Tag Archives: Brahmi!

Stuartpuram Police Station

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Life sometimes throws disappointments my way; shoes that I love on sale but not in my size, clothes with fake pockets, and now Stuartpuram Police Station.

Despite having a top notch cast that includes pretty much everyone you’d expect to see in a 1991 mass film and a good story, which he wrote, Yandamoori Veerendranath makes a muddled mess of a movie.

Rana Pratap (Chiranjeevi) is an honest cop who believes in justice. He returns to his home town of Stuartpuram to find that crooks run the show, and the police are their stooges. This will not do. No. Well, eventually. When Rana Pratap takes time to focus on The Law and not so much on The Ladies. His affections are divided between Alaknanda (Vijayashanti), a sweet and religious girl who is prone to fainting and bursts of focussed violence, and Nirosha, local thief and girl about town.

Chiranjeevi’s introduction was cleverly done through a close up of a very high tech cassette Walkman and headphones. It could only be CHIRU!!!! listening to Sunny by Boney M. So appropriate and yet that levity is not carried through. Rana Pratap is quite dour, and fluctuates between obsessing about how to get his hands on the baddies and obsessing about how to get his hands on Alaknanda. He does all the things that in a non-hero would be called villainous. He bribes a priest to give Alaknanda false advice. He uses Nirosha to set up various criminals and to populate his dance sequences. But really it’s all about loving your family. Rana Pratap’s father was a falsely convicted thief, framed by the same crooked politicians and the like who are still running the show. And Rana had to watch his dad be hanged. So he has a lot of emotional baggage and a reason to want to bring justice to his home.

This is clearly in dire need of Mega Justice. Chiru has good hero skills. He can shoot a knife being thrown at him out of the air, catch it and throw it back at his assailant. The action sequences have their moments but often make even less sense than you’d expect from what is a fairly sane storyline. Rana is lured out to a deserted factory complex where Alaknanda is being molested by a gang of rowdies. Soon Chiru is also tied up but for some reason, perhaps union rules, the rowdies stop rowdying to go get drunk and presumably more rowdy. He coaches Alaknanda to lure them over with some wiggling and grimacing so he can…blatantly chew through the ropes on his wrists and then go the biffo. Perhaps he could have just done that himself without placing her in even more peril. However I liked the way she head-butted one guy who tried to kiss her so the scene is not without compensations. A bit of a drawn out but still fun fight scene ensues and then he…shoots Alaknanda free because who wants to walk a whole 3 metres to safely untie her bonds. A fight with the Big Baddie takes place in an abandoned warehouse full of gas cylinders. What could possibly go wrong! The gas is more of a dry ice fog and the villain decides fighting half naked and wearing a hockey mask is the go. WHY?!?! And Chiru keeps most of his kit on, WHY!?!?!

On the downside Rana Pratap also has the slap happy intolerance for criticism that comes with being a Mass hero and even belts Alaknanda. Not cool. Rana Pratap is a role Chiru can play in his sleep. Perhaps he did. It took 2 hours before Chiru let rip with the one decent “you bastard!” of the film. And it took some major carnage for Rana Pratap to realise that perhaps this story was bigger than just him.

Other than the actual plot Rana Pratap is fixated on that old chestnut. Does he want an angel in the streets or a devil in the sheets? Both? Neither? A little from column A and a little from column B? He certainly makes no secret of his interest in Alaknanda but he doesn’t exactly chase Nirosha away. And he seems even less decisive when they try to swap characteristics. They just don’t understand how this works – he doesn’t want one woman who is everything, he wants all the women who add up to nothing.

Alaknanda is a frustrating character. On the one hand she is religious to the point of it becoming superstition. On the other hand, her credulity allows her to believe Rana Pratap’s rev up speech and go beating up a load of sleazy men at the market.

I feel Vijayashanti really put her all into belting a bloke with a whole bunch of bananas. Being such a delicate young lady, Chiru had to tell Alaknanda where the guy’s nuts were of course. But she quickly learned to stand up for herself, kick arse and take names. She was essential to defeating the baddies in fact. However Rana basically conned Alaknanda into sneaking into his bed, so he is bad news for some forms of agency.

Nirosha is a good match for Chiranjeevi in many ways. She wears fancy high heeled boots even when climbing trees. She likes denim and he loves denim. She steals his uniform and dresses up as Rana Pratap. The lower Rana Pratap unbuttons his shirt the more effective he seems to be at fighting crime and the lower Nirosha unbuttons hers the more compelling her arguments become. They both have higher Brahmi tolerance than I do. And she is game with the choreography, even though their first duet looks more like assorted penguin courtship rituals than The Art of Dance.

Song wise I think Nirosha might in front because she gets to be in the craptacular Bank of Beauty song, which is Chiru’s blingiest and most fun number for this film. She and Alaknanda were both instrumental in the big finale, and it was nice to see the nominal bad girl might have a bright future.

There are really no surprises in the story. Some scenes appear to be hamfisted attempts to recreate something that took Yandamoori’s eye in another movie and that are not really necessary. The flashbacks are long and misjudged. The fight scenes and some of the violence is quite graphic as people are stabbed, shot, set on fire or hacked at with axes and yet it lacks impact in a dramatic sense. Also the framing is often odd, with all the people crammed in to one corner of the screen or missing the top of their heads, with occasional weird jerky transitions and they stealthily try and get everyone back in the shot. Despite all the mayhem, it’s not compelling unless Chiru is on the screen. And even then it’s a struggle to go the distance with this film.

The cast is solid, the idea was good. What a shame. 2 ½ stars!

Bonus pic – this might have been a reasonable cake. But a baddie had to spoil everything by cutting it with a knife coated in blood. Sigh. Another waste of effort.

Trinetrudu (1988)

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A 1988 remake of a Hindi “remake” of Beverly Hills Cop, A Kodandarami Reddy’s Trinetrudu is pure mass with the minimum of logic and the maximum recommended allowance of biffo and heroics. Happy Megabirthday 2018!

The story opens with a CBI officer (Nagendra Babu) finding a secret lair in an ashram. DD (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) runs the ashram, and is using it as a cover for exporting “Brown Sugar” hidden inside corpses and, I think, harvesting organs for sale on the black market. A man in a spectacular jumpsuit – my heart leapt for an instant as I wondered if it was Chiru, the outfit is THAT good/bad – kills the officer and business goes on as usual. But the CBI is not done, and despite a frosty relationship with the local police they send another man, possibly their best or maybe not; Abhimanyu (Chiranjeevi). Abhimanyu seems not very good at following police processes, and technically he kidnaps his boss, so I do question his ongoing employment as a law enforcement officer. But he’s Chiru so they let him do what he wants. Evildoers and anyone with flimsy furniture beware!

It’s interesting to see the portrayal of drug culture. Abhimanyu heads to Goa and is met by a local police officer (Satynarayana Kaikala). On the drive home, they are surrounded by scraggly white backpacker types who chatter and shake the car, like super-sized monkeys, demanding money. But the addicts in the drama are children, including Abhimanyu’s little brother who overdosed and died, and his love interest Pratyusha’s little brother. Pratyusha (Bhanupriya) is a doctor or at least someone who wears a white coat and wanders around a hospital. And the hospital proves to be a critical piece of the puzzle as Abhimanyu closes in on DD and the body count starts to rise.

DD is a modern villain with lots of gadgets to help automate his lair and people management responsibilities. He sends disappointing gang minions down the slippery dip of doom, into a cage where their certain death awaits. It’s quite impressive. That jumpsuit guy must be sore and cranky if he’s usually suspended on a bungee in the cage, waiting to do his murderous thing. And what lair would be complete without snakes, and a remote controlled electrified bird cage to contain your adversaries.

Bhanupriya is in good form as Pratyusha. She gets to show a little more than just be a love interest although ultimately she is shuffled to the sidelines so Chiru can get on with being Chiru. But Pratyusha has a profession and family and ideas about her own life. I liked that Pratyusha had no truck with Abhimanyu’s pathetic attempts to engineer a meeting with her. She was quite happy to call him out or to call the local comedy police out to get rid of him. But once they compared notes on the various overdoses and murders, she realised he wasn’t just a weirdo and started having elaborate dance fantasies. And that unleashed the creativity of the wardrobe department.

Abhimanyu has a theme song that calls him Superman and Supreme Hero. There are fights and chases and dances and more fights and gadgets and snippets of ideas from Bond films and explosions and fights galore. All the signs point to Awesome. Chiru gets to do all the hero things in this role from suave ladies man to bumbling Clouseau-esque policeman to dashing stunts, daring escapes, and martial arts-ish fights.

While there is very little of realism in this film, I liked the touch of verisimilitude as Abhimanyu on stakeout looks bored and grumpy and stress eats bananas. And of course if someone bills themselves as a local Michael Jackson, look out – you’ve invited trouble!

There are some other excellent outfits, including this hat.

Sadly for Abhimanyu, the hat completely failed as a disguise and he ended up drugged and tied to the railway tracks. Adding insult to injury, he was rescued by Tony (Brahmi, with comedy teeth). But generally Abhimanyu gets himself into and out of hot water with no assistance required. The fight scenes are high on “Karate” and low on gravity. Perfect.

Abhimanyu swears a bit, and Chiru delivers every epithet with delightfully plummy tones, enunciating each syllable lovingly and loudly. “BASTARD!” is on high rotation and he really does roar. But you know how it goes. One minute you’re prancing around swearing with vim and vigour, next you’re hurtling down the doom tube to the thunder dome to fight to the death to save your patient Ma (Annapurna).

At just under 2 ½ hours Trinetrudu is a little over long. But what to cut? I couldn’t bear to see the balloon escape go….or the bungee fight….or the hospital anaesthetic scuffle…

There’s no doubt as to how Trinetrudu is going to end, but it’s quite the ride to get there! 3 ½ stars!

 

Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

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Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

I really enjoyed Suriya’s latest movie, although I haven’t seen the original Special 26, and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was a rollicking heist movie, with Suriya playing a kind of modern-day Robin Hood, albeit in 1987, as he and his merry gang thieves disguise themselves as CBI officers to rob various high-profile victims of their ill-gained wealth. With Suriya on top form, the support cast generally excellent and plenty of humour in the engaging screenplay, Thaanaa Serndha Koottam is well worth catching in the cinema if you can.

The film is a remake of Neeraj Pandey’s 2013 hit, Special 26, although director Vignesh Shivan has apparently given it a Tamil twist. Both films are based on a real-life robbery that took place in Bombay in 1987, and Thaanaa Serndha Koottam is set in the same timeframe, allowing for some period features such as the white ambassador cars that Iniyan and his gang use to pose as Government officials, and posters of old films displayed in the background. It also means we get such delights as the costumes and sets in this wonderfully OTT song from Anirudh Ravichandra:

The story goes like this. Suriya is Iniyan, an aspiring CBI officer who is rejected for his dream job mainly because corrupt officer Uthaman (Suresh Chandra Menon) holds a grudge against his father (Thambi Ramaiah). At the same time, many of Iniyan’s friends are struggling to find work due to corruption within the system and the high bribes needed to secure a position. Iniyan’s solution is to gather together a team of like-minded people who are willing to take part in his audacious scheme to rob the rich. And because the money they steal hasn’t been declared to the government, the victims are unwilling to report the crime, ensuring that Iniyan and his team escape scot-free every time.

Iniyan then gives all his ill-gotten loot away, ensuring that his character keeps an altruistic image despite his criminal activities. As the heat builds in Tamil Nadu, the gang move their operations to Hyderabad where they can’t speak the language. I could totally relate to their default use of words they had learnt from Telugu movies, although I’ve never found it to work quite so well for me, and the resultant confusion is perfectly developed into a very funny scene. Brahmi makes an understated appearance as a Telugu CBI officer while the Charminar is visible in almost every shot to make sure we know the action is now happening in Hyderabad!

There is a romance too as Iniyan falls for a girl who is drawn into his schemes. He doesn’t ever seem to find out her name, and I wasn’t clear on her connection to the original robbery, although to be honest I suspect there may not actually be one. Keerthy Suresh is fine as Iniyan’s love interest but really has little to do apart from appear in the songs and create the odd diversion in the storyline.

Suriya, Keerthi Suresh in Thaana Serntha Koottam HD Photos

The rest of the gang get better characterisations and even some back story to flesh out their various personas. Ramya Krishnan in particular is fantastic here and makes a scarily believable CBI officer. As “Jhansi Rani’, she uses her piercingly chilling glare (perfected in Baahubali) to excellent effect as she storms into various establishments demanding they hand over their illegal savings. Then in a blink of an eye she becomes regular housewife Azhagu Meena, planning her eldest daughter’s wedding and dealing with her disabled husband. I love her in this role, and it’s fantastic to see her in such a strong and effective role that combines comedy and drama so well.

The others in the team, KP (Senthil), Ondi (Sivashankar) and Muthu (Sathyan) have smaller roles, but still add plenty of interest to the proceedings, and ensure that the team appears as a real gang rather than just an odd collection of people Iniyan has gathered together.

Against them are the real CBI officers and Kurunjivendhan (Karthik), an honest if somewhat overly enthusiastic police officer who helps Uthaman in his search. Nandha is also good in a small but important role as a rookie police officer who is conned by the gang while Yogi Babu, RJ Balaji and Anandaraj all have successful cameos.

Anirudh Ravichander just keeps producing the hits as he delivers yet another great soundtrack, managing to make the songs all sound as if they really do all come from the eighties. For the most part they’re well integrated into the film too with appropriate picturisation that suits the ambiance.

The only real miss in this film is the end, where the story switches gear and becomes a more typical Tamil herocentric finale with action, drama and a few too many pontificating speeches. It’s a disappointing end to an otherwise engaging film, but thankfully there are some last-minute shenanigans over the end credits to make the audience leave with a smile.

Overall this is a fun film and with such a great cast of characters and the always charismatic Suriya, Thaanaa Serndha Koottam turns out to be an enjoyable and overall very funny watch. Worth catching for Suriya, Ramya Krishnan and Anirudh’s soundtrack.