Endhiran...

...one half of the movie is very good. The other half is as bad! Trimming about 20 mins would have made this a great tamil movie!

Raavanan

This review is in reference to Raavanan and not Ravan.

If you are a Mani Ratnam fan and you step in to the movie theatre with that notion, you'll certainly not be disappointed. Though the movie begins slowly leaving the viewer not much of a choice but to wonder what the heck is going on, it picks up pace and before you realize, you reach the intermission. Then comes the real treat.

I liked the second half much much better than the first half. All references to Ramayana (either direct or indirect) make one realize only Maniratnam can pull such things off with his well thought out story line. I loved the way how the story showcases the incidents from Ramayana such as Surpanaga (Ravana's sister and as to how the whole story erupts from her incident), Vibheeshana being a slightly good/smarter guy in an otherwise 'Arakkar' clan, the 'hide and kill' Vaali episode (though indirect), most of the actions of Hanuman and of course the 'lie detector' usage against Sita.

Some of these references while being direct, some of the others were dragged into the story, but never did I think it did not make sense at any point. Though the story itself is a major success for the movie, the best part according to me is the location and the camera work. The amount of diligent thought and hard work that has gone into researching the location for every single scene becomes evident as one watches the movie.

The 'bridge' fight towards the end of the movie was breathtaking. I couldn't say if any technical assistance/graphics went into the contribution of the fight sequence here, but my eyes could detect none. I would rate that as one of the best fighting sequences made in any tamil movie (though not long enough!). Music by thala A R Rahman was pretty decent (I refer to BGM and not songs here).

Climax is a very important part of any movie as it creates the final impression with which the viewer walks out of the movie hall and just as in every one of his movies, Mani has created a climax that can't be more fitting than this. Though I could think of 3 to 4 different ways this movie could have ended, Mani definitely steered the movie to the best climax one could think of! I liked this movie more because of the climax than all the other aspects put together.

Through out the movie, there are multiple times when you think Prithviraj as the hero and Vikram as the villain and that sort of keeps alternating. The whole flow of emotions in the viewer's mind is well perceived by Mani. The topic of who ends up as the hero/villain is indeed debatable and as I walked out the theatre, I felt neither of them can be called as the hero nor the villain. I felt the characters had their own reasoning.

I give pretty much all the credit to Mani, but to be fair, Vikram, Prithviraj and Aiswarya have all done their role very well. Prabhu, Karthik and Priyamani were so-so (not that they had a strong role anyways!)

This movie simplistically explains how an epic can be delineated in today's world, that too in a different style. Overall, this movie is a definite watch once at least, if not more than once!

Paiyya..

...it shouldn't have been just Paiyya.

Thu!

Angadi Theru...

...too much of reality.

I have never liked it in movies.

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya

After watching the movie, I remember more lame scenes than sane ones. I remember more lame dialogues than good ones. Simbu absolutely lacked screen presence and his dialogue delivery is pathetic. Script/screenplay looked very 'ungowtham-Menon-like'. Such a 'beaten-to-death' story too. Only good thing about the movie is the music. Though I sort of liked the last 10 minuetes, to sit through 2 hours of what led to it is totally not worth it.

If gowtham menon thinks he is one of the great directors in tamil film industry, its time he rethinks that.

Kandasamy...

... Dhandasamy. Worst screenplay I have ever seen in the recent times. Pathetic storyline, poor scene selection, unnecessary song sequences and stupid characterisation.Thu!

On a lighter note, I would have been happier if Vijay was the hero of this movie. With his experience, he would have added to the 'screw up' so professionally. And I take an oath not to see another tamil movie in theatres, unless its Mani Ratnam/Shankar's movie or the movie receives rave reviews.

Varanam Aayiram...

...velangaama poirum.

Did somebody tell Gautam menon that this should be his last tamil movie for him to exercise all his ideas?! 

Epitome of digression!

Kuselan...

...does not even deserve a review.

Thu!

By the way, who would expect to see dolphins in a south Indian village?! One spanks the forehead, unable to bear the idiocy.

Dasavatharam...

...somebody write a review soon. I want to hear how good it is.

Or how bad.

Kuruvi...

Kandraavi!

It would be too much even if 'Thoo' this movie. I should 'uvwaaaack!'

Title keetle!

Caution: Heavy usage of Tamil words and sentences in this post.

Dont look at the title like that. Thats how some thamizhians speak. They utter a word and closely follow it with another word, which absolutely rhymes with the first word, but never makes any sense. For eg., one might say "Kavidha Gividha ezhudhariyaa??" The second word in this sentence gives no meaning either in the sentence or stand-alone. But people still say it. There are many such examples - "love'vu givv'vu pannida poraa!" and then "phone gheene panna vendiyadhu dhaaney?!" and then "MBA Gim'BA padikkalaam'la?". I wonder if there would be an explanation for such a behaviour.

In English when people speak they might use something called as fillers in the sentences. Words such as "like", "You know" go as right examples. One might say "I was driving last night and there was this....errr....like....you know.....a small robin on the road". Such fillers are used to fill the time-gap between the brain finding out the right word and uttering it. It is something like a "Sorry for the Interruption" message that used to appear in Doordarshan TV channel those days, before "Over to Delhi" message. These fillers in english language can also be thought of as an avenue to buy some time before the brain finds the right word to utter in the right place. I think a similar filler logic would have caused this rhyming-nonsensical words in thamizh too.

On a different note, Thamizhians in those days used to converse using poems and songs. A dude would say "Kanne shaanthaa, Un idai azhagum, kayal vizhiyum ennai kavargirathu. Vaa, ennodu. Selvom veru naadu" And shaantha would reply "Naadha, thangal sitham en bhagyam. Selvom. Velvom". One would obviously notice the rhyming words that props up in the sentences every now and then. As years passed, the dialects slowly changed. People slowly brought in colloquial usage of words. They got rid of "Naadha, Kanne, sitham, bhagyam", etc., They resorted to more of what we are used to these days. Today, a guy would say something like "Hey, sooper'a irukka nee. Odi polaam variyaa?" and Shaantha would reply "Unakku ok'na enakkum ok dhaan. Polaam". This can be considered normal and contemporary. But there are some folks who could not get over those kavidhai-kalandha thamizh. They somehow wanted to sneek rhyming words in between. And such folks would exchange conversations(in the same context as before) like "Hey, azhagaa irukka. Odi Geedi polaama'nu thonudhu!!" and Shaantha would reply "Poi gei sollaliyae nee? Seri polaam vaa". They actually don't care if the rhyming word makes any sense.

Coming back to the title, the rhyming-nonsensical words shuld have originated either from the fillers in other languages or from "kavidhai" usage in our own langauge. Forgetting the root cause(who cares after all!), the idea of this analysis came to me during one of the meetings yesterday. My Delivery Manager was discussing about one of the super-smart client employees and how careful one needs to be with him. As he was talking he said "We have to make sure he doesn't go and say something to Cindy Guindy!". Cindy is the director here, but I dont know who that Guindy was. I later found out that the delivery manager is a thamizhian too and he is so used to rhyming-nonsensical words that he cant refrain from uttering them while speaking in English too. I sort of tried very hard to control myself and not to laugh on his face in the meeting, as the word "Guindy" kept repeating itself in my mind. Funny fellow! He wasn't even aware that he uttered such a non-sense and kept speaking strategy so seriously.

A great philosopher once said,
"Every single person in this world is a joker in themselves. One has to look at them with the right perspective to laugh at!"