Monthly Archives: April 2016

Goonda (1984)

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goonda

A sophisticated archaeological dig uncovers a priceless idol. Numerous criminal gangs swoop to claim the prize, and the title of Best Gang Ever.

There are men in red shirts v men in white pants v overgrown scouts in khaki.  And then a relatively svelte man in black ninjas his way onto the scene – cartwheeling and backflipping like he’d just invented acrobatics. Who could it be?!?

Chiranjeevi teams up with A Kodandarami Reddy again for a mass film with a few little tweaks on the standard formula. There are multiple identities, daring deeds, family histrionics, a significant mole, and a lot of prancing around in parks.

Kalidas (Chiranjeevi) is the up and coming star of a crime gang. Kali is confident and quite happy with his lot which seems to include Mohini (Silk Smitha), the chief’s daughter. He has a fearsome reputation, a tight perm, and blue contacts. He represents the meritocracy while the leader’s nephew Kasi prefers nepotism to ensure his career progression. He and Kali have an excellent and yet not very good at all blindfolded fight to the (almost) death which I found oddly compelling and quietly soporific.

The lair is a cave with odds and ends of lounge furniture picked up on hard rubbish collection day. And despite being top secret and underground, apparently anything that goes on is clearly audible in Kali’s lounge room. A series of unfortunate events triggered by the jealous Kasi sees Kali leave gang life to go straight.

Kali rebrands himself as Raja a pop singer with much better hair, and coincidentally meets SP Anand (Satyanarayana Kaikala) on a train. Cue flashback and the genial policeman is Raja’s father, back when he was a little boy called Ravi.

Goonda-tragedy

Ravi was involved in an accident resulting in a neighbour losing his sight, and his furious dad chased him down the road firing warning shots over his head. So I can kind of understand the kid being terrified of his father catching up with him. Raja saves SP Anand from goons sent to kill him, and SP Anand makes Raja stay in his home. Will they ever recognise him? Will he tell them? Will they overcome evildoers and lively happily ever after?

Raja gets a job at the nightclub owned by baddie Kasiram (Allu Ramalingaiah), where Jaya (his childhood intended played by Radha) sings. I do enjoy a bit of disco yoga classical fusion.

I am less in love with Chiru’s wardrobe, which seems to be sourced from the ladies floral blouse department.

While growing closer to Raja, Jaya reveals her intense hatred of Ravi, the child who destroyed her family. Raja decides he has to win her love as his new self, and fix everyone else’s life into the bargain. Will they ever recognise him? Will he tell them? Will they overcome evildoers and lively happily ever after?

Thankfully Raja likes to get his shirt off, so Jaya recognises the Significant Mole. After some angst and a little bit of PR from the gossipy doctor, she and Raja resolve their differences. Love arrives differently for us all. Sometimes it is wearing a Blondie t-shirt.

Raja decides to secretly protect his dad, although he still won’t tell his family who he is. But Dharmaraju has tracked down Kasi, a witness to Raja’s past. Will they ever recognise him? Will he tell them? Will they overcome evildoers and lively happily ever after?

Raja utilises his old Kalidas skills to get the money for Jaya to settle a debt, and he is the anonymous benefactor behind a sudden offer of an eye transplant to restore her dad’s vision. Raja’s fighting style is as flamboyant and flexible as ever, so the action scenes are loads of fun. There is an excellent train sequence where it is clearly Chiru himself (at least for most of the time), leaping from carriage to carriage and flinging his opponents to the winds.

As is often the case in Telugu films, justice is not clear cut and may reside outside of the legal system. SP Anand has to deal with the consequences of his temper, both in the past and now he knows his son has returned. And Raja has to pay for Kalidas’ actions. I liked that no one really escaped from themselves. It’s a good way to mesh a family drama with a revenge motif.

The multiple identities give Chiru a good excuse to switch up the wardrobe options and he imbues each character with a different emotional tone. Kali is never conflicted about being a crook, and his change of lifestyle was more to please his father figure. He certainly managed to heal his wounded heart in record time. Poor Mohini – forgotten in just one dance sequence. Raja has firm views on Jaya’s brother Srinu being a wastrel and tells him he has no right to eat if he doesn’t earn his own way. Which is interesting in light of his criminal past but maybe he saw that as honest work, and better than taking money from a WOMAN. The horror! His views on the role of women are typical of the age and genre, but he does understand why Jaya mistrusts him and that he needs to give her evidence before she would change her mind.  And despite his love for his estranged family, Ravi also sees that his father was very unfair. He doesn’t examine his own decision to jump off a bridge too closely, but you can’t have dazzling insights into everything.

Jaya has a bit of backbone, and Radha always has good chemistry with Chiru. When she realised who Raja was, she was furious and articulate in rejecting him. And when she changed her views, she was again articulate and clear in what she wanted to happen with their relationship. She is a typical filmi heroine but I could respect that she was making some of her own decisions. The wardrobe team do torment her in some dance sequences, and I suspect they even repurposed Kali’s perm wig. In a way she is the character that triggers Raja into action. He could have made do with seeing his family occasionally under the guise of friendship, but he fell for Jaya and so he had to do something to gain her trust and affection.

Allu Ramalingaiah and Rao Gopal Rao are the muddling but nasty crims who run the club and there is an ongoing subplot of both stupidity and cruelty at their behest. There is also a large cast of supporting goondas, many of whom seemed most animated in their death scenes. Satyanarayana Kailkala and Annapoorna do what they have done so very many times as Ravi/Kali/Raja’s parents. Silk Smitha’s role was small but she did get to wear some fabulous sequinned shorts so she made an impression.

Despite being full mass formula, Goonda is a bit more low key and contemplative than some of Chiru’s other hits. The music and choreography is a bit lacklustre, especially considering that Chiranjeevi and Radha were no slouches in the dance department. The set design and costumes also show the spirit of making do. I think they spent all the big bucks on the train. See this for truth, justice, and two kinds of Chiru! 4 stars!

Sarrainodu

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Sarrainodu

If all you want in a movie is plenty of gory fight scenes and a couple of good tunes then Sarrainodu is probably the film for you. But on the other hand, if you prefer a cohesive story with an actual plotline, semi-plausible romance and an attempt at more than one-dimensional stock characters, then best to steer clear. The one saving grace in Sarrainodu is Allu Arjun, who manages to entertain even while playing a violent, psychopathic stalker who nonetheless is actually the hero.

Bunny is Gana, ex-military, although ‘ex-‘ exactly what is never specified in a general vagueness that afflicts every character.  Gana spends his days bashing up offenders his lawyer uncle Sripathi (Srikanth) has failed to bring to justice in court, much to the frustration of his father (Jayaprakash) who feels he should be doing something more worthwhile with his life. The rest of the family dramatics follow Telugu Mass Movie Formula No 1, with the addition of a comedy track featuring Gana’s sister-in-law (Vidyullekha Raman), a Tamilian obsessed to the point of mania with sambar and Brahmi as a philandering brother-in-law. Neither of the two comedy tracks is funny and Brahmi’s sleazy character is particularly off with little relevance to the rest of the film but then that’s nothing unusual for this type of film.

With some nice symmetry, while Gana is belting the living daylights out of gangsters to reclaim land they appropriated, uber-villain Vairam Dhanush (Aadhi) is cheerfully slaughtering villagers to grab their land for his pipeline project. Vairam likes the sound of his own voice and witters on about ‘background’ as if the concept may have some significance to the plot later on. Perhaps it was meant to, but since the background of neither Gana nor Vairam (or anyone else for that matter) is given anything more than a brief mention, Vairam’s insistence on the concept makes little sense.

As a villain, Aadhi has a good sneer and appears appropriately nasty, but his character is so one-dimensional that Vairam himself has very little impact. He’s evil purely for the sake of being evil and naturally (adhering to TMMFNo1) he’s rich and privileged with the Chief Minister as his father and a large criminal network at his beck and call. Aadhi tries hard to give Vairam some personality but he has little to work with and his villain pales beside the spectacle of Gana’s righteous fury.

Gana falls in love with Hansitha Reddy (Catherine Tresa), oddly cast as a very unlikely MLA, and decides to follow the usual path to true love (TMMFNo1 again) by stalking the girl until she falls for his charms. This is even less viable than usual given that as an MLA Hansitha has the wherewithal to send Gana about his business, but bizarrely she declares her love for him instead. The path to true love is not smooth however and there is a complication in the form of Maha Lakshmi (Rakul Preet Singh), who falls heavily for Gana when he rescues her from Vairam’s thugs. Sadly neither of the romances works well at any point in the film and there is zero chemistry between Bunny and his two leading ladies, probably due to a lack of screen time together and therefore little opportunity for any relationships to develop.

Bunny is on top form here and single-handedly manages to hold the film together despite the many flaws and gaping holes in the barely-there plot. Whether he’s fighting or dancing he looks amazingly fit, and effortlessly switches between his devotion to Hansitha and his uncontrollable fury when he sees injustice against the helpless. As always he looks awesome in the song sequences where every dance routine features excellent footwork, amazing energy and that trademark Bunny grin. S.S. Thaman’s songs are catchy and memorable too, and the choreography is well suited to showcase the stylish star. He gets to wear some incredibly bright and colourful costumes and fares rather better in the wardrobe department than Catherine Tresca and Rakul Preet Singh, who both suffer from the curse of inappropriately skimpy Western style costumes in the songs, although both look stunning for the rest of the film. Anjali has a better time of it with her guest appearance in the item song blockbuster – which I love for many reasons, not the least of which being that one of the backing dancers is totally rocking a cool pair of specs – you go girl!

The other aspect of Sarrainodu that works well is the action, with fight sequences that are well imagined and expertly staged despite being incredibly violent and completely over the top. Where else would you have a fight scene on roller blades for example, or a wonderful stand-off by the hero beating numerous thugs while the participants in Puli Kali leap energetically around the fight? Most of the action contains a lot of slow-motion, but this highlights the choreography and showcases the small vignettes in the background – the bystanders, a horse bucking as it runs past and the portentously displaced gravel with every one of Gana’s footsteps. And it’s just as well that the action sequences are good as there are a lot of them – Gana spends most of the film fighting in increasingly violent and bloody encounters, throwing thugs around like confetti at a wedding and inflicting maximum damage on Vairam’s crime empire.

Boyapati Srinu adds almost every possible masala ingredient in this mish-mash of a film, but fails to provide a coherent plot or any rationale to his characters. I love a good mass entertainer – I don’t expect great character development or logic and realism in the plot, but there does need to be an actual plot and some sort of reason for the antagonism between the hero and the villain.Sarrainodu does not succeed by any of those criteria and yet I still enjoyed the film. The fight scenes are excellent, the dance sequences well worth watching and Allu Arjun puts in a magnificent performance that just about manages to overcome all the flaws in the film. One for the fans sure, but if you’re a fan this is Bunny at his best and that’s all that’s needed.

Theri (2016)

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Theri Poster

After taking on the plight of farmers in Kaththi, Vijay tackles the topical issues of rape and violence against women in Atlee’s latest film Theri. The dash of social awareness is added in to a familiar story where a once tough and capable man is forced to live a quiet and peaceful existence after suffering a great loss, before being forced to take up the reins of his old life again. Sure, it’s predictable, but Atlee breathes a modicum of life into the well worn storyline and adds enough seasoning to ensure Theri is an engaging and entertaining enough watch.

The film opens with a nerdy Joseph Kuruvilla (Vijay) running a bakery in Kerala while looking after his young daughter Nivi (Baby Nainika). Rather incongruously he’s helped in his endeavours by Rajendran (Rajendran) who looks nothing at all like a baker, while Joseph’s unassuming persona seems very un-Vijay-like. However all is soon explained when the film moves into flashback mode to detail Joseph’s previous life as ruthless and efficient cop DCP Vijay Kumar and Rajendran as his driver.

Some years previously Vijay Kumar investigated the case of a gang-rape victim and took the law into his own hands when he found the culprit – the son of minister Vanamaamalai (J. Mahendran). In revenge, Vanamaamalai kills Vijay’s wife Mithra (Samantha) and his mother (Raadhika Sarathkumar), and believes he has killed Vijay and his daughter as well. However Vanamaamalai doesn’t follow the maxim that if you want something done properly you should do it yourself and Vijay escapes with his daughter to a life of anonymity in Kerala. Living as meek and mild-mannered Joseph Kuruvilla though doesn’t come naturally, so it’s no surprise that Vijay’s cover is blown and Vanamaamalai discovers the truth, leading to the inevitable final showdown between the two.

There is a lot that works well in Theri, but there are also a few aspects that don’t. Atlee has done a good job of revitalising the story, but there are few surprises and each step along the way is almost exactly as expected. However, there is a sweet romance between Vijay and Mithra which is well developed and doesn’t quite follow the usual conventions. Samantha too has a better role than most Tamil heroines, Mithra is more than just a decorative love interest and has an important part to play in the story. She has strong opinions of her own, and also commands her husband’s respect since it’s at her request that Vijay buries his desire for revenge and concentrates on ensuring his daughter’s well-being. One of my favourite scenes in the film is when Mithra has a conversation with Vijay’s mother which doesn’t involve the hero, or her wish to be a good wife/mother/daughter-in-law.  Although the content is overly emotional and it’s a very filmi moment, I like the way this scene makes Mithra her own person and not simply an extension of the hero. Samantha is excellent in her role, convincing even when she practically comes back from the dead to make her final plea to Vijay and as always she looks gorgeous throughout.

My biggest problem with the flashback sequence, and in fact the film in general, is the songs. They are particularly frustrating in the first half when they suddenly appear from nowhere and add no real value to the storyline. Not that the songs always have to move the story forward to be worthwhile, but here they have little impact other than to pause the action and don’t even have the benefit of a catchy tune or outstanding choreography to make their inclusion palatable. About the best thing I can say is that they are very colourful – very, very colourful in some cases, and Vijay is competent even if he doesn’t get the chance to bust out too many impressive moves. Eena Meena Teeka is a little better as Baby Nainika is very cute and along with Vijay she hams it up for the camera nicely, but I expect better from a Vijay film!

I have long suspected that Vijay has access to a time machine since as he is as young-looking as ever, even when gleefully bashing goons heads into various parts of a building, and impressively athletic in the action scenes. As Vijay Kumar he appears strong, confident and powerful, but allows a softer side to show during the romance scenes. However, he’s a little less successful as Joseph Kuruvilla, perhaps because docile Vijay seem to be against the natural order of things. He is good in the scenes with Baby Nainika and plays the part of a devoted father well, but very awkward with Amy Jackson in her role as Nivi’s school teacher. That may be because Amy herself looks incredibly ill at ease in a dreadful wig, while her character is so under-developed it takes some time to realise that there is actually a romance developing between the two! I can’t decide if Amy Jackson is just incredibly wooden here, or if her terrible portrayal is due to inadequate writing of her character, but whatever the reason this is the worst performance I’ve seen from her so far.

The support cast are all good. Baby Nainika is cute and appealing, without being too bratty when she demonstrates that she has a tough side too. Mahendran is great on the other side of the camera and is a credible adversary for Vijay, mainly because he is so very normal in every aspect. Like many rich men in politics, he has a sense of privilege and a belief that his wealth gives him a right to power and to do whatever he wants. He has no affectations or megalomaniacal schemes which makes him all the more chilling and a very plausible villain. I always feel a film is improved with the addition of some Rajendran and along with Vijay he provides most of the comedy in the film.

Although the story of Theri isn’t particularly original and Vijay as a cop is also nothing that hasn’t been seen many times before, there is enough action and drama to make the film an entertaining watch. The addition of a stronger female role in Mithra is a bonus and Atlee deserves praise for adding in a child actor without making her cloyingly sweet and too good to be true. The action scenes are all well shot and choreographed, and the film comes together well with a satisfying conclusion and well executed revenge. I would have preferred better songs and no romance with Nivi’s teacher but otherwise I enjoyed Theri and recommend watching for Vijay, Samantha and Mahendran.