What to do?
'Masters' is a pure family entertainer with some good performances from Prithvi, Sasi, Salim and a few other character actors. The film has a good story but fails to involve the audience. You may definitely watch it once but it certainly doesn't have any repeat value. Prepare yourself for a painfully slow first half.


Rating: 3/5

Link to to my official review @ in.com:
http://www.in.com/news/entertainment/masters-is-worth-a-one-time-watch-22660007-in-1.html

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Kadhalil Sodhapuvadhu Eppadi(Tamil) & Love failure(Telugu) – Review

     Here is the first breed from short film maker's era and the winner of reality show “Nalaya Iyakkunar”( Future Director- Tamil reality show in Kalaingyar TV). He has not just come in with a brand-new way; he has also come up with a fresh way of story telling by narrating the story through talking with the viewers all through the film; he took the most repeated genre in world cinema and has given a refreshed and new look to it. The team has furthermore had a new marketing strategy with sweet talkie paper advertisements. The film is a hit from day one because, the film was shot in a record 35 days and with a production value of five crore rupee.  New producer's duo Sidharth and Nirav Shah can multiply their vault size with this sleeper hit movie.

     Now let's get into the film, it starts off with a simple example of how a fight begins and the protagonist narrates his love story with a flashback sequence. The film is just not all about that, there are totally four different story. One is break up and patch-up of sidharth and amala Paul; one is about siddu’s friend and his frightened approach towards his love. The other is in the amala Paul's parents misunderstandings, which lead to file a divorce; amala's father Suresh goes to siddu’s father for divorce paper works, siddu’s father Ravi ragavender, who is a law practitioner by profession. Ravi is a lovable father at home who leaves no stone unturned in bringing up his boy siddu along with her wife, and this couple lives a happy married life. Furthermore, this film also shows the penetration of social-networking sites in our life with siddu’s father creating a FB account and browsing through siddu and amala’s photos and commenting about it were cute and fresh sequence.      The film makes you think that in the later part, Ravi will play a prominent role like patching up the young and the old pair but instead the film moves and teaches the viewers what exactly is “Made for each other." The film takes a turn when amala’s mother surekha vani arranges a sadabishegam- 80th marriage anniversary for her parents, which makes the characters and audience to think as how they made up to 80 years of marriage life. From here the film deserves a standing ovation, one for the self-realization of within all the characters and the way each character approaches the other was simply fantastic. Suresh's performance in love letter sequence and in the scene where he explains about “made for each other” was outstanding. Take a bow director Balaji for showing that words are more important than action in a relationship, by keeping the scene where he shows his LIC appointment order after patching up in the relationship was a great and a brilliant move. 

     The small part of SS music VJ’s Pooja and shyam with her Ex-boyfriend were more realistic, and many people, in reality, do that very often. Sidharth’s friends vignesh and Arjun are a livewire they provide the much needed comic relief. After all these good performances from various characters siddharth played his role to perfection, as an ever young college guy with millions of questions about his love and just lived as Arun all through the film. Amala Paul has to be given a special appreciation for picking up a role which is more performance oriented than a skin show performance. She was neat and decent all the way, there are no commercial elements like a fast beet kuthu song, exotic foreign locale or high-octane stunts. It's just a normal love story. It’s a perfect cocktail for this valentine's weekend. People who expect a romantic movie then this is not your film; this is a love story for all the age group; in fact, a learning curve for all film goers.      Debutant director Balaji has struck gold in his first attempt of transforming his short film to a feature film. He had confidence in his script, which was visible right from the beginning of the movie and avoiding the usual commercial elements is a welcome change to both Tamil & Telugu industry. As a whole complex story telling made simpler with flawless editing. It’s a complete family outing for a sweet and warm valentine weekend.

Rating 3.5/5

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