Frankly, I wanted to watch poda podi first for diwali, even before thuppakki but eventually it turned out to be the other way round. There was around 70- 80 % occupancy in the theatre but it was quite noisy. Its always tough to release a film , despite knowing the fact that there is another huge film releasing and in all probably your film will only be second best to the big film. But despite hiccups like getting lesser theatres, lesser share in marketing etc ,Credit has to be given to the poda podi team ( with a new director, new heroine , relatively new music director ) for making the release without backing out in favor of the other heavy weight film.
The one-liner, " journey of a couple - their love, marriage, life" is brought about by the director in various episodes with catchy names. As typical Rom-Com , Poda Podi starts briskly with the introductions and then ,the hero and heroine falling for each other but soon the story and screenplay keep meandering away or remain stagnant as far as the plot is concerned. But when we start thinking such way , STR , VTV ganesh and some peppy music pulls us back into the movie and sustain our interest in the movie. The second half is much better than the first half in the sense that atleast the story keeps moving forward.
PERFORMANCES - STR fits into the character of arjun to the T, as a cool, modern day urban yet possessive youth. He gives an energetic performance which actually tries to lifts the whole movie up ( Again thankfully no bulid ups, no punch dialogues, no beating up 100 goons), there is only one fight which is pretty relevant to the plot. STR emotes brilliantly ( with his trademark sarcasm), be it comedy ( Chithapa nee adicha jokekukku naan naalaikku sirikkiren ) , or romance. The heroine Varalakshmi is relevant for a dance based story like this as she was hyped as a good dancer and she justifies her credentials, but there are other skills that require improvement ,especially dubbing. VTV ganesh's timing comedy works in most parts.
HITS - Dharan's music with some refreshing and peppy numbers , dance by the lead pair , STR - ganesh timing comedies, Vivid portrayal of London are the high points of the movie. Climax, though ' Rab ne Bana de jodi - ISH " , is new to tamil cinema and rightfully gets good response from the audience.
MISSES - Are a plenty in this movie. The basic script and the screenplay look flawed and incomplete.Editing too is not what you would expect in a mainstream movie. Also, there are only 4 main characters in the story which itself gives a dull feel. Plus there are scenes which are bad copies of bollywood rom-coms like salaam namaste and hum tum. Some dialogues , though getting claps and whistles from the front benchers, are extremely male centric and could have been avoided.
Poda podi is thus an average rom- com taken forward by the youthful songs, dances ,colorful numbers and some decent comedy but pegged back by the lack of substance in the script.
No comments:
Post a Comment