Kandasaamy : The Kappi Crusader

Kandasaamy is an epic of the 21st century, comparable to the Mahabharatha. If the latter tells you how not to live life, the former tells you how not to make a movie. Thanfully, Susi Ganesan did not use Pillaiyar to write the script. Pillaiyar kovathula thandhatha pudungi kanna kuththi vitturupaar!

Even if the unit spent the two years of production playing dikkilona and jalabalajals, they could have come out with a nice bit movie which could have released in Parangimalai Jothi and done good business. But Kalaipuli Thanu pumped in so much money that Susi started to write a serious movie. That's when it went wrong.

Spoiler Alert : If you have already seen Sivaji, Anniyan, Gentleman and Batman Begins, there is nothing I can spoil for you. If you haven't, I still cannot spoil it as much as Susi. So summa koocha padaama padinga.

Kokkarako Gummango... [Cock-talk for Read Review]

Kandasaamy has a very innovative concept of pudungifying black money from the rich and distributing it to the needy. India-laye, yaen indha world-laye indha concept-a yoschathu rendey paer dhaan - onnu GD Naidu, innonnu namma Susi Ganesan. Bodhi marathadi-la okkandha gnanam varum, but bethi-kaaga marathadi-la okkandha indha maadhri kadhai dhaan varum. A stale story can still be interesting with some slick screenplay. It could have been a fast paced 150 minute entertainer at best. But at 200 minutes, one wonders if Susi's payment was based on the length of film reel used. Like oru mozham paththu roobai or something. I am sure Thanu would have got better returns if he had bought Malli Poo! ;-)

People write their wishes on a piece of paper and tie it to a temple tree. Their wishes get fulfilled, supposedly by God himself. Anga dhaan director oru twist-a vechaar. It is actually the Kappi Crusader Kandasaamy who fulfills their wishes! There is also a CBI Aapesar Kandasaamy who raids big shots who have black money. Police Aapeesar [Prabhu] smells something fishy. There are a few villains who are after the CBI aapesar. There is one figure who is daughter of a villain and sets out for revenge, but unexpectedly falls in love. Please connect the dots and make your own ettu pulli kolam.

Vikram has tried out his luck with fancy dress after Kamal in Dasa. Grapevine has it that whenever Susi's kid would cry and not eat food, Susi would instruct the make-up man to do something new to Vikram. To kanakku kaamchufy for make-up money spent, they shot that look and put it in the movie. You would have expected better role selection from Vikram. But I don't blame him entirely. He must have fallen asleep mid-way while Susi narrated the story.

Tamil Cinema's first superhero will be remembered for long. The costume has been localized to suit the Tamil kalaacharam. Jetty goes back inside the pant fearing objection from Ramadas. The intro is one of a kind. Vikram comes flying around with the superhero jamakaalam tied behind his back. His hair looks like somebody has poured kaara kuzhambu on it. But closer inspection reveals that they are all cock (seval) feathers. While intimidating the bad guy he also does some cock-like (seval) mannerisms, along with a kokkarakko. There is a rap song for which I have not figured out the lyrics, but his hand gestures kinda sync with the very famous "Oh pillar, caterpillar" song which would be a sure hit with the girls. After 15 mins of flying around, cocking and singing, the audience wait with bated breath, for the interval.

It is said that good things come in small packages. But this one came in small dresses. Shriya. Her haircut helped show more of her back, and ofcourse there never was too much hair on the front anyways! There was only one scene where she was fully covered, but even that she tears during the scene. Brilliant characterization. Director touch pannitaar. It is well known that for her acting prowess, she needs multiple takes to show (emotions) well. Every time the director said "Cut", the costume person seems to have misunderstood and cut a portion of her dress. But yeah, we are glad about the misunderstanding.

The romance track is a comedy piece. During a raid at Aashish Vidyarthi's house, Vikram picks up a call. It is the villain's daughter Shriya who gives Vikram a website to visit if he wants to see her dance on webcast! Ippadi patta raid ellam irukkum therinja naan kooda CBI join panniruppaen, sigh. Before seeing the dance, Vikram dutifully finishes the raid which leaves Aashish Vidyarthi with a twisted face (more than the usual level). Shriya decides to make Vikram fall in love with her to take revenge! Adada, idhallavo revenge! They do not love each other for most part of the film. But they will go to each foreign location, drink coffee, sing song, dance and come back. Dei director, ivanga enna Karagaata troup-a oor oor-a poi aaditu, kaapi-thanni kudichuttu vara...appadinu logical-a questions varum. But Shriya's costumes, or the lack of it, rob the audience of the dhum opporunity.

Susi has been very particular about logic. He explains in excruciating detail how superhero stunts are performed with the help of ropes, choreographed by his friends. The friends bring a tape-recorder for BGM and even stuff for smoke effects. But when they showed a cock (seval) in their hideout which Kandasamy looks at to learn the mannerisms...shabba...sekaru sethutaan. Shakunthala Devi puzzles-la kooda ivalo logic thevai padaathu. They've tried out something like Batman, but ended up with a Pokiriman.

There are three villains. Aashish Vidyarthi plays PPP, and does justice to the character name by keeping his face constipated. Then there is a don called Mexican Pichumani [played by magician Alex!] who put Marlon Brando to shame with his amazing dialogue delivery - "Sekoority illama engayum pova koodathu", "Indha panatha bang-la podalam. Andha bang manager en friend dhaan" to quote a few. Mexican accent I guess. The third guy, Rajmohan, does a pole dance during the climax in mundaabaniyan and pattapatti undraayar. Among others, there is one head of CBI who speaks Tamil as though he is onnu vita cousin of Thatha Naharkar of Junoon fame. Susi Ganesan does a cameo - a pivotal role of a person who takes photographs of Mexico on his iPhone. Padayappa-la paambu eppadi oru turning point-o, adhey maari dhaan namma Susi role indha padathula. Indispensable. The only mistake in the casting department was naming Shriya as Subbalakshmi and giving her costumes of Jothilakshmi.

The movie is a collection of incoherent scenes with the editor doing his best to ensure this. CBI aapesar will suddenly go raid. Kappi Crusader will suddenly start cocking in front of a bad guy. Villain will suddenly decide that he needs to do matter. Shriya will suddenly decide to she needs to sing a sexy song. Pichumani will suddenly decide to do Billa don walk. Vadivelu will suddenly decide to put one mokkai. Hero will suddenly decide to get preachy and throw some statistics to villain who is standing in jetty. Like this wonly full movie. To bear all this for three and half hours, oru miga periya mana dheiriyam is required.

The re-recording was one nice aspect. Devi Sri Prasad did a good job with that and compensated for allowing Vikram to talk in all the songs. Vikram-ku pitching problems neraya. Neraya notes are orey flat. Voice-la throw seri illa. Innum nalla practice pannanum. Sruthi set aagala. Sruthi-oda akka-va vena try panni paakalam.

Cinematography is very mangalagaram. Ekambaram was warned by Sivagami Computers that he has gandam in all colors except yellow. All characters look equally jaundiced. I think while deciding on what to use for Mexico, he watched the Salma Hayek matter scene in Desparado and decided that everything in Latin America should be of that tinge only. Water, grass, people, everything. Mexico-la ellarum manja thechu kulipaanga-nu yaaro avarukku thappa informesan koduthirukkanga paavam. Very mangalagaramaana cameraman. All the scenes in Mexico have been shot in one open (yellow) grassland. For this why Mexico? Nonsense fellow.

Susi has donned many hats for this film...though none of them turned out useful. Susi the actor offers some solace to the audience...it helps to know the face of the person you are scolding in bad words. The powerful script writer in him has made heads turn across the globe. Sun Microsystems issued a notice banning Susi from writing any script in future, including javascript. The Human Rights Commission is planning a mass campaign with Susi's pic and a message - "Inime pena la kai vecha, mudhal dead body nee dhaan". He has also been extremely compassionate as a story-teller. For the benefit of heart patients and pregnant women he has ensured that the most nail-biting moment in the movie is the curiosity that builds up if Vikram will succeed in getting the cock (seval) body-language. He has also cleverly used slo-mos throughout the movie. So if at all you fall asleep, when you wake up you'll still watch the same scene. Total hollywood level thinking.

Overall, with few things right and most things wrong, the biggest release of this year is a disappointing attempt at commercial cinema. To pump in crores of money in this movie which took two years to produce, one has to be an utter dummy piece. It is high time Kalaipuli changes his name to Kaipulla Thanu.

I am glad I did not have to buy tickets for this movie! Thanks to Hamsini for the oasi tickets :-D.

The only good thing about the movie is that it made me put a big mokkai post after a year! Susi Ganesan vaazhga!

Dasavatharam: Review

Phew! The wait is finally over! I watched Dasavatharam by paying 285 bucks for a ticket! I thought I will have one complimentary vellakari and one complimentary karuppi on either side for this price. But they just gave me one cushioned seat to park my ass. Bleddy inflason!

The hype was phenomenal. Especially after I heard that Kalaignar kissed Kamal after watching the movie! Kamalukkae muththam-a?! First of its kind, truly!

Now most importantly.. was I entertained?? Yup, surely. And would I like to be entertained again? Hmmm...May be not, unless I am given those compliments I expected! :D

Read Review . . .

Dasavatharam had an interesting concept which appealed to me - the chaos theory. No, wait, it's not the usual "chaos" aka "confusion" you associate with a Kamal movie! :D This one's about how one small event can get related to a series of other events; like in the movie "Crash". I see it as a smart ploy by Kamal to use this since there is probably no better way to make the characters converge. A film with an actor in ten roles is no joke. It is meant to celebrate the actor more than the tale and this did not come as a surprise to me. I have nothing to complain about a wafer-thin story line which puts off critics of 'pure cinema', the one's who've always held Kamal in high regard for his movies. But come on, the guy needs to make money too..he's not around to serve humanity :)

The film has overcome many hurdles. The most atrocious - "Kamal stole the story from me" is what some arbit fellow claimed and they went to court. When the judge took a look at both the stories (empty A4 sheets) he dimissed the case and used the A4 sheets to write Sriramajayam and tie it in Alwarpet Anjaneyar kovil tree. Story thirudittan, story thirudittan-nu koovina andha dog-a if me see, tongue plucking question ask: what story? where story? Bleddy fellow.

The 'story' revolves around a bio-weapon which scientist Govindarajan (PS: All characters unless and until mentioned are Kamal!) invents and some evil fellows try to put it to wrong use for money. Govindarajan tries to stop them and this results in a fast-paced turn of events within which many of the ten characters are woven nicely, and a few seem to be just there, staring at you. That's Dasavatharam for you. A good entertainer.

I may sound cliched if I say that Kamal has done a brilliant job portraying the ten characters. I think there can be no second opinion about it. The effort he has taken to showcase their body languages and accents is simply stunning. The body language of Krishnaveni Paatti and the Kung-fu master were top-notch. Dialogue delivery of Poovaragan, Nambi and my favourite Balram Naidu were clinical. If you are keen on celebrating Kamal Hassan, there is and if I may say, there will never be a better film for you. Just go watch it as many times as you want!

Two things which disappointed me about the ten avatars. One, their characterization lacked depth. The roles just had spell-binding acting, but not a single one in my opinion made me 'feel with the character'. Nambi and Poovaragan came close but that's about it. I also expected that the characters would be based on some theme, like the navarasas were portrayed in Navarathri, but that was not there. Two, the make-up. It was brilliant to see that all the ten characters looked different. But is a poochandi mask on the face compulsory? Maybe if it's a fancy dress competition, yes. But we want the guy to be able to emote well. Though Kamal still does a good job with emotions, that's his brilliance, we might have got a better result if they had not been obsessed with make-up!

The screenplay was decent. There were bright spots as well as duds. The film moves at a good speed which is its biggest plus but there were far too many disgressions - evils of dealing with too many characters! The main plot is a typical hero villain-chase with Fletcher chasing Govindarajan for the weapon. And there are subplots for the other characters who happen to get involved in the chase and Kamal does a good job connecting these subplots in simple, nice ways. It is not classy treatment, but something appreciable for sure considering this is commercial cinema! At the same time, in certain cases, like Dr. Sethu's (he's not Kamal!) death, there was no reason. The overall scheme of things look chaotic to me. The racy narration will appeal to the audience, but the disgressions and their connection may not appeal as much to the mass.

The first half hour of the movie had just too much English and infact had Tamil subtitles! Now, you are making a commercial cinema targeting the mass. You board a train when it is racing past a checkpost. When you jump from a bridge you always land on a nice cosy vehicle below. When Manmohan Singh (he's not Kamal!) and George Bush are listening to your speech (no translators), you speak in "sanga tamizh". Do we care? No, we don't! So please dub the first portion in Tamil and re-release, we won't mind :)

The 12th century scenes were the most interesting part of the movie. Nambi was really majestic and portrayed a lot of different emotions during his brief appearance. Napolean (not Kamal) tried his best to speak Tamil, aana paavam he can at best say "Chozha Saamrajyam" as "Sola Seraton". Fletcher was too Terminatorish for my liking, but he had style. Naidu, the cop, was top class especially when he says "Aathankavaathi", ultimate! The screen was so full of Kamal that I had intelligent questions like "Andha kutti koranga nadichathu Kamal-a?" and "Oru velai climax twist-la indha perumal bommai will reveal itself and say Naanum Kamal dhaan. Ivalo naal Perumal veshathula irundhaen a la Thillu Mullu climax?" Avtar Singh was a joke, really. He gets shot and the bullet shot cures his cancer?? This is a too much. Cancer research stop panni, Gabtun-a vittu all cancer-ku 'soot at site' order kodukka sollalam inimae!

Asin's (not Kamal) dialogue delivery was brilliant. Her hard work to memorize the dialogues are evident. The only dialogue she had - "Perumaale" (Rhyming bad word I am getting in my mouth-u, but for old time sake, I am no speak) was as likeable as Udit Narayan's Tamil. For the number of times she uttered the word, avalukku VIP seat Vaikuntam-la confirmed - innum oru vaati solli irundha naaney amchu vechiruppaen. Kamal tried to fill in the comedy track with Asin, but it has backfired badly. Neither the dialogue, nor the acting is impressive. And ya!! Mallika Sherawat (not Kamal) plays the role of a Tamil translator. Spashtama pesina. Suththi podanum. Avalukku illa, avalaye suththi kadal-la podanum.

The music department was a clear let down. Himesh has to start from Sa Pa Sa and Saralivarisai. I love "Kallai Mattum Kandaal" for the lyrics. BGM was thankfully nice and suited the movie. The special music for Balram Naidu was the best :D The songs did not intrude the movie at any point and that was a really nice thing considering the fact that they had a tough screenplay to handle. It nicely adds on to the commercial aspect. Good job! Climax-la KS Ravikumar (not Kamal) does an item number for Karunanidhi, Manmohan Singh and George Bush :D

Art direction and camera work were very impressive and were very apt for the film. There was not grandeur for the sake of it! Sensible. But the much hyped computer graphics - tsunami scene, under water shots look straight out of Finding Nemo kind. For a film of this budget and magnitude, special effects were far from impressive in the sense that you could realize what was graphics and what was not. Just because it is called special effects, it need not specially stand out! I am really surprised that this has happened in a 'tech-savvy' Kamal film.

The climax was dramatic. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was handled in a amateur fashion. When you see a tsunami, would you run? Or would you look at it like Vijay Sarathi in Sun TV Neengal Ketta Paadal and say "Idhu dhaan tsunami"? That's what our Kung Fu master did :) The Krishnaveni Paatti - Poovaragan connection, me likey! Nice touch! Kamal debates with Asin the existence of god who has caused such a tragedy and Asin explains why it has happened for the good. Wokie. Then they show dead bodies all around. Next minute Kamal-Asin romance. Venaam. Valikkuthu. Message sollala-nu ippo yaar azhutha? "Meendum Meendum Sirippu"-la message solliyae aavaen-nu adam pidippangale, like that this comedy!

The last dialogue was nice though - "Naan kadavul illa-nu sollaliye, kadavul irundha nalla irukkumnu dhaan sollaraen" :) Kandippa will become popular! I already see this in various places - "Dasavatharathula kadhai illa-nu naan sollala. Kadhai irundha nalla irukkum-nu dhaan sonnaen". Namma pasanga kusumbukku oru alave illa :)

Lets not be finicky about logic and thin story-line. The film is meant to be a commercial entertainer and it is a good one. I refuse to accept though that this is the closest Kamal has come to bringing an 'intelligent' script to the masses. The film could have easily been much better and it's not. First, the script is by no means 'intelligent'. Second, he had done a better job with sreenplay in a Virumandi or a Devar Magan.

I did not mention Ravikumar anywhere since it was just Kamal's touch I could see throughout the movie. I am guessing Ravikumar was meant to tell Kamal what would be commercial and what wouldn't. In that case he was good, the commercial elements were mixed well. I still feel the treatment should have been more simple than what has come out. That's needed to get repeat audience from B & C and my guess is it will hit the collections. Time will tell the true story.

Overall, the film is worth watching once in theater if you are neutral. Leave your brains out and go looking for an entertainer. You will not be disappointed. Dasavatharam is meant to be an exhibition of Kamal's talents and it truly is a grand exhibition. Ensoi thangamani!

Veerasamy, The Bold God

First, congratulations for seeing the pic and staying alive to read this. If you were thinking that the snap was taken last year during the elephants' yearly vacation in Mudumalai, you are probably viewing a thumbnail. Joom in, view full size and you will repent for calling elephants fat. There you have India's answer to Jurassic Park : Veerasamy, a Vijaya TR film. A bunch of us representing the Chennai Cheri Bloggers Association relished the fruits of the good deeds we did during our previous birth by watching the best entertainer ever produced, beating Captain's Sudhesi and Narasimha hands down.

*You may read the review without any fear of spoilers. I assure you that there is no story to let out*

Start the Jungle Safari . . .

The screening rights for Veerasamy were bagged by a whopping 43 theaters in the city. Unfortunately only one theater managed to acquire a floodlight to project the film, without which it was impossible to penetrate TR's hair and get the picture on screen. Abirami mega mall is a pepped up version of Saravana Stores with 19 people appointed specifically to do a Tirupati style jarugandi jarugandi at the entrance. The theater was maintained as well as the toilet at Sathyam Cinemas with clear instructions for the visitors to spit their paan on the walls and not on the floor. Watv, lets start!


The city is troubled by Rousu Rani who is doing a gouravamaana vibachaara business. She tries to expand her business to a Special Economic Zone which happened to be Veerasamy's area. The bad guys start bullying people. Suddenly, four people fly out of an asbestos tent. Bang. The tent door opens. There is a road roller parked there. Joom in. It's Veerasamy in black and black to complement his kumkumapoo colour. Weapons are thrown at him but nothing happens since he has as much hair on his body to shield him from a nuclear attack. Karnanukku eppadi oru kavasa kundalamo, adhey maadhiri TR-ku mayiru. This is followed by amazings stunts in which Veerasamy jumps atop cars and eliminates the bad guys. It was the first time in history that an Ambassador car sustained damage.


Veerasamy is a highly respected bear in his constituency. M.A.B.L padichirukkaaram, adhavathu andha naalu alphabets avarukku thorough-va theriyum. He is also an MLA. That mishap occured in the year Salman killed the blackbucks, which resulted in a huge sympathy wave for all animals including bears. He appears whenever people are in trouble and solves their problem by staring at them, thereby making them realise that there are bigger problems in life. When a corrupt official tells a poor guy, "Indha kaaryam nadakkanumna weight-a edhavathu kodu", bear appears with a paarangal and asks "Indha weightu podhuma?" The officer wonders whether Veerasamy was referring to the paarangal or himself!


Mumtaz has taken up the most challenging role in her career, which is to constantly drool at Veerasamy. In most scenes she lands up in trouble and is rescued by Veerasamy making the audience wonder whether MLA stands for Member of Legislative Assembly or Mumtaz Lovers Association. She is delighted when she gets a job as a servant at Veerasamy's house for the only reason that she had never seen a zoo.


Veerasamy has a sister who he holds close to his heart. [Trivia: The closest anybody can get to TR's heart is a distance of 1.3 km taking into account all the masculine hair] Never in the history of Tamil cinema have TR's parents died without giving him a girl child to take care of. *tortoise coil* One thin boy [who would have been ragged to death in school by now for playing junior Veerasamy] affectionately feeds his sister bread and porai. However, looking at their current sizes, that was probably the only scene in which she got to eat! The boy works for daily wages in a construction site and makes his sister study in a convent [confirming his knowledge of M,A,B,L]. He also talks about a billionaire Ibrahim Ravuthar who had brought him up and died subsequently due to lack of funds.


The sister, Senthamizh, falls in love with a 'guy', R.Arun brother of RousuRani. He looked like a person whose sex change operation was halted mid-way due to shortage of a few vital organs. He is a modern guy with something like a Navarathri golu padi screw in one of his ears. Though Veerasamy is againt their love, he fights till the end because he knows that avan azhagukkum arivukkum sathyama vera yaarum kadaikka maatanga.


The romance between Veerasamy and Mumtaz is elevated to new heights. Mumtaz steals Veerasamy's Pears soap and uses it. Do bears use Pears? Anyways, Mumtaz passionately uses the soap thinking about Veerasamy and feels so proud probably because she rescued the soap. She starts hallucinating that Veerasamy is on top of her. Fortunately for her, they remained hallucinations. She lies down everyday on a poster of Veerasamy which was printed on paper manufactured by destroying half the bamboo trees in China. But for Itch Guard, she wouldn't have been able to rest her face on his beard. She drinks the water dripping down from his beard, as a result of which she had cholera for fifteen days and the shooting was postponed. Finally, in an ultimate expression of love, she tattos his name on her chest! [Am considering quitting MBA and becoming a tattoo artist]


Songs take up 140 mins of this 150 minute film. 9 minutes have been used for TR punch dialogues and 1 minute for the story. Almost all songs have the word Veerasamy in them, be it a duet for his sister and ajakku or an oppari song for a person in his thoguthi. It is said that TR put in a lot of effort and refused to shit for two days upto the song shooting. His perfect steps are a tribute to the dance classes he attended at Slim Line Gym. He has worn everything from sherwani to suits to plain undraayer revealing lungi, but always managed to look like a jute bag containing Ponni raw rice. The songs have been picturised in grand sets which make as much sense as having a room heater in Chennai. There is a special romantic song with Mumtaz in a tub of milk. Only two packets of milk were used for it but the tub appeared full when TR and Mumtaz stepped in.


Veerasamy is faced with too many problems. He loses the elections and compares himself with MGR, Kamarajar and Sachin Tendulkar to justify the loss. Luckily for him, the first two are dead and the third one does not know Tamil. Police arrest him under ganja case and tell the Commissioner, "Ivana adichu road-la jetty-oda izhuthuttu varanum-nu nenachaen sir, aana pannala" to which a person from the crowd promptly added, "yaena avan jetty podala sir". Mumtaz is forcibly married off to the new MLA. Dejected, Veerasamy jumps into a rocking chair and defies the laws of physics by not toppling it. Tears drip over his beard and reach his mouth which is opened like the lid of a western closet. In all senti scenes he pointlessly looks around like Pithamagan Vikram. He blurts out, "Enna dhaan irundhaalum naanum manushan dhaaney ya" for which the crowd unanimously cheered a "Illa, karadi!"


In the climax, Veerasamy fights Rousu Rani's rowdies with an aruval and also dances simultaneously because of which his dhothi falls down to reveal his undraayar. Impressed by what they saw, Sudarmani Inc has signed TR as the brand ambassador for their latest free size jettys. Veerasamy picks up his dhothi and continues the steps he learnt in Gemini Circus during his internship. In one last romantic depiction, Veerasamy's dhothi orasifies Mumtaz face during the fight. After succesfully nadathi vechufying his thangaachis marriage, Veerasamy looks down and finds that he has been standing in his jetty aka undraayar for the past fifteen minutes. Avamaanam thaangama he sits down on his rocking chair. The chair doesn't rock. Thamizh cinema dictionary padi, doctor kannadi kazhattinaalo, aadara chair/oonjal ninnalo aal gaali-nu artham. Mumtaz dies too since she had been holding her breath ever since dhothi had orasified her face. The whole theater gave Veerasamy a standing ovation for his energetic body language even after death.


TR had said that he is very slim in the film. Very true. He is the second slimmest person in the film, next only to Mumtaz. The entire cast is eligible for transport only via cargo. It is thus capable of breaking the box-office itself. He has worn sleeveless shirts, track suits and tried his best to look 'youth', but ended up looking something rhyming. Simbhu photo appears throughout the film and beats the 'Pulli Rajavukku AIDS varuma?' campaign for being the most effective disease awareness campaign.


TR is the producer, director, story writer, script writer, art director, music director, singer, cinematographer, clap-board handler, light boy, office boy, hero and comedian in the movie. This has ensured that all aspects of the movie were equally bad except for comedy because it was unintentional.


The film is doing brisk business and is a potential threat to Sudhish's 'That Four Letter Word' which is releasing later this month. It is rumoured that the TV rights for the film recieved bids from international channels like National Geographic, Discovery and Animal Planet leaving Sun TV with no chance at all.


On the whole, please make sure that you watch the movie on the big screen if you want to watch the whole of TR! :) TR-in sevai indha naatukku thevai!


Note 1) Happy New Year :D Vaakku thavara maatom-la! :P


Note 2) Happy Valentines Day! Stop gifting teddy bears to your girl friends. Be creative and buy tickets for Veerasamy to show her the real bear! :)


Note 3) 30 more posts and one lakh more hits! Thanks a ton!! Pardon my laziness! :) I am getting back to my old commenting system not withstanding the trouble of spammers :(

Dharmapuri : Review

Lifestyles have advanced so much these days that police are kept on high alert with intelligence information indicating a possible Al Qaeda terrorist attack. If only such advancements existed three decades ago, many tragedies like the birth of our very own 'Imsai Arasan' Perararasu could have been easily avoided. The man's image among the masses has made the likes of Gillette consider marketing their new series of razors with the 'Perarasu' tag. Anyways, lets concentrate on the real hero of the film, our very own Gabtun!

Read the Captain sized review. . .

The year 2006 has been the best year for Captain fans with three of his films hitting (and damaging) the screens. Dharmapuri was believed to be a youthful love story when it was announced. I was taken aback then. The only way a Captain film could be a youthful love story was the heroine being a narcissist. Nonetheless, I decided to check out the film while in Chennai. With great difficulty Ferrari, Magix and myself got tickets for the night show at Woodlands Symphony, where we were the only ones who did not drive an auto or rick.

Two villains named Peruchaalikaruppu (Rat black) and Silandhikaruppu (Spider black), while the name of their dad is Mokkaiyan (Perarasu) adichufy in many villagers stomach. [Most of the pre-production work of the film involved naming of characters] The villagers realise this is because they were unable to karachufy the oorlaye periya manushans asthi in their oor, which they decide unanimously in their AiNa sabai meeting under aala maram. Tamil cinemas unwritten rule states that all the 18 pattis are by default headed by Vijaykumar, or atleast by his photo if he is already dead. They believe that Vijaykumar's aathma has not attained shanthi [Yaen ellarum Shanthi-a adayanum-nu aasai padaraanga? Ava enna appadi oru gumeel figure-a?] and only his son Sivaram can karachufy it [appadiye asthi karaikka NIIT course padichirukkanum-la]

Four edupudis of Vijaykumar set out to find Sivaram with a chinna vayasu photo. They however roam from city to city since they actually do not know which city the guy is in [Padathula yaarum logic illa-nu sollida koodaatham]. In Rameswaram they adopt the Singara Velan's 'mayiru kudu Sumathi kaataraen' technique. Joom panni paatha one big image with a yellow-black-red ring as big as Nokia 3310. Camera slightly going up. I was glad to discover that Captain was not standing in the same Singara Velan Kushboo pose. Instead he had turned his head. Ellam oru effect dhaan. Whatever said and done, Captain is a mass hero aachae; mass ofcourse can take more than one meaning here.

Captain intro. Rowdy gets hold of a girl and shoots Police mama who comes to rescue her. Mama cap flies off and Captain catches it. Oru oattai cap-a pudichuttu perumaiya oru look viduvaar. Bad guy shoots at Captain. Bullet in slo mo. I thought Captain was going to bend in Keanu Reeves style and dodge the bullet. But no. I guess neraya ippadi kuninju he had iduppu vali. So he decided to stay still. The bullet hits his chest and bounces back to kill the bad guy! To make this logical, Captain takes an archanai thattu hidden inside his shirt which was fastened to his body by means of an arana kayiru and throws it down. Impressed by this, our Chief Minister has promised to give away free archanai thattus to all families below poverty line and arana kayiru to all the backward classes to protect themselves from terrorist attacks.

Captain and his friend supply chairs for marriages, but still he does all charity as if he is Gulf return. The title song "Annan kotayila kodi parakkamuda" was penned by Peraruvai to suit Captain's image. But he failed to anticipate that a slight mispronounciation of kotai can cause great embarassment to Captain. Meanwhile the edupudis manage to trace Captain with Google Earth since he was the only person in Rameswaram to be visible from a satellite picture.

Start flashback. Vijaykumar was the oor periya manushan who insisted that not even one pudi sand should go out of the village as sand and they should make earthenware and sell it. Idha oru periya mayiru policy-a vechundu kaalam muzhukka he was there. One day, he supplies hundred earthern horses as a gift to the temple and like moolai ketta naai keeps all the horses by the pond so that his brother Mokkaiyan pushes ten horses into the pond to spoil his name. Later when the oor makkal tell him, "Ayya paththu kuthirai kuraiyuthu ya", instead of just replacing them, like periya pudungi he shouts "endra solli poatta neeyii", that they have sandhega pattufied him. Vijaykumar is the closest relative of kavari maan that mankind knows of, so he dies soon, telling them that his asthi should be karachufied in the same oor. When they try to fulfil his last wishes, Spiderblack and the other black stop them. Adhaan matter. Captain also vaguely remembers that he was playing hide and seek with his murai ponnu at that time and was about to open a koodai to check if he can go hit eyes boys!

Now Peraruvai gives a twist. Captain takes a promise from the edupudis that he will do lot of thillalangadi in village, but nobody should complain. The entire village is waiting for Captain's arrival. His murai ponnu is also waiting to sight adichufy him [Kali kaalam]. Captain cleverly swaps roles with his servant who enters the village as Sivaram and his murai ponnu is mighty disappointed. Ofcourse unmai therinja disappointment suicide aagi irukkum. All edupudis now only remember the promise and understand Captain's plans. Idhu enna periya Pokhran anu gundu plan-nu suspense-a vechirundhaaro therila.

Captain will be sleeping in kayathu kattil with the ropes almost touching the ground. Bad guys come to kill him. As and when the villains come nearby he will shake his leg or arm, the bad guys bulti adichu fall down and the kattil understandably breaks. Cut. Next shot. New kattil. One more bad guy and more kattil. Art director suggested that they can use thenna maram instead of thengai naaru to support Captain. Idhu enna Shankar padama onnuku poratha irundhaalum adha Ohio-la porathukku? Peraruvai is budget masala director. So he refuses the offer and manages by making the bad guys run away by showing his face in close up.

Heroines of Captain movies always thurathi thurathi sight adichufy Captain. Ippadi oru role accept pannara alavukku paavam avanga kudumbathula enna kashtamo. Mama yaaru-nu kandu pudikka pora vazhila oru koodai veppa namma heroine. Servant will walk off, but Captain nice-a poi will check if his murai ponnu is still under the koodai. Ippadi patta soft, touching senti scenes-ku match panna mudiyaama dhaan Mani Ratnam Mumbai poitaaru padam edukka. Enna oru emotion. Cha. But if a person sits inside a koodai for 25 years in two bathroom position, she can survive only if she has some compelling reason to do so. If looking at Captain's face 25 years later is that compelling reason, then she'd rather die a peaceful death. This scene thus stands out as the biggest flaw in this otherwise completely logical movie. The edupudis fix up marriage of heroine with Sivaram. Thinking Subramani to be Sivaram, she decides to hang herself and fan-la she kayiru kattifies and stands on a stool. Her father rushes in and vendha pun-la verala paachara maadhiri tells her that Sivaram is Captain and not the servant. That was enough reason for her to kick the stool. But idha graphics-la edit pannitaanga. It still is a budget film. Graphics was used because Captain offered to help free of cost and MS Paint poi rubber vechu stool-a azhichutaaru.

Interval vidarthukku munnadi Captain says oru super punch dialougue to the villains who are trying to kill him. "Enna nambaravangalukku naan nambikkai. Nambaathavangalukku....", tshk tshk tshk, Captain splits into three Captains on screen and the audience wake up in fear, "echarikkai". Actually by default Captain said "thumbikkai", which was later changed during dubbing. Rocking BGM by Srikanth Deva, who plays part time music in films and full time in Kannammapettai.

Now Captain sees that the entire village has named their sons Meiyappan (our kavari maan's name). Meiyappan I, Meiyappan II, Meiyappan III [King George III irukkarchae Meiyappan III irukka koodatha enna?] appadinu one one kid tells his name [now we know why female infant moratlity ratio is high in villages, yes, Vijaykumar dhaan kaaranam] and Captain-ku orey grass itchings. He gets into serious action. There is this ayyanar kovil festival in which oor periya manushan dressed as ayyanar runs around the village. Captain oor-a suthi odina, suthi vara oor irukka vaenaama? That's why he made the servant act as Sivaram. Classy touch from Peraruvai, with layers of the plot slowly being unravelled. So Subramani runs as ayyanar around the village and the bad guys try to kill him, when Captain takes this avataram. . .

Body full-a sandal. Sathyamangalam is now obviously out of the map. In this costume even ayyanar would have been shit scared to come in front of Captain. The bad guys were shattered.

Next, Captain lures Spiderblack and Ratblack by selling them both the same piece of land in return for hopsital turned club and school turned wine shop, which kavari maan had built. After fooling them, he re establishes the school and the hospital in the name of Meiyappan. Innum toilet vaasal-la gents and ladies bathila Meiyappans and Meiyammas-nu ezhutharthu mattum dhaan baaki. School, teacher, students ellarukkum name Meiyappan dhaan. Proxy poda easy.

After enough action, Peraruvai has given a fast paced duet for Captain with orey fast beats and you can see how much weight Captain has lost. Captain's best by far. The human rights commision is recommending this song as a substitute for the death sentence of Saddam Hussein. Rumours say that Saddam has indicated his preference to be hung nude in public instead of being subjected to this. Verdict, as always, is pending.

Climax-la Peraruvai has brought Captain's presence of mind to the fore and made us realise its absence. Spiderblack, Ratblack, Mokkaiyan and MLA come with an army of people to take away sand after realising Captain is Sivaram. Fifty people stand in front of Captain, one behind the other, in height order. One punch from the man. They fall like dominos. The fiftieth person doesn't move away even though he knows that the tenth person has started falling. Selai maadhiri nipaanga and they all fall down making a "aaah" sound. Valikkuthaam. Then without getting close to Captain, they all run to fetch the sand. Captain warns them. Then he takes out an MP3 player remote which has 3 buttons in it and activates 30 bombs with it. How? Diwali-ku orey thiri-la 7 shots vedikkuthu-la, ennikkavathu how-nu kaettirukeengala? Adhey dhaan idhuvum.

The villains then go to school and catch hold of Meiyappans VI, X and XXI. They announce in the speaker that they have got a bunch of Meiyappans with them and they make the Meiyappans cry into the mic to make Captain realize the seriousness of the issue. Captain rescues the kids and appifies mannu on the villains face and they gasp for breath. When they are about to collapse, Captain pours water on their face to save them. They open their eyes. See Captain. Die.

Appuram "Annan kotayil kodi parakkumada" paattu replay panni embarass pannitaanga Captain-a, paavam.

Peraruvai also made a guest appearance as a lawyer, mentioned all his movies till date and assured the audience that he will surely direct more movies. Irukkara mokkai poraathu-nu Steven Spielberg range-ku dialogue vaera. Narayana indha kosu tholla thaanga mudila da, marandhu adichu kollunga da!

The film had a lot of political flavour to it. I understand they are trying to project They Mu Thi Ka [not ketta vaarthai, katchi name]. Adhukkaga jetty kooda yellow-red-black la podarthu is a too much. Captain also has a sandhanam-kungumam (yellow-red) combo always on his forehead. If you are wonderin where's black, hey, that's our man! Poraatha kurai-ku lotsa Captain praising dialogues like . . .

'Ivaru naadodi illa da, naadodi mannan' [Next enna ivaru Sudhesi illa da Paradesi-a?]

'Ivaru kootani amaikka maataru da, thani aala dhaan nipparu' [Thani aal-ey kootani maadhiri irundha appuram kootani edhukku thaniya?]

Overall it is a treat for Captain fans, especially for the guy sitting next to me who made a big issue about somebody dancing during the title song saying that he can't see Captain on screen. Sathyama this happened. I was thinking appadiye Captain maranjuttalum!!

Thats just all I can remember from the movie!! Long time aachu, ellam google amukks pannitu pogavum :D

This post is dedicated to Witchu who had her birthday a week back and failed to remind me to wish her! I don blame her at this old age though :D

And best wishes to all those writing that dreaded exam next week. CAT! Special wishes to Magix who is writing it on his birthday :)

Note: The lack of spoiler warnings for this movie might piss off some ardent Captain fans. But what do I do when the whole movie is a spoiler? :D

Sudhesi : Must Watch

Finally!! I watched THE man on big screen and fortunately, being really strong hearted, I am living to tell you about it. I found it an amazingly entertaining movie and would recommend it to all you guys and gals out there for two main reasons. One, its super fun. Two, its totally economical - you can buy a ten rupees ticket and still manage to sit in A row, for all you need to do is turn back and understand that you are alone. So lets get to the review of Sudhesi, the film of the year 2006.

Read Review. . .

I watched the film on Saturday with a huge bunch of friends. The theater was jam packed with around 12 people and over 948 seats. The whistles began right away. It was a pleasant shock that the film was produced by Sudhish, an ultimate fan of Captain. I guess he chipped in with this movie before "That Four Letter Word" so that he could possibly invest the huge profits obtained from Sudesi. He told me that he did not sponsor Captain's clothing alone, which is understandable since buying off Aravind Mills is not an easy joke.

The film starts off on a political note : the death of the Chief Minister, which completely puzzled the viewers since Captain hadn shown his face yet. Riots break out everywhere after the new Chief Minister is decided and that is when Captain comes into the picture. Such an awesome intro he gets. A group of rowdies try to kill a poor man during the riot and suddenly the theater erupted as the camera joomed to show us a man wearing a sports soo and running on the road like Gilli Vijay. [Trivia : This road later came to be known as Bannerghatta Road] When the camera joomed out, there was an amazingly youthful Captain in a red tracksuit. He was drop-dead gorgeous : five people dropped dead. Captain came walking towards the rowdies with camera trying to focus his face from beneath his shoes like in Chandramukhi, but unfortunately his stomach stood in between and they ended up focussing something private. This was followed by terrific fight sequences, at the end of which there was so much destruction that all the shop owners felt that it was more economical to allow the riot to continue next time.

Sudhesi is basically a do-gooder. He helps people round the clock. Velai vetti illa-nu vidhyasama solli irukkar director. He solves a mystery involving the death of a young boy and gives a half an hour lecture in the court which impresses the judge so much that he appoints him as a Public Prosecutor in his court. However, Sudhesi's extraordinary language skills played spoilsport since a Bublic Brasecootar made him appear like a Naidu Hall salesman he loses his job. He has statistics about each and every thing in the universe in his finger tips and often lectures people with such intensity that it would make even Ramanujam hate numbers. The only other thing possible was mentioning his vital statistics, which was left out since it hasn't been measured accurately due to inadequate technology.

As always, Captain proves that he is highly romantic. He is constantly nagged by his mora ponnu who, for some reason, finds him to be the hottest person on earth and troubles him to marry her. I did not find any compelling reason why a girl would love Captain, considering the death rate of his heroines, unless ofcourse she'd been paid all the extra money like Isha Kopikar in Narasimha. So, the director had to be really smart and he was. All scenes were shot in the evening coz the heroine had maalai kannu noi.

Karunas has been included for comedy, but he pales in comparison to our MAN. I pity Sudish who ended up spending extra money for a redundant character. There is a scene in which Karunas and Sudhesi travel by bus. They were both supposed to travel on the footboard. However simple equations of physics showed that if that scene was shot, the bus would topple for obvious reasons. So Sudhesi alone got a nice place inside the bus, as a result of which it was completely crowded and Karunas had to hang on for dear life hoping that Captain doesn't sneeze or cough. In certain scenes, the direction was completely flawed - Captain says to Karunas, "Dei nee powder poosina panni maadhiri irukka" - it is always better to rehearse the scenes so that you don't end up saying the other person's dialogues.

Captain's costume in the movie were revolutionary. His wardrobe was provided by M.A. Jacob, the carpet people. The colourful flowers on his shirts are only found in two other places - bedspreads and ooty flower show. It is said Sudhish refused to buy faded jeans and so Captain bought normal 52inch jeans, forced himself into it and made faded designs with chalkpiece. Such wonderful costumes made Sudhesi appear so youthful that it gave us a glimpse of how Captain might have looked during his adolescent ages. He was equally scary then. He infact rides an Enticer with such ease that it looked like he was riding a tricycle. Such was his class. In one scene, the heroine jumps into the bathroom where she thinks Sudhesi is taking bath and with her looks matching that of her man's, the guy inside comes out shouting "Ayyoo Peyiiiii". Thank god Captain was not inside the bathroom, or else the heroine would have come out running. There is a duet song in the movie which has extremely relevant lyrics about Pongal festival. Captain has danced very lightly for this song and thus the heroine was reported to be safe.

Kadhai-la ippo dhaan taRning point. The Chief Minister and his right hand are totally greedy and selfish in this awesomely innovative script. They do lotsa kedi thanams including killing the ex-CM, which the right hand secretly tapes using a micro camera. This video falls on the hands of Sudhesi. After having watched Ramana, the right hand knew that this was highly dangerous since Captain was the only person capable of dragging and dropping new pieces of information into videos using Windows Media Player. The right hand comes looking for the CD and holds Sudhesi's mom a hostage with a knife and a gun simultaneously. But he had already seen Narasimha, he knew that Sudhesi would dodge all the bullets and decided to use a time bomb instead. He locks Sudhesi and his mom inside a room and fixes a time bomb. The bomb explodes. Mom dies. But amidst the flames thalaivar comes out flying. Sudhesi escapes. The bomb had actually thrown Sudhesi out of the house into a safe area. Friendly bomb.

In the second half of the movie, Sudhesi decides to use the CD and blackmail the CM to do good stuff for the people. The CM decides to kill Sudhesi and there is a super fight in a shopping complex with Captain wearing the kalyana band master dress seen in the posters. He freezes after every punch he delivers and the camera jooms to show his eyes in close-up which had as much sex appeal as a garbage truck. Even his coolers refused to stay in its place and flew away, but Captain pulls it back with a romantic stare and a there-is-nothing-like-early-morning-shitting smile.

Sitting on the stairs of a half-constructed building, Sudhesi proposes reforms in the medical field to the CM. This caused unnecessary expenditure for Sudhish, who had to pay compensation for damaging the foundation of the building. So next time onwards they decided to use fax mizeens. Sudhesi, who failed four times in fourth standard, now proposes educational reforms that take the entire state by storm. All this increase the popularity for the CM and he wins the elections easily, while it was the mastermind of Captain in the background!

So the CM calls Sudhesi to a place that is supposedly a factory but has a double cot in the manufacturing section. What sort of a factory would have a bed in such a place? Sudhesi senses that there is something fundamentally wrong and just as he expected the bad guys appear out of the blues. Plenty of wired stunts in this scene with Captain being wired with Amman TRY Murukku Kambis and lifted by cranes. One senseless guy tried hitting Captain with a steel rod, which just bends around Captain's wrist like a watch. What a man. Suddenly one bad guy says, "Dei ivan romba nallavan da, evalo adichaalum chamatha freeze panni nikkaraan" and the fight stops. The CM apologises to Sudhesi and urges him to become the CM. That triggered a half hour Sudhesi sbeech which makes you desperate to take a dip in the evergreen cooum and close your ears with cork. After the speech, the CM commits suicide for making the deadly mistake of holding "talks" with Captain.

Captain is back in form after a really dry period last year. Punch dialogues like, "MGR-kum enakkum orey oru vidhyasam dhaan. Avar kai-aala adipparu, naan kaal-aala adippaen" made us have a hearty laugh in the theater after we made all crooked sentences out of it! (Purinjavanga sirichukkonga pa, inga me no tell that, naan good boy!) The heroine disappears after the first half since Sudheshi did not want to distracted by silly matters. Everybody wondered what happened to her, but I am sure she must have cancelled her dates on the pretext of going on a sight seeing to Dumil Kuppam, after the duet song with Captain.

I thank Sudhish from the bottom of my heart for giving us such a wonderful film, and hereby confer upon him the title, "Sudheeshi".

Disclaimer(s)
1. Sudhish Kamath ! = LK Sudhish, the producer, even though its nicer to assume it that way. Any koshteens about this matter greatly denigrates Suderman's image as a Captain fan and thou shall be taken to court
2. Heroini-ku maalai kan noi-ngarthu poi!
3. Matters mentioned in the review have been assumed to be factual, they may or may not be facts and I may or may not speak the truth!

Yabba...vaera edhavathu miss pannitaena?

Myth : Marana Mokkai

I strongly recommend the latest Jackie Chan flick Myth to all you guys. I do not wish to be the only person who spent sixty bucks on a movie whose script was written on toilet paper. So, before you read the review, swear on god that you'd watch it and spread word so that 'we' don't feel left out!

Read Review . . .

Jackie Chan films, with their blend of action and comedy, are usually a good timepass. This, coupled with the thought of Mallika Sharawat in clothing that would easily pass as a shoe lace, was compelling enough for a group of guys to watch the movie. But the moment we saw Jackie Chan on screen, dressed in a warrior costume that even Ramarajan would think twice before touching, we knew Mallika and her shoe lace were going to be the saving grace of the film.

Jackie Chan plays the role of an archeologist who has weird dreams of rescuing a Chineese princess. I am not sure what his name in the film was, but after having watched loads of his movies I can make a sensible guess that it was Jack or Lee or Ch_n, where _ represents a vowel. For the sake of my typing comfort I'll assume it was Lee. As I was saying, Lee rescues the princess with his heroic efforts in his dreamworld. There is a great scene in which Lee ties a falling carriage to his waist with a rope and tries to pull it back to save the princess. The princess could have just stepped down from the carriage, but she doesn not, since she is bound by the Imperial Decree. By the Imperial Decree, a Chineese princess must not get out of her carriage. By the Imperial Decree, she must not touch a General. By the Imperial Decree, she is dumb.

Lee is extremely disturbed by these dreams. Understandably so, coz they get to live in a dark cave and nothing fruitful has happened yet. So, he puts in extra hours of sleep and tries his best, but no use as yet. Probably the perfectly dumb Chineese princess doesn't know 'how to', he thinks, and tries sleeping again. No use. The princess was indeed perfect.

Now Lee is approached by his friend who was doing some research in levitation and he wanted some help on it. But Lee wouldn't budge. He just wants to sleep and keep trying. The friend manages to lure Lee into it with sentimental stuff that's characteristic of Tamil cinema. He lies face down on a golf course with the golf ball on his rear and says to Lee, "I will trust you with my life, please come". Lee is terribly touched by this statement and takes his shot. The screen blacks out. "Lee, am glad I did not lie face up", says the friend. So Lee and his friend go to India for their research where they see this temple in which a Sadhu floats in the air. The friend does something stupid in the temple (no, he's not a Chineese princess), digs out some weird stone and the Sadhu gets a free trip to heaven. The friend escapes in a helicopter while Lee jumps into the water.

Mallika and her elephant, Lakshmi, rescue Lee from the water. "Look Lakshmi, a body", screamed Mallika. I did not care to look at Lee's body (I am not a Chineese princess). So I don't know how exactly he was rescued, but he was. "Good boy Lakshmi", said Mallika patting the elephant. I knew deep inside how stupid the director was to refer to Lakshmi as a boy. But with Mallika in a wet saree, I wouldn complain even if Lakshmi ate Butter Naan and Paneer Butter Masala.

Lee's dream was not succesful as yet. He wakes up to find Mallika dancing in some skimpy white clothing and decides the dumb Chineese princess can wait. Mallika takes Lee to a sottai mandayan whose words are just not as plain as his head. Lee and Mallika suddenly spot two policemen and utilise the opportunity to run away from the sottai mandayan. There is a small fight sequence in which Mallika breaks the myth (padam paeru mention panniyaachu, ellam kai thattunga!) that she wears undergarments. The censor board official probably sneezed at the right moment and missed what I saw, but am glad he sneezed. Lee then takes this circular boat that is used in paasathukkuriya Bharatiraja films and travels all the way to China.

The dreams continue but the sequence then shifts to a battlefield in which the soldiers wore costumes that were used in Paalayathu Amman veppalai dance. I don't know what the battle was for, but they ought to have realised that they were probably using stuff which Mallika was supposed to wear. Lee dies at the end of the battle. An anticlimax.

Lee decides to find the princess and goes searching along with his friend. They reach a cave finally. Lee loathed being there, for he remembered his dream in which a dumb princess had outsmarted him. A bit further, they see a masouleum and a huge army of dead soldiers lined up in rows, levitated by the meteorite stone. A dead army? I realised now that there was no point blaming the princess. It was genetic.

Lee wants to take the princess back home. She had afterall told him that she'd wait for him all her life. But she refuses to come. So, Lee decides to make his move right away and starts stripping. This was expected. Just as Vijaya T.R compulsarily has a sister in all his movies, Jackie Chan includes two standard scenes in his movies - One, his underwear has a smiley or a teddy bear placed at a strategic position. Two, darshan of his rear. Thumbprint is common, but bumprint is used only by Jackie Chan. Chineese people have infact seen it so many times that they are capable of identifying Jackie Chan just by looking at it. So, as I was saying, Lee strips. His friend nondifies a meteorite yet again and everything that was up, now begins to fall! Lee curses him and is forced to run for his life. The cave collapses and the audience applaud in joy that the film is finally over.

Jackie Chan, who is known for his bravery, proves it yet again by investing millions of dollars in this film. He has fought really well in the film, but the audience fought a greater fight trying to remain seated.

Ippadi oru mattamaana padatha idhu varaikkum yaarum eduthathu illai, inimaelum yaaralum edukka mudiyaathu! Indha maadhiri mokkai padatha vechundu enga thalaivar Captain-oda Perarasu release panna theater illaya?? Thookungada indha padatha!

PS : Maramando Part II next post-la puttings :)

Sivakasi 'n' Maja - Review

Diwali signifies the triumph of good over bad. However, this year was an exception, for the world witnessed the release of four films, each of which was as good as Kris Srikkanth's Hindi.

Sivakasi : A film that must definitely be watched first day, first show, so that you can warn all your buddies at the earliest.

Majaa : One that had a director bold enough to make a movie without any story and fail.

Bambara Kannaley : With Srikanth in the lead, I was sure that the nearest theatre I had to visit would be 50 km away from my place. So skipped it, but ofcourse, the movie is bad.

Chidambarathil One Appasaamy : That was released worldwide on Jaya TV for dhrishti purposes.

Read Review . . .

Let us focus on the two main movies alone - Sivakasi and Maja. Both moviemakers made sure that once the movie started, all passages were sealed and screams of 'LET ME OUT' were not heard outside.

Hero
Sivakasai, as the trailor claims, has Ilayathalapathy Vijay in the most versatile role of 2005. Considering the greased banian and unbuttoned shirt that Vijay has been wearing since 2002, he walks away with the most 'versatile' actor award for the fourth consecutive year. He has played a variety of roles including five appearences as a mechanic cum rowdy, two as a car cleaner cum rowdy, seven as a workshop/welding shop owner cum rowdy and ten appearences as just a rowdy. The role did suit Vijay's mass image a lot.

When Vikram does an offbeat film, jintak colour dhothi (dubai dress) and a rolled handkerchief form an integral part of his costume. This film is no exception. Vikram does his role well but every other dialogue of his is punctuated by 'Majaa da' (Numerology stuff eh?) for some unknown reason.

Heroine
Asin is a babe and it's only possible for a dumbo to make her look less pretty. Perarasu does the job well. She has chosen both her roles with utmost care, keeping up her word ("I first see the script, my part in it and then the director while choosing my roles"). Her roles proved to be the 'teRning point' in the movie. Sooperabbu. They were as important as elephant sh*t.

Story and Screenplay stuff
Sivakasi is an outright masala film. There is a Pallakku Pandi who simply comes all the way from jail, shows his rear to Vijay and gets kicked. Next scene Vijay tells Asin that she is roaming around with just her undergarments in front of a hundred people. Asin is totally elated that he found out and also let the world know about it and falls in love with him. Vijay tells her now that he'll love her only if she sleeps with him. Asin is elated again and informs her brothers that they can find her at Vijay's house, just in case. Vijay feels very bad. He goes and beats up Asin's dad when Asin is missing. Now dad is elated with this quality of Vijay and urges Asin to marry him. Her brother's come and talk to Vijay and he hits them. Vijay is elated. So throughout the movie, everybody is elated, except the audience. Nobody, including Perarasu, knows how Sivakasi is going to behave in a scene. It's something like a split personality. Versatile role...yeah, makes sense now.

Majaa. A commission has been set up by the Film Institute of India to find the story in this film. More on it after the results are out.

Director
Both directors have been really bold. Shafi has been bold enough to take a movie without any story and Perarasu has been bold enough to show his face on screen.

Comedy
Perarasu deserves a pat on the back for not choosing a seperate comedy track for his movie. There is enough scope for the audience to laugh at any scene. The director has mastered the art of evoking laughter even in the really serious scenes, something that has till date only been achieved by Captain Vijaykant. Honestly, I've always believed that Vijay had a knack for comedy and he does well as expected.

Majaa is meant to be a full-length comedy film and it did will to a certain extent. Vadivelu and Pasupathy steal the show. It is definitely good timepass to watch them on screen. This is one of the positives of Majaa.

Songs
No song worth mentioning in both films. I felt "Iyarettu Naattu Kattai" from Majaa was kinda catchy, but nothing exceptional. Asin was the only reason I stayed in my seat.

I observe Vijay has recently been wearing dresses that were once used by our beloved Ramarajan (the king is making a come back. He is playing a cop in 'Dharman'. For the first time in Indian cinema, a cop wears a pink shirt and green pant. Releases next year I guess), accompanied by a Marilyn Monroe wig. Being an excellent dancer himself, I don't understand the efforts to make him appear funky. It doesn't suit him. I'll be glad to watch him in songs like "Thaamthakka Theemthakka" that does complete justice to his potential.

Perarasu is a great inspiration to lyricists. Many now have the feeling of, "ivaney ezhutharaaney, namma ezhuthina enna?"

Comments
The positive aspect of Sivakasi is the racy second half that tends to give an impression that the film was ok. The second half did not bore people to death. It was rather lively as compared to the first half and had lots of action. I fully understand that the movie was made with Vijay's fans in mind. But I am sure they are sane people too who can tolerate stuff only till a limit. This was stretching things a bit too far. And I hope Vijay doesn't become stale this early in his career. He still has a long way to go.

Majaa is definitely a good timepass. Better than Sivakasi, I feel coz I did not feel the movie drag me to death. Instead, it had enough ingredients to make you laugh and forget that there is no actual story in the movie. If you think back, however, it'll make you feel it was no better than Sivakasi, but bad in its own ways.

Verdict
Without using a technical yardstick for measurement . . .

Sivakasi : Pathetic first half. Ok second half. Kills your time.

Majaa : Ok timepass.

With incessant rains and floods preventing people from going to the theater to undergo torture, a month after Diwali we can celebrate the triumph of good over bad.

An SMS which my friend recieved . . .
Baby mosquito : Mom I am going to the theater.
Mother mosquito : Take care dear. People will clap hands, its risky.
Baby mosquito : Don't worry mummy, am just going for Sivakasi.

Gajini : Review

Read review . . .

Though not much of a movie-goer, I never miss out the big movies. I try to watch them first day. After Chandramukhi and Anniyan, Gajini was one movie I expected a lot out of and thus decided to watch it first day inspite of a mammoth Rs.120 ticket at Sathyam. This ended up being a not-so-great movie, but it definitely is better than most movies around.

Surya plays Sanjay Ramasamy, a short-term memory loss patient. He overcomes this handicap of his to take revenge on the guy who killed his lover. That is the gist of the movie. The theme, as many know, is inspired by the Hollywood flick Memento. I haven't seen Memento myself. After hearing the original story I feel Murugadoss had a pretty neat Indian version in mind. But what came out was entangled in logical loopholes and an excessively masala climax which hamper the overall impact of the movie.

First, this movie breaks away from the monotony of Tamil masala. A new subject with a nice treatment. Surya and Asin steal the show. But for them, I pretty much feel the movie would have got nowhere. The romantic sequences have been etched out beautifully by the director and the pair has done full justice to their character. The flashback, in which the duo appear, is well placed in the movie and comes as a welcome break for the audience. Its complete drool time when they appear on screen. Asin is complete drool material! A good mix of a homely and roomly girl!

Though the positives end with that, they definitely make the movie worth watching atleast once.

Nayanthara's screen presence is amazing. She literally fills the screen. Filling the giant screen at Sathyam is quite a task, which was earlier accomplished only by Ramkumar when he went Repeeeettu in Chandramukhi. She has pierced her nose, applied lotsa kaajal on her eyes, not shampooed her hair for around two years giving it the coir look and put on enough weight to become the second largest mammal on earth after the blue whale. On the whole, she would have made a scarier ghost in Grudge saving all the make up. Her expressions were so scary that it is believed to have earned an A certification for the film. To top it all off she wears extremely small, tight clothing and is constantly being chased. First time since Rajnikant's "Annayin Aanai" (?) that I saw a baby elephant run in movies. Those of you guys who felt Nayanthara was a good country wood, after watching Chandramukhi, please check out this movie.

The songs are completely out of place in the movie. They seems to appear when you least expect them. But for "Oru Maalai" and "Suttum Vizhi", Harris Jeyaraj irritates. Senseless BGM that don't even let you follow the dialogues. Mandaiku maela mudi valartha mattum Rahman aagida mudiyuma? Mandikulla moolai-um valaranum. The fact that he is a lover of all languages comes to the fore once again in this movie. For the chorus, he has used Japaneese, Chineese, Sinhaleese, Burmeese and Dharbees till date and is expected to use C, C++ and Java in future. Innovation-aam. Paavam Surya who got this "Zoooooooooolooooooooooooooooooo, Boooozoooooooooooooo" BGM. I was thinking to myself, "athu Magix-oda naai paeru-la?". I hereby invite Maruthuvar Ramadas and Dalit Panther Thirumaalvalavan to take strict action against Harris Jeyaraj for izhivu paduthifying Tamil language.

Click to enlarge : Gajini Map

The villain looks to be a Northie. Heroines import-ey big kodumai, idhula villain vaeraya? Pathetic. Don't we have enough talent around? Why pick somebody who can't even speak Tamil properly? Idhula double action vaera. The villain twins have comically been names Ram and Lakshman. I was just hoping there isn't a Yaadon Ki Baarath style re-union and thankfully that did not happen.

Except for "Suttum Vizhi", which had some sweet graphics in it, the other songs have been picturised just decently. "Oru Maalai" was nice because of the cute Surya-Asin scenes, but whether it did justice to the song is a different question. One tends to lose the song and stay fixed to the scenes. That's not something appreciable. Though "Oru Maalai" came out of HJs repository (Mudhal Mudhalai from Lesa Lesa), the song still has the impact. HJ seems to be running out of tunes already.

The stunts are pretty good in the movie if we choose to overlook the presence of a foamy canvas where the villains fell. That was something very evident in the fight sequence before Asin's death - a long black sheet with lots of folds on it is supposed to be a tar road? The climax fight once again contained the time-slice shots. It did not irritate me this time around because it was used minimally and also not a direct copy of Neo vs Smith.

Lapse of logic is ok, but lack of logic konjam over! Was that part of indianising the movie? Romba kevalam.

The pace of the movie, which makes the first half enjoyable, is lacking in the second half and the movies drags. The movie had the potential to be a lot better. The expectation which the first half generates is not satisfied in the second half with its masala cimax. What had looked to be a novel attempt ended in a yet-another-Tamil-movie fashion. That makes one dislike the movie to an extent. Overall its a decent movie that could have been a lot lot better.

P.S. : Asin-ku enna vayasu?? Enna vida chinnavala ava??

Chanakya, the fool

Supreme Hero Sarath Kumar's 98th film, Chanakya, was released last week. This means Sarath is just 2 short of his 100th film. This also means that Tamil film producers have not learnt from 97 past mistakes and it explains why they usually end up hanging from their Khaitan fan.

Sarath is often hailed as the Arnold of Tamil Nadu. True. Most people including Salman Khan prefer to roam without a shirt in the entire film with a loverboy image. That's where Sarath stands apart. He has got a great body which he has flaunted in his previous 97 films in the climax in front of the villain. The villain also does the same and they both end up admiring each others cuts and "curves". Dumb, isn't it? This image did not help his political career one bit. So Sarath sincerely requested directed Venkatesh to earn him the image of an intellectual. Since there was no way Sarath was going to do things beyond his reach, the director did the only thing he could : he named the movie Chanakya.

Chanakya is the story of an auto-driver who witnesses a murder. The villain tries to kill him without realising that the hero of the film, even if it is Sarath, is the smartest ass around. Sarath faces the villains, does detective work simultaneously to solve the crime and obviously succeeds. This is the first time in Indian cinema's unfortunate history that Sarath does detective work and is made to think so much. To make people believe that our man is capable of all this, the director displays facts from "Tell me how, tell me why, tell me what" books throughout the film : The brain weighs 500g when the baby is born, The brain of a full grown adult weighs 1500g, 95% of the human brain is filled with oxygen etc etc which Sarath was surprised to know and lauded the director for his painstaking effort. [Gossip : Sarath is believed to have got a copy of "Tell me why" and is currently analysing why the sky is blue in colour.]

Sarath's lady love in the film is Namitha. Frankly, she seems more brainy than Sarath (pun intended). She is the highlight of the film with her amazing screen presence (kids are requested to avoid 70mm screens in their own interest). After her last movie, she had taken a long break in Mudumalai and is now in the city. It was indeed a sweet shock to see Namitha back into mainstream movies. The rights for her previous film were exclusively given to Jyothi theater by the censor officials. The director was stunned by her perfomance in earlier films and decided to harness her raw (once upon a time) talent in this movie.

The music by Srikanth Deva and the songs penned by well known lyricist X (I dunno thios mahaan's name) also deserve special mention. The title song is an extremely karuththu ulla song : Uchi uchi uchi uchi uchi, naan yaera poraen uchi maela uchi. It happens to be Sarath's best title track till date. The song "Onnu vaangina onnu ilavasam, ajaal gujaal ajaal gujaal" contains powerful lyrics for the future citizens of India. "Ambuli maamu ambuli maamu, naan singilu maamu" is an emotional song in which mom feeds baby Sarath nila soaru. The pick of the songs from the film is, "Tharuveeeeeeya... tharamaateeeeeeeeeeeeya ... tharalaena un paechu ka". It has Sarath and Namitha dancing in school uniform. Sarath became extremely nostalgic during the shoot. He remembered how in 1889, when he was in 2nd standard, he used to go to school during the rainy season. Namitha looks very pretty in skirt with the thumb in her mouth. Even then she is too big for 2nd standard.

The film is sprinkled with action sequences. The best one being the fight in an MTC bus. Sarath fights with 30 rowdies armed with weapons and he gets past all of them to emerge the winner. The fight sequence was a novel attempt, it was based on a token system like in Aavin milk booths. The rowdies come and get hit in ascending order of the token number assigned to them. The climax is ripped from phone booth but Venkatesh still deserves credit for ripping off a good climax.

Graphics have been used effectively showing bullets coming from Sarath's eyes. Such thigs may be new for Sarath fans, but engala maadhiri Captain fans-ku idhellam sarva saadharnam. He will shoot, will shoot, shoot.

On the whole, Chanakya is a wholesome family entertainer if you forget about the story, screenplay, dialogues, camera, editing and direction. Sarath has played an entirely different role moving away from his usual three role formula where he plays dad, son and dad's onnu vitta chithappa, all minutely differentiated by make-up. He deserves to be praised for such attempts. If Kamal can play a detective cop in Vettayaadu Vilayaadu, why can't Sarath play a detective auto driver in Chanakya? Disappointment for all Kamal fans as Chanakya beats Vettayadu Vilayadu by three months.

P.S. 1 : Don't even think that I was jobless enough to watch this movie. I have just seen the trailer :-) Don't think am discouraging you movie goers. Am just encouraging you guys with the info that Sarath films always make a good pastime in the absence of Captain films. So go watch it! :-)

P.S. 2 : I did watch Gajini, first day. A decent film, not all the great an effort. Want to write a review, but pretty lazy :-)

P.S. 3 : A million thanks to Sangeeta for this Dunno how it got there this time! That was in Mumbai Mirror.

P.S. 4 : You guys know whom to wish tom? Advance wishes to Kaadhal Mannan, Kadalai Mannan, Girl Pickupper, Sanga thalaivar Ferrari :-)

Simha, Narasimha

Captain smoking kolli kattai

Narasimha is probably the best Indian film made. With Captain in the lead, this is a "Ramanarayan" genre movie which entertains you like no other film. I regret to have not watched it on the big screen. But on second thoughts, bigger screen means bigger Captain. Thus it is better for kids, heart patients and pregnant ladies to stay away.

Continue laughing...

The film starts off by letting the enemies know the ferocity of Captain. The bad guys run as soon as the higher authority radios to them saying, "Hey adhu Narasimha, avan kitta vechukkatha, odidu". Honestly, the result would have been the same if the bad guys had come to see Captain upclose. So such radioing technology only added unnecessarily to the production cost.

Captain sports a long overcoat in colours capable of blinding the enemies and the audience in a jiffy. Approximately 1 billion cocoons were destroyed to stitch one coat to coverup Captain and the material, which closely resembled Vadivelu's Dubai dress is believed to be silk. Of the two years production time for this movie, one and half years is believed to have been spent stitching Captain's majestic attire. Captain always wears mathcing coats...so at any given point in the movie he was dressed from head to toe in colours like metallic blue, orange, flourescent green and not to mention the ONYX (enga ooru kuppaikaaran!) style shiny military costume.

Isha Kopikar comes all the way from Singapore to seal her fate here. A Kili Josiyar tells her that she is going to collide with an aan azhagan, sooraathi soran, pant poatta singam tonight. Next scene, she collides with Captain and does a good job to stay on her feet. A truly laudable effort. She immediately falls in love with Captain, for which she was paid an extra 10 lakh salary. The director needs to be appreciated for the hidden message conveyed : don't believe in astrology.

Captain then gets into his role. He challenges criminals and always manages to outsmart them with his brilliance. He kills three people in Mumbai, Calcutta and Cochin and kidnaps three others. People are supposed to be guessing as to who Captain is, but I knew for sure he would work in some form or the other, atleast a jeep driver in the Indian Army.

The first killing is immediately followed by some romance. People today talk high about Vikram for portraying Anniyan and Ambi alternatively. Captain just did that years ago. He jumps from the top of a 40 storey building to save Isha from a bomb, collecting her on the way from the 35th storey and landing on a bed of roses with Captain on top. She would have preferred the bomb, yeah. Captain hugs her and she smiles. A brilliant perfomance by her to manage a smile at this point. She was paid another 10 lakhs for this. A fast paced duet song with Captain dressed in red shirt and yellow pant was first of its kind. Captain does manage to shake his legs for this song. Since the beats were pretty fast, the technical team did a good job to fastforward Captain's steps to achieve the sync.

The second killing is again followed by romance underwater. I am sure Vikram took a leaf from Captain's book. This was in Calcutta yeah, but Isha was forced to follow Captain wherever he went. Another 10 lakhs. The policeman tries to kill Captain by setting a bomb in his front wheel (indha ondraiyana scene-ku Speed technology vaera!). Captain finds out by psychic powers that there is a bomb and shoots the wheel off. Captain then does circus acts by driving the car with three wheels. But not withstanding the his weight, the wheel touches the ground finally and avamanam thaangama Captain jumps into the river where he does touching touching with Isha Kopikar. Naakku madichu romantic look ellam vittaru.

The third murder was supposedly a depiction of Narasimha avatar. Captain fights with his bare body adorned with Kalyani covering jewels. Looked more like Varaha avatar. Occasionally he would growl like a lion which unfortunately the camera caught on close up. Three casualties have been reported so far in Kancheepuram district.

This is when, the Indian army officers Anand Raj and Nasser, dressed in yellow shirt, black pant and a yellow tie with black spots, report to Raghuvaran about the acts of Narasimha. They are mocked at. So they decide to kill Narasimha. They shoot around 12 bullets. Captain dodges all of them a la Neo. He was actually asked to bend back like Neo, but since that is an impossibility, he manages to move sidewards. Raghuvaran reveals the identity of Captain . . .

"Avana thulaikka innum bullet-ey kandu pudikkala" (mudhal-la adha seyyanum!)
"Ashoka chakrathula moonu singam dhaan paarthirupeenga, ivan dhaan naalaavathu singam" (asingam-a?)
"He is India's one man army" (aamama, oru man-ey army maadhiri dhaan irukaaru)

Next, strategies to curb terrorism are discussed with Captain's expertise. The camera zooms into Captain's face till the screen is replete with it. The terrorists come to know about all these through a mic fitted in a pigeon named "Vallarasu". Captain follows the bird to find out the terrorist!!

Captain's family arranges for his marriage with Isha. Isha comes with a parrot in her hand during the ponnu paarkara function. Directorial touch : kili-a valarthu edhu kittayo kodukkara maadhiri. Captain agrees to marry her and Isha gives is all overjoyed (+10 lakhs) and gives a horrendous smile. Reality : Perfect match dhaan! Another duet. Indha song shoot pannarchae Captain-ku kaal idukkula katti me thinks. Steps ellam Captain standards-ku illa. On the day of the marriage, Isha understandably goes into coma. Narasimha cries for the first time.

Captain is then given the task of sweeping out the terrorists in 4 days. He analyses the issue with a team of 10. The team members tell him that the terrorist is in some glacial region looking at a video which the terrorist had sent in. But Captain was clever enough to find some vegetation in that pic!! He says the pic is morphed!! He "de-morphs" it somehow and people are surprised to see glaciers replaces by desert! So was I!!

The team then goes to the terrorist hideout. Captain gives his command, "Mizan Started". He is dressed in something which was used by potsman in the British era. He then tries to instill some humane qualities into a terrorist with a half hour speech. The terrorist dies.

Captain then manages to fire some 200 rounds using a small pistol and at the same time manages to dodge the machine guns which eventually runs out of bullets. The last scene-la Captain fights with the terrorist and kills him. It was bloody. I would have appreciated a more non-violinistic approach of a half hour speech.

I was a little disappointed with the director for not utilising Captain's blood red eyes effectively. Captain wears brown contacts in the film. Boo hoo :-(

Captain's punch was aweosome. The way he says Simha...Narasimha is believed to have made Narasimha Rao laugh.

An appreciable feature in this movie is that everybody knows Tamil including the Pakistani terrorist Akthar Bawa to enable them to communicate freely with Captain. English is the last language I'd like Captain to speak. Damil Daai needs him!!

Captain thus suceeds in making India a safer place to live in andeverybody is happy that movie is over :-)

Epilogue : After this movie, Isha Kopikar became the richest woman in the world :-)

P.S. : I was planning to release Saniyan Part 3, but Captain always gets priority :-) Next post-la Saniyan will definitely continue.

P.P.S : Yayy!! Google ads are up! :-)

Anniyan : Review

After his controversial "Boys", Shankar tries his hands in his own area of expertise. A visual treat fantasy with a strong message. Anniyan, in my opinion, is a decent comeback of Shankar. A rave review from Sify rated it as a "Must Watch". That probably had shot up my expectations sky high.

Contains spoilers in italics :-)

Essentially, the theme of the film is a hybrid of Indian and Mudhalvan with a Brahmin backround to give you the Gentleman feel. I simply loved these three Shankar ventures, but this hybrid impressed me lesser than Shankar's earlier attempts.

Read Full Review...

Ambi is a lawyer who goes by the rulebook. A good slice of time is wasted by showing all the crimes happening in the society...lack of civic sense, lack of traffic discipline, lack of sincerity etc etc. People already know this, atleast after watching Shankar's earlier movies. Chopping down these scenes could have easily helped to shorten this unnecessarily long three hour flick. Ambi's lady love lives next door. She hates Ambi for not being practical.

This is when Ambi comes across anniyan.com, which gets information from the public about crimes and defaulters. The criminals are punished according with Garuda Puranam, the Hindu equivalent of Judgement Day. Ambi registers his complaints and Anniyan deals with the criminals by brutally murdering them. The other Vikram, Remo is all set to impress Sada as he is blindly (pun intended) in love with Sada. Who these characters are, why they come into being and how they exist forms the rest of the story.

It is the hurt in Ambi's heart which results in a multiple personality disorder. He wants to deal with criminals, which he is not able to do as Ambi. Anniyan is born. Sada rejects him and Remo is born to impress her.

The high point of Anniyan is Vikram. He has done a brilliant job in portraying the three characters of Ambi, Anniyan and Remo. His voice modulation and body language are a class of its own. The characters have been beautifully merged by Shankar.

Alternating as Ambi and Anniyan within seconds in the last scene has been carried out with panache. A truly laudable perfomance.

The other characters pale in comparison to Vikram's. A protaganist oriented film in every sense. Prakash Raj and Nasser do little cameos. The rest of them are just there to do some crime and die :-)

Vivek seems to have better comedy in store after shedding his montonous and stereotypical "Adapaavi adapaavi". He makes you laugh the little while he is on screen. The best of his punches being...

Vikram : Naan Nadhini (Sada) kitta kaadhal sollanumae.
Vivek : Ava thani-a irukkarchae theliva sollidu, mudinja oru kiss koduthu sollu.
Vikram : Naan-a??
Vivek : Pinna idhukkaga Kamal sir-aya da koopda mudiyum?

Sada is really saadha. I don't know why Shankar could not find a better heroine! She looks pathetic in my opinion. He could have atleast tried some graphics to make her look good. The only time she seems pretty is during the "Kannum Kannum Nokia" song.

Song picturisation in Shankar movies need no introduction. Breathtaking. A major portion of the 27 crores was probably to picturise these six songs. "Kumari" has been shot in a truly unimaginable place. The rows of colourful flowers look stunning. Sada stands out in between spoiling the beauty. The sets for "Iyengar Veetu Azhage" are fantastic. "Kannum Kannum Nokia" has been shot brilliantly in the Petronas towers and the KL airport. The art work and paintings done for "Andankaka Kondaikkari" is...am out of words! "Kadhal Yaanai" does not have anything special though, just a rampwalk fashion show stage and a camera covering Yana Gupta from all the right angles :-)

Graphics...another inevitable part of a Shankar movie. They have been used sensibly at most places. Overdone at times, but one doesn't truly mind an overdose of graphics in a Shankar movie. That's part of the trademark.

Harris Jeyaraj's music sounded better with the visual effects. It took some time for the songs to grow on me when the cassette released, but with Shankar's magic on screen I don't think anybody would not like them. The BGM was good too, but for a small imitation of ARRs Mudhalvan music for Arjun. It went something like "Il thakka sayya, ooh ooh masakkaiya, varaan da anniya". Am definitely sure I have messed up the words a great deal, but after interpetting it the way I did, I said two holy words...one beginning with O, followed soon by another starting with M :-)

For one who has observed these alone, the movie may be an awesome creation of Shankar. But there are lapses, which I felt were palpable.

The first half could have definitely been a lot better. Unnecessary scenes portraying the umpteen number of crimes were clearly a drag. The "Thiruvvaiyaaru Festival" train journey and scenes were also obnoxiously long. So much of time devoted to portray just that Ambi is not a lover boy. The narration could have been a lot crisper. By interval, we were left wondering if Anniyan had taken 2 years to complete coz Vikram had to grow his hair longer. It seemed utter crap to me till then. I knew he was conveying the usual message, which I realise even if I hadn't followed the movie. It's a Shankar movie afterall. But the flow was not smooth.

Romantic scenes between Remo and Nandini were highly irritating. Too filmi to be present in such a movie. The moon hiding itself when Sada looks at it was the height of sarcasm perhaps. Pathetic to say the least! Plus, she not finding any similarity between Remo and Ambi in appearance reminded of MGR movies where a small mole on the right cheek is enough to conceal MGRs identity from the villains.

Every punishment supposedly has a name in Garuda Puranam. Anniyan leaves the name of each punishment jumbled at the crime scene. Why? Probably Anniyan, the animal, is good at solving puzzles.

The stunt sequences, especially the one in a martial arts class was too lengthy and predictably matrixy. My liking for timefreeze shots reached its saturation long ago and is on its way down now. To watch a scene which is an exact replica of Neo Vs 100 agents is a pain in the neck for a Matrix fan like me.

Prakash Raj and Vivek always turn up in mufti at the crime scene to avoid alerting the killer. This completely lacked sense, for the place already had 100s of police officers and forensic experts. Just two extra people and I fail to understand how the killer would be alerted. Such brilliant logic can be found in a book called "100 Bed Time Stories for Laloo".

The way Prakash Raj solves the case is far too childish. A good investigation to show how things fall in place ala Indian, was defintely missing. Instead, we have Vivek surfing the web to inform Prakash Raj, "Sir inga paarunga anniyan.com-nu oru interesting website irukku" was probably a parody of the Police Department? It rather seemed a self mockery.

Ambi, Remo and Anniyan appear instantaneously on the same body as the situation demands. Towards the end, Ambi turns Anniyan the moment he sees a crime happening. Why this was not the case when Ambi was witnessing the crimes on earlier occasions too fails to be understood. Defies logic.

I liked the climax though. But for it, I surely wouldn't have liked the movie even as much as I do now.

On the whole, with a little bit of care this could have been a much more sensible movie. The characterisation is awesome, but the naration failed to impress me. Two years of hard work and 27 crores...I surely expected a better product. At the same time, this is not something which can be completely written off as a flop. I don't think the movie would be a block-buster, but definitely a hit because people just want entertainment when they step in to watch a Shankar movie and on that front people will be satisfied.

On a scale of 10, I would probably give it 6 compared to 9 for Indian and 8 for Mudhalvan. You switch off your mind and you'll probably give it 9.

The message giving part of it is getting boring rather than thought provoking. He is not going to bring about a revolution in India for godsake! He couldn't have got a U/A certificate for BOYS without bribing the authorities afterall! And yeah...lanjam ozhiga! I guess it is high time Shankar changes the theme of his movies. What say??