Tag Archives: Gayathrie Shankar

Vikram (2022)

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2022 is proving to be an excellent year for Indian cinema. Pushpa, RRR, KGF2 and now Vikram have really raised the bar and we’re only halfway through the year! In Vikram, Lokesh Kanagaraj delves back into the world he created with Kaithi and adds more threads to his tale of drug dealing, police corruption and gang warfare. With a who’s who of Southern Indian actors, an engrossing story and fabulous action sequences, Vikram is another ‘not to be missed’ film that deserves to be seen at the cinema.

The story begins with Police Chief Jose (Chemban Vinod Jose) bringing in a ‘black-ops’ team headed by an agent known only as Aram (Fahadh Faasil). The police have been sent a series of videos showing black-masked terrorists murder the local Head of Narcotics Stephen Raj (Hareesh Peradi), ACP Prabhanjan (Kalidas Jayaram) and Prabhanjan’s adopted father Karnan (Kamal Haasan). With the final murder seemingly unconnected, Aram immediately starts investigating Karnan, trying to find any possible link that might explain the deaths. His investigations reveal a man who had turned to drink and prostitutes after the death of his adopted son, but no link to the case Prabhanjan was involved with before his death. However, in the course of his inquiries, Aram discovers a missing shipment of drugs belonging to drug kingpin Sandhanam (Vijay Sethupathi) and identifies two more men involved with the drug trade who may be in danger. Veerapandian ((Gowtham Sundarajan) and Rudra Prathap (Aruldoss) are both likely targets as they reportedly know the location of the missing shipments, but despite the police, Sandhanam and Aram all trying to protect the men, the ‘men in black’ are hard to evade.

Aram and his men have no boundaries and as such threaten, beat and bully their way to the information required. Oddly, during the investigation Aram also marries Gayathri (Gayathrie Shankar) despite her ignorance about his real job and seeming unconcern about the man she finds being held prisoner in Amar’s offices. Apart from this one glimpse into a possible softer side, Fahadh Faasil’s Amar is as brutal and dangerous as the men he is seeking. As one of the top actors in the South, Fahadh Faasil is always impressive, but he is electrifying here to the point where he almost manages to steal attention away from Kamal Haasan. Fahadh’s body language, expressions and dialogue delivery are simply brilliant throughout and when his life starts to fall apart, his portrayal of a man at the limit of his ability to cope is excellent. One moment that really stands out is his absolute frustration when trying to resuscitate Prabhanjan’s young son which was simply perfect (standard filmi medical miracles aside of course). I also recognised the Queen of Subtitles rekhs as the dubbing voice for Dr Annie on the line assisting Amar with the process which added just the right note to the whole scene.

Vijay Sethupathi has played the role of a demented brutal gangster before, so the character of Sandhanam isn’t a stretch for him, but Vijay gives the character plenty of traits that set the gangster apart from his previous roles. Sandhanam has 3 wives, and there is an excellent montage where we see Sandhanam, his family and one of his wives practicing target shooting, perhaps to show he’s a supporter of equal opportunities for all. He certainly believes in keeping it in the family since his the main members of Sandhanam’s gang producing the drug supply are all from his large extended family, and he is ultra-protective of them, although happily expends his henchmen elsewhere when necessary. Able to switch between fake doctor, urbane businessman and unhinged gangster with a tendency to use his own product, Sandhanam is more complex than first appears and Vijay Sethupathi brings out all of these different facets of his character even with limited screen time.

Kamal Haasan is the focus of the film and despite not appearing much in the first half, his presence is still felt as the ghost manipulating much of the action. He is amazingly agile in the fight scenes, and if he appears rather less sprightly in an early dance sequence, there are reasons behind that which are revealed later in the story. This is another outstanding performance from one of the greats of Tamil cinema and he does not put a foot wrong. There is a good mix of humour in the dialogue too, and the addition of scenes with his family help to break up the actions sequences and add more fuel to the film’s fury. And if you thought Yash had a big gun in KGF2, think again – guns are so passé when you can have a cannon instead! The other support cast are also excellent from Narain reprising his role as Inspector Bejoy to Chemban Vinod Jose, Kalidas Jayaram, Sampath Ram and Ramesh Thilak. My favourite moment in the entire film comes from Agent Tina (Vasanthi) and I also loved the totally unhinged appearance by Suriya, who has a brief appearance at the end.

The action sequences here by Anbariv are excellent and Girish Gangadharan captures the effects beautifully. The scale of the film is huge with wide shots over the city of Chenni, massive gunfire and explosion sequences and then a total change to close-ups of Sandhanam’s gold teeth. Girish ensures it all looks stunning regardless. Even at 3 hours of runtime, nothing in the film drags and with Anirudh’s soundtrack underpinning the action and emotions of the film, the balance is perfect. Thanks to rekhs who has subtitled the entire film with perfect English although the use of ‘shucks’ and ‘crap’ as substitutes for the actual dialogue did make me smile. I’m assuming there is a censorship reason behind the change since the original words are clearly audible. Thanks too for the yellow font which is much more readable than white.

Vikram is high octane action with plenty of plot detail and connections that make the plot intriguing as well as exciting. The performances are uniformly excellent and I honestly think the film is many times better than anything I’ve seen from Hollywood in recent times. While a number of the characters from Kaithi resurface, Vikram is a self-contained story that can be enjoyed without having seen the earlier film, and the references aren’t so obscure that it’s impossible to work out previous links. I’m looking forward to the next instalment and seeing just what Lokesh Kanagaraj comes up with next in his mad and crazy world of drug lords and special agents.

Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren

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Arumuga Kumar’s debut movie Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren is a quirky comedy drama that’s a bit hit and miss. When it’s right, the film is pretty funny, but more often than not, the situations and the dialogue aren’t amusing at all, and it’s hard to know exactly what Arumuga Kumar was trying to achieve. It’s frustrating too since there are some good ideas that should have worked much better, mixed in with a few too many tired and clichéd scenes. According to the subtitles, the title means “I’ll tell you when the auspicious time is right”, and a number of the characters repeat this line at various intervals. Since it’s impossible to tell what is really going on for the first hour of the film, I was hoping that someone would finally decide that the auspicious time was right sooner rather than later, but it does all finally come clear at the end.

The film starts with a short astronomy and geography lesson voiced by Vijay Sethupathi, starting in deep space and finishing in a small village somewhere in Andhra Pradesh – Yamasingapuran. The village is inhabited by around 200 tribal villagers, who wear black, drape themselves in gold and worship Yama. They are led by Yeman (Vijay Sethupathi) and his mother Arumugakumar (Viji Chandrasekhar) who appear appropriately outlandish and over the top to rule a group of death-god worshipers somewhere out in the forest.

The villagers are a very proficient clan of thieves, and as their star performer, Yeman is sent to Chennai on a mission to steal more gold. Also, along on the trip are his two side-kicks, the competent if rather unenterprising Purushothaman (Ramesh Thilak) and Sathish (Daniel Annie Pope) – a bumbling failure whose antics must have sounded funnier on paper than they turn out on film.

While robbing a house in Chennai, Yeman spots a photograph of someone he calls Abhaayalakshmi, but who is actually Soumiya (Niharika Konidela), a fresher college student who is blissfully unaware of the existence of Yeman and Yamasingapuran. Unfortunately for her, she is about to become closely acquainted with both. Convinced that Soumiya is Abhaayalakshmi, Yeman and his inept associates fumble around using various ridiculous disguises in an attempt to ‘steal’ (ie kidnap) Soumiya and take her back to their village. Foiling their plans is Harish (Gautham Karthik) and his best friend Narasimhan (Rajkumar), for no real reason other than Harish finds Soumiya attractive.

Harish is a male version of a typical ditzy Tamil heroine, complete with half-baked ideas, ridiculous clothes that are totally unsuitable for a rescue mission to a forest, and an unnatural attraction to his sunglasses. This works well, for the most part, although some of the situations are too predictable to be funny, while others are simply not funny in the first place. However, there are some moments where dialogue, situation and character all come together and work perfectly – there just needed to be a few more of these. Gautham Karthik is fine but since his character is such an idiot it’s difficult to empathise and feel much connection to Harish. It’s quite a departure from his last role in Rangoon though and he doesn’t do badly with the comedy he has, so it will be interesting to see what he does next.

More reliably amusing is Vijay Sethupathi’s laconic portrayal of a desperate man in search of his long-lost bride. He gets to wear a succession of ridiculous wigs and costumes, but it’s the matter of fact attitude that Vijay Sethupathi exudes that makes his appearance so funny. Adding to this is his rationality when faced with all the absurdity of his mother, Harish and his misguided rescue attempt, and the multitude of mistakes made by Purushothaman and Sathish. Although Yeman is more subdued when in Chennai, once the action moves back to the village, the film does get funnier as everyone gets more and more outrageous.

Less successful are the characters of Narasimhan and Sathish. Both are bumbling idiots whose slapstick is presumably supposed to add more humour, but mostly falls flat while having two similar characters just makes it even more obvious that this type of comedy really isn’t funny. Both actors do their best with what they are given, but none of their dialogue is even remotely funny, and even their interactions with Harish and Yeman fail to raise more than the odd smile. I also have little to say about Niharika Konidela who didn’t live much of an impression at all. This is through no real fault of the actress, but she just had very little to do for most of the film.

Gayathrie Shankar is the one person who gets to play a reasonably straight role and she does it beautifully, making me wish that she had more to do in the film. She is so much better here than in her last outing with Vijay in Puriyaatha Puthir which has made me move Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom to the top of the ‘to-be-watched’ pile. While Gayathrie needs to ensure her character Godavari is relatively sensible to make the role work wihin the story, Viji Chandrasekhar needed to be crazier as Yeman’s mother Arumugakumar. Apart from a few wide-eyed stares, she’s actually quite restrained which is a shame since the film needed the sort of boost that only a totally OTT ma character can bring. A lost opportunity for sure!

Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren is a film that is funny in short bursts, and the overall impression is of a screenplay that didn’t get enough time to fully mature before being harvested for the big screen. Vijay Sethupathi is as watchable as ever and there are enough funny moments to make this worth seeing in the cinema, but expect to be mildly entertained rather than crying with laughter.