Neethaane En Ponvasantham

                 Gautam Vasudev Menon, the contemporary king of romance in Tamil cinema is back with his latest flick, Neethaane enn ponvasantham starring Jeeva and Samantha in the lead. Now, what does a typical Gautam Vasudev Menon film Have ? 
 An English speaking middle class household Yes NEP has that !
 Hero who is an engineering student Yes NEP has that!
 Hero taking a shoulder bag and going in search of the heroine , Yes NEP has that !
 Hero is a wastrel in the beginning but during the course of the movie he becomes very serious in his profession and leaves behind his love, Yes NEP has that too!
Lots of Ego clashes between hero and heroine, Yes NEP has that as well !
Hero and heroine roaming around most restaurants, Coffee shops around chennai, especially ECR, Yes NEP has that also !!!

For Starters, NEP looks like a proper cocktail of  previous movies of Gautam Vasudev Menon like Vaaranam Aayiram, Minnale, VTV...

THE PLOT....  ( SPOILER WARNING )
A boy and a girl keep meeting each other in life right from childhood, deeply love each other but Ego, Responsibilities, situations keep coming in between them where they keep breaking away from each other until they finally get married and happily "fought" ever after.

PERFORMANCES...
Nothing new about the script,but the usual Gautam Vasudev Menon's "touch" and classy screenplay are missing badly in the movie, Dialogues which are strong points of the Director's movies are also very ordinary in NEP except for a few enjoyable one's like those where Jeeva talks to Samantha referring her as a third person friend that he has. 

                                        Both the lead pair, Jeeva and samantha have delivered good performances and santhanam ( Starting an intro song for him in the movie) lends the much needed support to the weak script,but still gives a feeling that the director could have used him more.The camera and the visuals are cool as with all of the director's movies, with the most noteworthy mention being the "Dining room" angle that is used in most of the scenes that take place in jeeva's house.Editing could have been better as too many scenes are clearly impeding the speed of the movie.The strongest point of the movie easily is the music by Ilayaraja where all songs are chartbusters and clear winners.

                                          Having Made a Cult film like VTV, Gautam Menon should not have followed it with a film in the same genre like he has done with NEP, thus making NEP a pretty badly timed bouquet of Gautam menon's previous romantic flicks. If you want to watch a slow paced , feel good love story with good music, watch NEP. If you are not too keen on such flicks, better stay away ! 
My rating 3/5

TALAASH

A Bollywood Star's death, A Couple mentally troubled and traumatized by their son's death, a prostitute form the crux of reema kagti's plot. Set in the present day Mumbai ,  Talaash is a dark tale of Grief, Guilt and Love completely without  most of the modern day mumbai masala of bollywood.Talaash also sees Reema Kagti return to direction after 5 years since her maiden successful directoral venture honeymoon travels.
           
                                                   The Script of talaash ( also helped out by zoya akhtar) has an inbulit tinge of darkness to it which helps the director build more synergetic darkness in form of the lights, settings and the dialogues. Despite the natural dark look and some pulsatile screenplay, the viewer cannot stop noticing the strong resemblences of talaash to movies like the sixth sense , the ring , insomnia to name a few. Also Zoya's screenplay points are very evident of her own karthik calling karthik at a few places.
         

                                                  The Strongest aspect of Talaash, apart from its inherent dark feel is the performance of the two leading ladies, Rani and Kareena. Rani's naturally gloomy eyes and kareena's natural flair and attractiveness lends a lot more credibility to their respective characters, wonderful selections for their roles, one must admit.Needless to say, aamir lives the role of suri , a grieved insomniac cop wandering along the streets of mumbai at night. But is the character of suri too small for someone like aamir, just returning from a cult movie ?

                                               The music , especially the background despite being criticized ( for being ripped off from shutter island) helps fastening the pace of the movie.Reema's bold attempt at shrugging of regular masala items is a welcomable sign and lends that much more maturity to the script despite being slow at times. Overall ,Strong performances and some steady story telling till the end with a tinge of darkness makes talaash a decent thriller of the recent times.  My rating 3.5/5