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

PODA PODI

 

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.

                                             

THUPPAKKI

The Mushrooming of Mulitplexes and sophisticated cinema theatres in most parts of the state, and the fact that i was out of the state for a year meant i had missed a lot of action at the tamil box office over the last year or so. Diwali at home, And a Big Film, with a Big director, Big hero, Big Music Director releasing excited me, for diwali or any festival for that matter is incomplete without a movie !!!
                                                So Diwali day night show, i show up at the theatre and find massive crowd ! fighting, haggling, getting beaten by police but ready to be beaten yet want to catch up their "thalapathy" ( DISCLAIMER - IAM NO VIJAY  OR AJITH FAN , but I do like and appreciate their wonderful entertainers). Having grown up watching and worshipping Rajini , for the first time i felt "VIJAY HAS ARRIVED AND FITS RIGHT UP THERE " yesterday, or in other words, i was forced into that conclusion by the massive,massive crowd that had turned up.
                                                  Now, coming to the movie itself, It gets into "bullet" mode straight away despite having the usual masala hero introduction and a song ( very very subtle compared to pathetic introductions of vijay in movies like sivakasi, sura ). Scenes are cleverly woven and murugadoss successfully tries to give logics to them ( eg. the fight game cleverly finishes vijay s intro and gets us into that "mode" and doesnt intrigue us when he uses games with his batchmates further down the movie). Screenplay completely engrosses the audience with some "delicious masala elements" like finding the gagged bomber in vijay's room, 12 simultaneous hits in vijay's "game" and so on.. Movie races to the interval with frequent pit stops in the form of songs.
                           The second half too, goes at considerable pace , but as the plot heats up the love scenes, songs become burdensome and seriously hamper the pace of the movie. Yet murugadoss being the kind of story teller he is, sustains the interest till the very end.

HITS - Murugadoss's screenplay is the biggest plus. With the same one line of thuppakki , the screenplay of someone like perarasu would have made thuppakki into one of those vijayakanth's movies - which is why murugadoss's screenplay ( with elements like the sleeper cells ) is the movie's biggest strength , as big as the hero itself.The new villain vidyut jamwal is also refreshing and lends a good hand for the movie's cause. Thankfully no loud punch dialogues from vijay.

MISSES - Thuppakki doesnt have a proper comedy track because its supposed to be a serious movie. If thats the case then why have the romantic portions and songs ??? they only hamper the movie's speed. Jayaram ,sathyan double up as comedians and provide supporting roles which further slows down proceedings. Plus the usual logical questions of masala movies, "gilli" like climax.

                                      Usually in such cat and mouse plots between hero and villain, the recent trend has been to show the villain very powerful and hero just about retaliating before a final blow or the hero completely blows away the villain. But in thuppakki,the villain character is very powerful yet the hero always outhinks and stays ahead in the game (except in the final stages) Things like this is what separates thuppakki from other similar movies at the tamil box office.

                                        I have heard many comments like " Vijay only remakes hit films" , " Vijay is fit for remake of mahesh babu only " and so on.. For all those, Vijay shoots his answers loud through thuppaki  - Its time for the mahesh babu s and Salman khans, to line up and get ready to remake " Namma vijay's " thuppakki !!!

                                                         

THE GREAT DEBATERS

India day and essay submission over the weekend meant that we didnt get our regular dose from the movie club this week, instead we got "The great debaters" on a monday evening. I'v seen this movie a few times before but still went onto watch it today, not to show off this time but out of my sheer love for the movie.

Now, to write a review the debaters' way ,

THE TOPIC -  The rise of wiley college debate team (all negroes) from underdogs to national champions, at FDR's time in the US of A, where racism was at its heights.

THE AFFIRMATIVES - RESOLVED :  Dialogues, dialogues and dialogues - build this this movie, take this movie forward, more importantly provide the entertainment quotient to the movie. dialogues like " unjust law is no law at all", " what do we do without you ?" , followed by "win"  ( to name a few ) are extremely well timed, Even the pause that james farmer takes before starting his final dialogue in the final debate is timed so beautifully. Denzel washington, obviously the 'man on fire' , forest whitaker the 'last king of scotland' , what more can we talk of them than to applaud. Interesting trivia like "lynching", about jallianwallabagh( for non indians) , henry thoureau, d h lawrence all make the movie more interesting.  More interestingly,the real name of the guy who plays james farmer is DENZEL WHITAKER, no wonder as to why he has performed so well! his other debate team mates , nate parker and jurnee smollett have also done admirably well.
 Music is subtle and adds a lot more meaning to the film.

THE "AGAINSTS" - denzel washingtion's association with the share croppers and his revolutionary role is quite hazy till the end. Also "commerial elements " like harvard changing the topic at the last moment typically reminds us of desi movies, few guessable scenes, some guessable dialogues as well (but a very few) like "she didnt walk away from u" ... everyone in the hall knew the next line ! it was "she walked away from me "

THE VERDICT - The great debaters is a truly inspirational tale and is a must watch for all moviewaalas. It is utterly thought provoking and at the same time, entertaining ! 2 thumbs up to the wiles college debate team !