Tag Archives: Adventures without subtitles

Uthama Puthiran

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Uthama Puthiran

Co-incidentally, on the same weekend as we decided to review Ready for the blog, I found out that the Tamil remake was releasing in the cinema.  It took a few phone calls, messages, and hanging around the cinema, but eventually the showing was confirmed and I was able to settle in to watch Uthama Puthiran.

I was a bit apprehensive about seeing this film – Ready is such a favourite of mine, and much as I love Dhanush, I wish he would tackle something other than Telugu remakes.  But I needn’t have worried. Mithran Jawahar has done a great job with Uthama Puthiran and it is a very good film in its own right.

As this was another adventure without subtitles, thankfully the film follows the basic storyline of Ready.  Gopimohan wrote the screenplay and seems to have both retold the story and given it a few new twists.  Dhanush plays Siva, (the role originally played by Ram) while Genelia reprises her role as Pooja. As we’ve just described the story in the previous review I won’t go through it again since it’s fundamentally the same.  The main differences are in the comedy subplots and in the interactions between the two feuding sides of the family. 

Uthama PuthiranUthama Puthiran

Dhanush is laid back in his role as Siva and plays it very cool. He is convincing as the carefree student, zipping around on his motorbike, with a knack for impromptu marriage planning and accountancy.  Genelia makes the character of Pooja a little more serious, but still has plenty of playfulness and charm. I was very impressed with her acting in this role, and her ability to take the same character in the same storyline and yet still make her novel and appealing.

Uthama PuthiranUthama Puthiran

Siva’s family are delightful and particularly good as they con Pooja’s family into believing they are rich Americans on the hunt for bridegrooms for their fictional daughters.  Ashish Vidyarthi and Jayaprakash seem well cast as the feuding uncles and the other supporting cast members all do a good job.  The hapless tourist who is kidnapped along the way is played by Mayilsamy, and this part of the comedy track works well, as do the scenes with the family guru. In the main comedy plot, Vivek does a fantastic job as ‘Emotional’ Ekambaram.  His bafflement at his created characters coming to life and his consternation as he spots Siva and Pooja together is hilarious . Despite not understanding a word he said I thought he was excellent in his role, and managed to convey so much with his expressions and body language.

Uthama Puthiran

The romance between the two leads works well and there is great chemistry between them.  The song sequences are lovely, although it would have been nice to see Dhanush dance more.  The songs set in Bern are beautifully pictured with some clever use of colour and excellent use of the scenery.  There is some great work by Balasubramaniyen in the cinematography here.  I much prefer this soundtrack by Vijay Antony to the Telugu version, although for some reason not all of the songs on the CD release actually appear in the film.

Uthama PuthiranUthama Puthiran

The second half is quite long, and there are a number of very dialogue heavy scenes with Pooja’s family.  I found these tended to drag as I couldn’t follow the dialogue, and the film did seem to diverge a little  from the Telugu version.  But overall the movie is very watchable, with just as much, although perhaps a little more subtle humour than Ready.  Certainly the audience was laughing throughout!

Uthama Puthiran

Again the lead pairing are what make Uthama Puthiran a cut above a standard romance, and although the supporting cast are all fine, the screen really comes alive when Dhanush and Genelia appear together.  Mithran Jawahar has to be commended on his direction as he has made the film just as enjoyable and entertaining as Ready.  I hope that the DVD will release with subtitles, although I will buy it regardless for the songs and the great performance by Dhanush and Genelia.  4 ½ stars.

Heather

Baava

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What a huge weekend! Diwali festivals happening all over town, Spring Racing is underway and to top it off we had another Adventure Without Subtitles. Melbourne is a great place to live at times like this!

So off to Baava at the newly christened India Talkies cinema.

We think this is a film that will improve greatly with access to subtitles, however there were many things to enjoy regardless.

The first half opens and sets up the lead characters- Siddharth as Veera and Praneetha as Varalakshmi. It becomes clear that Veerababu is a hapless lad, causing mayhem in his wake. We wondered if perhaps he was the idiot in search of the right village as he seemed to have the knack for doing nothing right. The village residents tried to banish him, his parents despaired of him. Varalakshmi on the other hand is the golden child of a well-to-do family, and is a ball of energy and fun.

That took a few minutes to establish, and yet it is basically the whole story of the first half. The dialogues were clearly hilarious, but there was no character development or  drama so it seemed very slow to us non-Telugu speakers.  This is where we think the subtitles will make the first half  more entertaining.

But the songs are awesome on screen. The picturisation, the choreography and the music are so well meshed and make sense within the plot. We read Siddharth’s complaints on Twitter about the dances, but he looks like he is having a ball. Perhaps that was just some great acting, but we had a ball too. And really, Sid rocked the half sari and did a very creditable snake dance.

So back to the story. There is a long and (to us) confusing subplot about a family feud and the repercussions at the local temple. Varalakshmi realises that Veerababu is the boy who fell in love with her when they were schoolchildren, and falls in love with him too.

Meanwhile her family are planning on marrying her off to the very tall and very creepy Ramana, played by Vijay Samrat in a really strong performance that doesn’t hold back on the sleaze. Drama is building – Veerababu and Varalakshmi marry secretly. She returns to her home until the time is right. After a nasty confrontation with Varalakshmi’s family (the feud subplot again – it turns out she is his cousin) Veera’s father dies, and Veera goes to reclaim his bride and assert his rights. It was all getting really interesting. So Ramana who by now knows she is secretly married kidnaps Varalakshmi and there is only one way to settle this.

The ending was just silly, and not at all dramatic. We don’t want to tell all, but will give you a hint – they should have had Phil Liggett doing the commentary.

We loved, really loved, the songs on the big screen. The cinematography is just stunning and makes the most of every scene. The lighting and colours were just perfect – things looked sun bleached and warm, with beautifully intense hues to accent the scenes. The production design overall was a real plus.

Praneetha was very good as the sparky Varalakshmi. Her entrance (to Ring Ringa from Arya 2) was just fantastic and her dancing was so much fun to watch we just wanted to join in! Siddharth was full of energy, sometimes maybe too much, but gave it everything. His scenes with his friends and Varalakshmi showcased his cheeky smile and flirtatious eyes and the emotional scenes with his family let him use a bit more of his dramatic range. Brahmi and Ali did their thing and got lots of laughs. We did like the fact that we have to see the bald spot to verify that it really truly is Brahmi.  And the guys who played… well the guys in the village who were Veera’s friends were lots of fun. Extra special bonus points for having Chiru appear on screen during a scene set in a cinema!

We have the feeling that the film would be much  improved with a better plot structure and a few edits (as well as a much better climax scene) but have to reserve judgement til the DVD is available.

Brindaavanam

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We can now confidently state that at least in Melbourne fans of one star do not seem to watch the films of another star.  As we picked up our tickets for this week’s adventure without subtitles, we encountered more questions about whether we were in the right cinema, and concern that we were about to see a film that we wouldn’t understand.  This is despite being at the same cinema at the same time every time there is a new release. We did advise everyone that we knew there were no subtitles and that it was in Telugu.  They did seem reasssured when we were able to name the stars in Brindaavanam. So we were given our tickets and took our place in the theatre.

The film opens with a typical hero entrance by Tarak and an awesome fight scene which included some nifty bike moves.  Tarak, as Krish, is the son of a wealthy industrialist and lives a privileged life lacking for nothing.  He also has a girlfriend who is allegedly studying engineering but looks more like a fashion model in the form of Indu, played by Samantha.  For some reason she asks Krish to help her college friend Bhumi fend off an unwelcome suitor by pretending to be Bhumi’s boyfriend.  Now everyone knows this is a really bad idea, but perhaps she thought that her friend was too traditional to appeal to the sophisticated Krish.  It did seem strange that the two were friends, since they appeared quite different in their clothes and attitude, but perhaps this was explained in the dialogue. Or not.

Off our hero goes, leaving behind his fancy cars and superbikes to take a bus into the countryside. There was an opportunity for another fight scene using the bus as a weapon, which was great fun, and there were machetes galore to our amusement.

When they finally reach their destination, Brindaavanam, we find out that it is a beautiful house sumptuously decorated and furnished, but home to an unhappy family, divided and feuding with itself.  Krish resembles Krishna – flirting with the girls, alternately charming and infuriating the family members, pulling practical jokes, fighting, dancing and generally stirring up mischief while also righting wrongs.

Prakash Raj with the ‘Amrish Puri Eyeballs of Hate’ (TM PPCC) plays the head of one branch of the family, while Srihari heads up the other side.  Their father is the only one who can talk to both sides of the family as everyone else communicates by machete and there are many convoys of black jeeps travelling over the bridge between the two houses.

The wardrobe department excelled once again. There are two brothers who have an amazing array of psychedelic shiny shirts, possibly the left overs from Solomon in MAGADHEERA, worn in combination with clashing lunghis.  Venu Madhav plays another member of the family with the same bad taste in outer wear, while Krish has an impressive selection of T-shirts and stripey jumpers.

The set design is just stunning, especially the interiors. There is also a veritable Noah’s ark of animals featured including chickens, geese, cows, goats, a turtle and even rabbits!  We did have to pity the poor animal wrangler who obviously had instructions along the lines of – just get the goats to run through here in a diagonal line between the dancers.

The dancing is excellent, although there was a little too much of skanky skin show in the first number. The visual effects and editing in the song picturisations were impressive and really suited the music.  We liked the songs before seeing the film, and they improved on screen with the expected excellent choreography and brilliant dancing by Tarak.  We did particularly like the bouncing men in their over large straw hats in the Eyi Raja song, and the colourful Vachadura. The traditional appearance of NTR via special effects was used very well and provided a fun conclusion to the film.

The dialogue was obviously very amusing as the audience was laughing throughout the speeches, and we suspect that there were a lot of older filmi dialogues included.  The second half did drag a little as the story was reiterated a few times as the various characters found out about Krish’s charade, but there was some excellent emoting from Srihari and Prakash Raj to make up for this.  In fact, Prakash Raj got to balance his Eyeballs of Hate with his excellent Googly Eyes of Love. Ajay was in great fighting form as the crazy suitor, but once again was destined not to get Kajal as his bride.  Tarak gives a high energy performance, with his usual excellence in dancing and physical scenes.  Both female leads fit their characters well despite those characters lacking any depth. Prakash Raj and Srihari make the most of their roles as feuding brothers.  The action sequences, by Peter Hein with a special fight choreographer also credited, were awesome, with plenty of bodies exploding from the inevitable jeep convoys, and machetes in practically every scene.

This was a good all round entertainer of a film.  We enjoyed it, and the audience’s reaction to the appearance of Brahmi’s bald spot!  We give this film 4 stars!