Review

Movie: Aval Peyar Tamilarasi

Director: Meera Kathiravan

Producer: Moser Baer & Blue Ocean

Music: Vijay Antony

Cast: Jai, Nandagi, Ganja Karuppu

It needs guts and gumption to make a film like Aval Peyar Tamilarasi. Writer and director Meera Kathiravan seems to have as his role models the 70’s and 80’s Malayalam niche directors like Aravindan, Padmarajan and Lohitadas, who are no more. They always had a simple straightforward love story that pulled at your heart strings and mostly set against the milieu of a dying art-form of Kerala.

Meera Kathiravan has taken the backdrop of unexplored Tholpavai puppeteers to tell his love story between a rich boy and a poor girl which begins in a south Tamil Nadu village and travels to Pune for an off- beat climax. Meera has not tried to water down his script with commercial elements, so for a normal viewer of Tamil films it moves at a slow speed.

The film opens with the hero Jothi Murugan (Jai) travelling in an omni bus and his voice over about his past and obsessive love for a girl whom he is searching desperately. The audience comes to know that he grew up in a remote village in Nellai district in south Tamil Nadu with his grandfather Chelladurai (Theodre Bhaskaran), a local landlord.

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Movie: Thambikku Indha Ooru

Director: Badri

Music: Dharan

Cast: Barath, Sana Khan, Nizhalgal Ravi, Madhalasa

Why do Tamil filmmakers insist on rehashing earlier masala movies of Rajinikanth and Vijay with younger heroes? Director Badri along with Bharath has dished out Thambikku Indha Ooru another pot-boiler using all the clichés and gimmicks associated with mass movie targeting the B & C audiences.

The film has no story, logic, reason or continuity with scenes cyclostyled from earlier films. The hero and heroine gets into a Kingfisher flight in Hyderabad and lands in Chennai on Air India! All leading artists in the film ends up at Binny Mills for the climax shoot out with the villain who is heroine’s father as the hero fights two dozen stuntmen and saves everybody including his foster parents and also “discovers” his dad !!

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Movie: Road, Movie

Director: Dev Benegal

Cast: Abhay Deol, Saurabh Shukla, Tanisstha Chatterjee, Mohammed Faisal

Being distinctive isn’t enough. Touring the international film festival circuit doesn’t prove anything either. And it’s a problem when the film’s promos encapsulate the best parts, leaving the viewer with not much else to relish.

We already know the film is about a road trip with a travelling cinema projector and equipment. If you’re expecting a Cinema Paradiso, you’ll be disappointed. Apart from one dialogue about the magic of movies and another scene about a film transporting you into another world, there’s no moving perspective.

One gets the feeling that the film was never meant for an Indian audience anyway. It’s evident in the slow-mo shots of Rajasthani women singing their way to the source of water, the emphasis on rituals like tying the nimbu-mirchi and the mother doing the son’s aarti for well-being, and Tannistha’s character breaking into a local song.

You do get involved with the characters’ lives momentarily, especially that of the street-smart little boy who has already learnt how to survive in the world. Vishnu (Abhay Deol) doesn’t share his father’s passion for selling hair oil, and grabs an opportunity to escape on a road trip. He tells his uncle, who’s taking the beaten truck to Samudrapur (somewhere in Rajasthan, we’re told), that he’ll do the favour.

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Movie: Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?

Director: Ashwani Dhir

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Paresh Rawal, Satish Kaushik

One of my childhood memories is that of several relatives visiting us in Mumbai (presumably for a few days), but overstaying their welcome. Those days, the atithis were never looked upon as ’intruders’.

Times have changed! If you live in a metropolis, if your spouse and you work round-the-clock and have commitments to honour, any extra person – other than those living with us or is part of our day-to-day schedule – is strictly unwelcome. His/her arrival may cause hindrance and rob you of your privacy.

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge mirrors a reality, but the story has scope for not just humour and emotions, the staple diet of most Hindi movies, but there’s a generous dose of devotional quotient that is well-integrated in the storyline.

Do you miss movies of yore, helmed by masters like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee? Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge may not be a Chupke Chupke, Golmaal, Chitchor or Khatta Meetha, but it has a certain old-world charm that one misses in cinema of today.

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Movie: Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya

Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon

Music: A R Rahman

Cast: Silambarasan, Trisha, Kitty, Babu Antony, Ganesh

Three cheers to Gautham Vasudev Menon, the big daddy of romance is back with a bang! His Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya (VTV) is pure magic. This one works and grabs us where it matters; VTV is straight from the heart.

10 years after his candy floss Minnale, Menon’s VTV is a far more mature Valentine. The film is backed by awe inspiring performance and precisely one thing going for it and that’s the chemistry between its lead actors Silambarasan and Trisha, Manoj Paramahamsa’s eye-catching frames, great screenplay and a stunning climax that is riveting.

It is return of romance and will strike a chord with anyone who’s loved and felt the unbearable anguish of loss, and knows the feeling that binds people in love together. Menon’s creativity is completely home grown though it looks autobiographical.

Karthik (Simbu), a mechanical engineer, dreams of becoming a film director, and meets Jessy (Trisha), a Malayalee Christian girl, who is an IT professional. And it is love at first sight. She lives on the top floor with her strict father (Babu Antony), mother and an aggressive brother, while Karthik and his family have rented out the lower portion of the house.

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Movie: Teen Patti

Director: Leena Yadav

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ben Kingsley, R Madhavan, Raima Sen, Danny Denzongpa, Sushmita Sen

Genius math professor Venkat Subramaniam (Amitabh Bachchan) is obsessed with a breakthrough theory that could redefine the principles of probability. We’re shown numbers and equations floating in the air around the professor at work – probably attempting a glimpse into his complex mind.

Hollywood has seen several films revolving around the reclusive mathematician (A Beautiful Mind, Proof), usually portraying them as eccentric geniuses. Here, too, Venkat is oddly impulsive, inviting his students out in the open to display a point and irking the fuddy-duddy management with his unconventional ways.

Fellow professor Shantanu (Madhavan) is impressed and suggests the only way to test the theory would be applying it to a teen patti game (poker). Appalled at the idea of gambling, Venkat refuses at first but is seduced by the prospect of putting his calculations to test.

A few other students join the expedition and decide to go to an underground gambling alley in disguise. The only girl among them, Aparna (Shraddha Kapoor), fights to be part of the team. She arrives on the scene, which is brimming with men, in garish make-up and low-waist jeans.

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Movie: Karthik Calling Karthik

Director: Vijay Lalwani

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Deepika Padukone

Beautifully textured and constructed, Karthik calling Karthik takes us breath-close to the central character, whom his new boss calls `a strange fellow`.

Plagued by his brother’s death as a child, an accident he holds himself responsible for, Karthik’s (Farhan Akhtar) sleep is usually a disturbed one.

Years of counseling isn’t helping either. Fired after being bullied at work; invisible to office crush Shonali (Deepika Padukone), Karthik contemplates ending it all.

Just then, he receives a phone call, with his own voice at the other end. This voice tells him how to dissolve all of his problems and regain his life.

Don’t you wish you could subscribe to a daily phone service that could give step-by-step instructions on dealing with all your issues?

This glorious emotional spoon-feeding takes place morning-after-morning as Karthik’s phone rings at 5 am exactly. Things move on perfectly till he talks to Shonali about the calls, which he explains, has him on the other end.

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Movie: Toh Baat Pakki

Director: Kedarh Shinde

Cast: Tabu, Sharman Joshi, Yuvika Choudhary, Ayub Khan, Vatsal Sheth

A lot of present-day directors seem inspired by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee. The veterans told simple stories in a simple manner. Director Kedarh Shinde also seems inspired by the masters and attempts to narrate a story that’s identifiable and, at the same time, is dipped in humour.

But Toh Baat Pakki is not as invigorating as one expects it to be. The film has some wonderful moments, some old-world charm, but the humour often falls flat. Especially towards the penultimate portions.

Final word? It’s half-baked fare!

Rajeshwari is married to Vinay and dreams of getting her sister Nisha married to the most suitable boy within their Saxena community. Rajeshwari is also against the dowry system.

She finds a good Saxena boy who is studying engineering and has a promising future. Rahul is a good match for her sister and she gets him to move into her house as a paying guest.

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