Raatinam – A realistic rural love story.

Once again, a realistic love story from a set of fresh talents. Director K.S. Thngasamy debuts as a director and an actor, he plays the role of hero’s brother. Furthermore, the lead pair, Lagubaran as Jeyam and Swathi as Dhanam, debuts as well. Manu Ramesan has scored the music and cinematography by Raju Sundar.The film even before its release has been selected for German International Film Festival, so lets first congratulate the whole team for this achievement.


Story:
A love story between Dhanam, a school girl and Jeyam, a happy-go-lucky guy, who accompanies his brother in family construction business. If  Jeyam’s family has a political background, on the flip side, Dhanam’s family had powerful government employees like Port trust chairman  and Public prosecutor her dad and uncle respectively. They both fall in love, and they plan for an outing to Thiruchendur and guess what? They get caught by the police. Things get bitter after that, two families try to stop the outrage, but it grows bigger, and they go for third man settlement, where  politics and ego plays the spoilsport. How Jeyam and Dhanam manage to solve the problems and what happens to them is the rest of the story.

What works?
Casting was perfect, the biggest plus is neither the boy had manly looks, nor the girl had angelic attraction. They look like one of us, which helps us to resonate with the film easily. Though there are many new faces, the director had made sure that everyone has given a decent performance to name a few, Jeyam’s friends, Director  K.S. Thangasamy himself as brother and Dhanam’s uncle. Picturisation of songs is good, "Asathum alagu" is the pick of the album. The unexpected twists and turns make the film an interesting fare and set it apart from the clichéd films.


What not?
Story has nothing new. It is the same love story.  Even good picturisation couldn’t enhance few songs; they come as speed breakers,  except for “Asathum alagu." Few amateurish acting in the first half, but since it's, a debut movie for many it is negligible.


Final word: A good one-time watch with a riveting climax, you can give it a try.


Rating: 3/5

Official Review Links:


Moviecrow.com :  http://www.moviecrow.com/News/942/raattinam-review
in.com : http://www.in.com/news/entertainment/rattinam-is-a-realistic-rural-love-story-50000020-in-1.html

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Gabbar Singh - Paisa Vasool

Image credits: 123andhra.com

Pawan Kalyan is back with a bang in "Gabbar Singh," a remake of Salman Khan's super hit film Dabangg and directed by Harish Shankar. Despite massive expectations, there were also a number of negative vibes surrounding the movie from the beginning. Whenever Pawan Kalyan takes up a police story, it has been a flop. Shruthi Hassan enacting the lady love of Gabbar Singh is yet to register a hit in Telugu and also considered unlucky. Dabangg's Tamil remake Osthi was a disaster. Against all these odds, Pawan Kalyan has delivered the much-needed mass film, which his fans have been longing for more than a decade.

What’s the story?
Nagineedu plays the role of Pawan Kalyan's father and he doesn’t like his first born at all because he is his step son. This leads to a dispute between Pawan and his father and as a result Pawan will leave his family and after some years he will return as a cop. Suhasini plays the role of Pawan's mother. Arbaaz Khan plays the role of the villain. Pawan will stop Arbazz's bank robbery and other illegal activities and Arbaaz will train his guns on him. Shruthi plays a role of a fancy store shop keeper along with Gayathri (Appu of 'Happy days' fame). Pawan as usual will fall for Shruthi. How he marries Shruthi and he how tackles Arbazz Khan is what the film deals with next. It's not a scene by scene remake; instead, many subplots from Dabangg have been removed and converted into a straight-forward hero-villain clash.

What works?
Pawan Kalyan has given a powerful one-man show. His characterization, mannerisms, dance movements and especially the dialogues were tailor-made to please his fans. Pawan and Suhasini's bond was portrayed well. The editing by Gowtham Raju was good. Pawan’s performance masks out almost all the negatives in the film.

What doesn’t work?
Screenplay and story in the second half is slow. The director could've concentrated a bit more in this area. Second half is less energetic, when compared to the first half. Since Pawan Kalyan's role was portrayed powerfully, Arbazz seems to be powerless and climax looks like it is completed in a hurry. The cinematography by Jayanan Vincent had a lot of mistakes -- many shots were out of focus, especially in the introduction scenes. The continuity is lost in many places.

Final word: It’s a treat for Pawan Kalyan fans after a long time and for others it’s a one-time Paisa Vasool Movie. 

Rating : 3/5

Official Review Links:in.com :  http://www.in.com/news/entertainment/gabbar-singh-is-paisa-vasool-23030998-in-1.html

Moviecrow.com : http://www.moviecrow.com/News/926/gabbar-singh-telugu-movie-review

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Vazhkku enn 18/9- A Gutsy Classical movie - Highly recommended

Balaji Shakthivel the man who made "Kadhal," which is one of the reasons for the transition in Kollywood, is back with a bang. Vazhakku enn 18/9 is produced by UTV and Lingusamy's Tirupathi brothers. All the lead characters are debutantes, famous Guitarist Prasanna debuts as music Director. It's a film which is low only in budget; every other aspect of the movie is very high.

Cast:
Two male lead's Sri as Velu and Mithun as Dinesh, female leads are Urmila Mahanta as Jothi and Manisha Yadav as Aarthi. A pivotal role was played by Muthuraman(Kumaravel). He plays a role of a cop. Chinnasamy play's the role of Velu's friend.

Story:
Velu is a guy from a poor village family,  due to the debts he indulges for a work in north India, where the owner's cruelty extends to the peak, who doesn't reveal the information about velu's parent's death, for the sake of business. Tragic hits Velu after two months, afterwards he returns to Chennai. Subsequently, velu will work for a road side eatery, famously called as "Kaiyendhi Bhavan" in Tamil Nadu. Velu will fall in love with Jothi but failed to express his love to her. Jothi works as a servant maid along with her mother, who is a widow. Jothi works for Aarthi's apartment. Aarthi is a common school goer from a middle-class family. Dinesh the creepy guy lives upstairs in the same apartment. He is a rich spoil brat, son of a principal who once had a bad background with a minister. Dinesh follows Aarthi and acts decent to make her fall in his trap, he and his friends takes some secret videos with women and share within them, and Aarthi is the latest victim for Dinesh. Finally, how Aarthi finds it, how is Velu and Jothi linked with these and what really happened to Jothi is the story.

Film starts off with an investigation by Kumaravel on Jothi's case, who was being admitted in an intensive fire burn care unit at a hospital. Jothi's mom doubts on Velu and as the police investigates, Velu reveals his own background and his one side love on Jothi, with that first-half ends. Aarthi comes in voluntarily to police to inform about Dinesh and his obscene character. Finally, Dinesh will be called and what happens next is the rest with a gritty climax.

What works:
Everything has worked for the film. Casting was perfect all the five main characters were realistic. Kumaravel's characterization was distinct and fluctuating between good and bad, which was awesome. The biggest plus for the film is it throughout stays realistic and unpredictable. Prasanna had just two songs, but he has done it in a new way, without background music heavily backed by lyric from Na.Muthukumar. Costumes; slang  and location were tuned to perfection. Story had a lot of twists and leaves you awestruck when the movie ends. In addition, the film is crispier, which is exactly  115 minutes, which is a huge plus.  A spellbinding work by Balaji Shakthivel, he has not just touched a lot of stories; he has stabbed our heart without any clue. He needs a standing ovation for taking Tamil cinema to a different level.  

What doesn't?
This field should be blank, because the story will fill all the gaps left, but here it is to name a few. Velu's father dubbing was non-sink in some areas, nothing else.

Final word: A Gutsy Classical movie with spellbinding performance -Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5

My review in Moviecrow.com, click the link to read it.

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Grand Master - A treat to Mohanlal Fans

Mohanlal is back after his average show in Casanova. B.Unnikrishnan directed Grandmaster has Mohanlal playing the role of Chandrashekaran - Head of Metro Crime Stopper Cell(MCSC)- Cochin. He is a middle-aged man, with a salt and pepper look living alone with a broken marriage with Priyamani, who plays the role of  Deepthi- A criminal lawyer. They also have a kid.

Mohanlal after parting ways with Priyamani was not on top of his game, so he was removed from Police force and moved to MCSC. He will be playing chess all the time; he also has a chess board in his office desk. He gets a bit of action when he solves the mystery of three girls and redeems them all alone; who were being abducted by Riaz Khan After which he gets back to pace and to feed him, he gets a letter from a serial killer, who tries to play a game, also provides exact dates and location for the murder and named himself as "z." The killer starts his spree with "A"- Alice, then moves to "B"- Beena. Mohanlal who was unable to find the link between these two will make some cautious moves. First half ends with the questions of who is the person with the starting letter "C" and "D."

Film acquires some pace and had some twists after the interval. Second half fully deals with how Mohanlal  identifies the victims, how he solves the problems in his marriage and who really is the serial killer. The climax will have a surprise, but it is slightly predictable. Narain and Jagathy Sreekumar play the role of assistants to Mohanlal.

What works:
Mohanlal is the biggest plus to the film, his role as a subtle cop was great. Director Uniikrishnan has some twists and turns and keeps you engrossed by making us doubtful on many characters. Second half was racy and dialogues from Mohanlal are sure to please his fans.

Negatives:
Being claimed as a crime thriller, first half was very slow with a lot of dialogues and even Mohanlal's assistants tease those in the movie. Which should have been reduced. Narain was wasted in the movie. Story doesn't take you to the edge of the seat, even with so many twists it attracts you in parts.

Final word; You can watch it once for Mohanlal.

Rating: 3/5

Official review @ in.com

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Leelai- A neat Urban ROM-COM

Leelai is a Tamil urban RomCom, directed by Andrew Louis and produced by Ramesh Babu, two North Indian actors Shiv Pandit and Manasi Parekh's debut in lead roles. Santhanm the USP for all the small films is here, and he is accompanied by Suhasini Raju in some pivotal role.

Story:

The story starts off with something similar to title. Hero shiv will go on a date spree with two girls and what's new here are both are roommates along with the heroin Mansi at the SRM Engineering College women hostel. Important factor is both the time Mansi will advise her friends not to fall for him, but eventually they will fall one by one in a gap of six months. That's the setup and you guessed it right, film is all about how Shiv and Mansi unite. They have never met each other. They will just have two heated conversation through the phone because of karthi's ditching spree towards her roommates.

What works?

Shiv as karthick and Mansi as Karunai Malar has fitted into the role very aptly, they keep us engaged, and they do add some humor quotient to the film. Santhanam who is back after his super outing in OKOK has done his usual role of a friend to the lead pair. He does make us laugh time and time again. Songs are not classy but have a decent look; they don't make you annoy. Jillendru oru kalavaram was sweet.  Dialogue for this film is  a huge plus.

*The biggest plus which I feel is director haven't added an item song or a glamour scene, he has trusted himself; his script; his characters and not on a commercial formula. He surely deserves a pat on the back for this move.

What not?

The story was only between hero and heroine in the office, or during the met they have on Sunday's and nothing else. However, director has kept us engaged with that small space, but he has fall short while making cuts in the climax. It was long; it could have been crispier.

Final Word: Leelai has the potential to become the sleeper hit. It's a neat movie so do watch it once.

Rating: 3.25/5

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