Tag Archives: Kajal Agarwal

Maattrraan

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I’m a big fan and I expect a lot from K.V. Anand and his writing team of Subha but sadly Maattrraan fails to deliver despite the presence of two Suriya’s, the hint of a good story and the best efforts of all the cast.  I was expecting the worst when I read about that the plot involved conjoined twins since anything even vaguely medical in Indian cinema is always replete with the totally impossible and that’s exactly the case here.  As if the ridiculous medical themes weren’t enough to deal with, the second half also has plot holes and inconsistencies big enough to swallow a small asteroid while it treads a well-worn path without any real excitement or tension. Just to cap it all off, Maattrraan also has one of the most ridiculous and unsatisfactory endings I’ve ever seen in a Tamil film!

It’s not all bad though.  The first half is generally entertaining and the interaction between the twins is engaging, but when the best chemistry in the whole film is between Suriya and himself then you know things aren’t looking good.

Suriya plays conjoined twins Akilan and Vimalan, who are almost separate, but can’t actually be separated because they only have one heart between them – which is only the start of the questionable medical statements.  Vimalan is intelligent, quiet and studious and completely different from his drinking, smoking and music-loving brother. They tend to overlook the fact that only having one heart means they share the same blood supply so if one twin was blind drunk, the other one would be intoxicated too, but logic never really intrudes on their relationship.  The differences between the two would have worked well for two fifteen years olds but seemed a little out of place in two grown men, especially since Akilan seems to be channeling late seventies Rod Stewart most of the time.

But the relationship between the brothers is the best part of the film and Suriya convincingly plays the part of the conjoined twins making them seem real rather than the product of a special effects team.  The twins are the offspring of Ramachandran (Sachin Khedekar), a genetic scientist who was forced out of Russia by the end of the cold war.  After some financial difficulties he set up the increasingly successful business of Energion, an energy drink for kids which consistently outsells and out performs all its competitors.  Add in a suspected Russian spy who is actually a journalist reporting on the connection between Energion and a health supplement which had serious side effects in a group of young Russian athletes and the scene is set for some dodgy chemistry and dubious genetic manipulation.

The film tries to ramp up into an action thriller, but since we know the villain is the rather mild-mannered Ramachandran along with his faithful side-kick Dinesh (Ravi Prakash) there aren’t many thrills to be had.  The fight scenes, especially one at the end of the first half between the twins and an assortment of thugs in an amusement park, seem to drag on forever. Perhaps it’s the challenge of the conjoined twins but even in the later fights, Peter Hein’s choreography isn’t as effective as usual.

There doesn’t seem to be any real reason for Akilan and Vimalan to be conjoined twins other than a gimmick to grab our attention.  It’s difficult to tell without understanding the dialogue, but there wasn’t enough in their relationship to fully explain why most of the budget had to be spent on creating the duplicate Suriya effect.  Especially since the rest of the film seems to have suffered as a result.  K. V. Anand films usually have great explosions, thrilling chase scenes and innovative fight sequences, but here the best of them are muted and the helicopter crash in particular is a rather damp squib.  Two brothers would have worked just as well, and although I get the nod to the fact that their father was a genetic scientist and the sequences with Akilan missing Vimalan in the second half were good, it wasn’t enough for me to justify the conjoined aspect.

Kajol Agarwal plays the role of Anjali, who starts off interested in Vimalan but then seems to change her allegiance to Akilan without too much distress in the second half.  Rather more believably, Anjali is a Russian interpreter which at least allows her to feature occasionally in the action and Kajol is fine in her role. Since the other female protagonist is the rather stilted and uncomfortable-looking Russian journalist, Kajol is also the better dancer which gives you a clue that the dance sequences aren’t anything too great either.  Even Suriya appears awkward for most of the choreography and the best thing about the songs are Kajol’s beautiful saris and skirts.  One song appears to have been shot in the Fjords in Norway and the scenery is absolutely stunning but also totally overshadows any hint of romance between Suriya and Kajol.

The basic story could have worked well, but it’s buried underneath all the CGI and far too many irrelevant trimmings that work against building excitement or tension as the plot unfolds.  Suriya is excellent and worth watching but that’s not enough to hold Maattrraan together. If you can watch with a willingness to completely suspend disbelief and don’t mind the constant clichés then this is probably a film that you will enjoy.  Otherwise wait for the DVD where judicious use of the FF button will likely make Maattrraan more watchable.

Business Man

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It started with text messages late at night. Then waiting while someone had a muttered conversation with the boss. Then the secret password (my name!). Finally a minion delved into a concealed pocket, and handed over tickets for the sold out opening show of Business Man! Armed with a stash of paper strips we made our way into the packed cinema and sat in the third row among some diehard fans, ready for an up-close Big Mahesh film experience. We’d been told that US prints were subtitled and were hopeful we would also get subs – but it was not to be so we enjoyed another Adventure without Subtitles.

Business Man is a beautiful looking film directed with verve and confidence, and performed with commitment. The lighting and composition of each frame is superb. The editing, the effects the action sequences and the dialogues are zingy and zesty. The story is simple but it’s sustained and isn’t lost in the rich visuals. Mahesh Babu is a perfect fit for the pivotal role. He delivers a ruthless, brooding characterisation rounded out by some sharp humour and a bit of romance.

The basic story is easy to follow. Surya (Mahesh Babu) moves to Mumbai and proceeds to take over the criminal underworld. He is a logical and determined man who runs his gang as a business. They have defined tasks, get paid regularly and follow his orders. Surya is all about power not money, and lives quite simply. He is fair in his own way and wins grassroots support with some calculated acts designed to cement his place in the community. His motivation becomes clear as the action unfurls. And as for his methods – Guns don’t need agreements. Surya is an anti-hero in many respects, and a lot of what he does is reprehensible. He does offer some form of vigilante justice and fair treatment which contrasts with the corrupt politicians and ineffectual police.

Sayaji Shinde and Prakash Raj play politicians and power brokers with connections. Both are predictably competent without being exceptional. Sayaji Shinde is easily duped, but Prakash Raj has a history with Surya that sets up the climax of the film.

Once Mumbai is under control, Surya expands his business model nationally and is a serious threat in the political power struggle. Prakash Raj decides to nip this in the bud to assure his own position. This confrontation is just what Surya wanted, and so we rocket along to the gore splattered conclusion.

Nasser is a Police Commissioner and Kajal is his daughter Chitra. We debated whether Surya had engineered a meeting with Chitra so that their relationship started as a subterfuge but then developed into something genuine. Surya views the police as he does the politicians and the local goondas – they’re all just assets or liabilities in his business model. He seems to commit wholesale slaughter with remarkable ease. In fact the only ‘crime’ he commits that draws any police attention is fancying Chitra – that’s when the cops with guns turn out in force.

Brahmaji plays Surya’s sidekick but he merges back into the team as the story progresses. Subbaraju is wonderful as Prakash Raj’s enforcer. He is menacing and hilarious, and matches Mahesh’s intensity. There is a very funny scene where Subbaraju keeps trying to reload his gun as all hell breaks loose. It sounds like nothing much, but his fumbling shtick is hilarious and also contributes to the scene. The comedy emerges from characters and situations so it doesn’t slow the action. But WTF was going on with the dubbing for Ayesha (Chitra’s friend, played by Ayesha Shiva)? The voice, accent and dialogue delivery was terrible and too bad to even be funny. I don’t think her acting was much either, but the voice dominated her performance. Mahesh Babu is a really good comic actor and his reactions are priceless in some scenes, particularly with Dharmavarapu Subramanyam and with Kajal. We really wished for subtitles as the dialogue had the audience in stitches, athough the puns and wordplay never translate so well.

Kajal and Mahesh had good rapport and judging by the audience reaction some of his lines were quite naughty. A lot of the dialogue was bleeped so I missed an opportunity to learn some handy curses. I was perturbed by one romantic song which is set up when a driver (a cameo by Puri Jagannadh) chloroforms Chitra and delivers her to Surya. It was meant to be funny rather than a scary abduction, but so very wrong. Next thing she is unconscious on a huge bed and wearing a very sparkly saree. Kajal and Mahesh have some chemistry, especially in her few conscious intervals in that song. Many of their scenes together had a lively and spontaneous feel, and they made a nice looking couple. There is a fleeting kiss which elicited a deathly silent non-reaction from the audience. She had little to do but scream and cry, but I think this is one of her better efforts. And she didn’t get slapped around.

SS Thaman hasn’t done anything amazing with the soundtrack, but the brassy theme underscoring some of the action is great. The choreography was less delightful. The choreo in Sir Osthara was strange, mostly synchronised hand waving and a little bit of prancing so basic even Kajal could keep up.

Pilla Chao is fun, but reminiscent of the Ministry of Silly Walks with festive Santa backing dancers. The Mahesh Fan had a theory about the costumes. She thinks Puri Jagannadh said ‘If my wardrobe dude can have his way with you in the song picturisations, you can wear your own clothes and normal haircut for the rest of the film’. And I think she might be right.

Mahesh does look slightly taken aback by the ice cream colour themed outfits and blue suede shoes but he generally wears plain dark shirts and jeans. It’s an unfussy yet multi-layered look for a man who means business but doesn’t mind flaunting a bit of elbow and the merest hint of chest hair.

The censorship was really odd. Lots of dialogue was bleeped or muted, but I could easily substitute likely profanities. And the dancers – especially the skanky white chicks – were occasionally blurred out. In most scenes they were unobscured so the costumes and choreography were obvious and we couldn’t discern a substantial difference between the clear shots and those that had been censored.

Some angles were obviously a bit more ‘down the choli’ but most seemed to be similar. The Telugu film industry hires many female performers solely for their looks and physique, so it seems strangely prudish to censor some of the flesh some of the time. Who are they kidding?

Yes it defies logic, gravity and many other laws but Business Man never pretends to be a gritty realistic story. It’s a kickarse action film made with great style, a cracking pace and a star who can switch from baby faced killer to baby faced hero with a killer sense of humour. Highly recommended and a resounding 5 stars from me!

Heather says: Opening night of any Mahesh film is always worthwhile, no matter how good or bad the film, since the cinema is packed and there are plenty of enthusiastic and noisy fans – which includes The Mahesh Fan and us.  And to our delight, this turned out to be a very Mahesh-centric film. He was in almost every shot and the story very firmly revolved around Surya and his business model version of rowdyism. This had the slightly  unfortunate side effect that no-one else got very much to do, which was somewhat disappointing because the other actors were all so very good. Chitra’s friend the very glaring exception. Brahmaji as Surya’s friend started out well with some presumably funny lines, but was quickly sidelined and hardly appeared for the rest of the film. And although Nasser, Sayaji Shinde and Prakash Raj popped up now and again to provide more motivation for one of Surya’s awesome action scenes there didn’t seem to be much explanation of exactly why they acted the way they did. Although that could of course just be the lack of understanding the dialogues on my part. I totally agree with Temple that Subbaraju has some of the best moments in the entire film and I enjoyed many of the other support gangsters who had excellent expressions during some of the fight scenes.

Mahesh does do ‘angry’ very well, and he seemed to be alternating between simmering and boiling for most of the film which did get a little wearing towards the end.  There was quite a lot of comedy in there too judging by the audience reaction, but this was mostly in the dialogue so I missed most of it. However the interplay between Surya and Chitra did have some very funny moments which came through loud and clear. I really liked Kajol here and thought she was in her element when she was angry and snapped back at Surya – it felt very authentic! She was animated and likeable throughout although does lose points for having an incredibly irritating and annoying friend. I really couldn’t understand why Chitra stayed with Surya since she obviously abhorred his gangster life style and the chloroform incident was just plain creepy. But otherwise I enjoyed the romance aspect of the film and I think it will be even better when I can understand the dialogue.

The Businessman is a very slick and well made film which looked fabulous and played to Mahesh’s strengths. Less bizarre and quite frankly pointless censoring, better choreography and a little more of the support actors and it would have been totally perfect.

Naan Mahaan Alla

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Naan Mahaan Alla is the fourth film release for Karthik Sivakumar (aka Karthi) and the second for writer director Susindran. The film starts off as a romance but ends up as more of a crime thriller, with Karthi’s character the main connecting factor.  As such, it’s very much a film of two halves and I find it disjointed as a result. However there are some good moments as Karthi puts in a strong performance and Kajal is entertaining while she is around.  I like that the film is set and filmed in downtown Chennai, as it means there are locations that I recognise from my trips to the city. It makes parts of the film feel more realistic, and considering it’s supposed to be based on a true incident is probably  Susindran’s intention.

It starts with an attack and implied gang rape of a girl by a group of pot-smoking, drunken college students who seem to routinely indulge in these vices. The attack occurs by the beach and the use of buildings apparently damaged by the tsunami for this adds to the bleakness and harshness of the scene .

Up to this point it looks as if the film will be a gritty crime drama, but after this short but brutal introduction, the film switches gears completely and concentrates on the romance between Jeeva (Karthi) and Priya (Kajal Agarawal).  The two meet at the wedding of a mutual friend and Jeeva is immediately enamoured with Priya.

Priya is  intrigued by Jeeva’s practical and down to earth manner and the two quickly progress to a relationship. There are complications though. Priya’s father is a lawyer and isn’t impressed by his potential future son in law, despite agreeing that if Jeeva gets a job he will reconsider their possible marriage in 6 months time.  In a rather unlikely scenario he goes so far as to call in crime boss Kutty Natesan to ‘persuade’ Jeeva to look elsewhere. This technique fails when Jeeva and Natesan end up becoming friends, which is just as unlikely but does give Jeeva a much needed ally in the second half of the film.

The romance between Jeeva and Priya is sweet and more realistically depicted than usual for a filmi love story. Kajal and Karthi have good chemistry with each other and their relationship is convincing in its simplicity. There is perhaps a little too much time spent establishing that Jeeva is a nice guy, blowing kisses at babies and buying chocolate for sick kids, but Karthi does a good job with his guy-next-door role. Kajal is lovely, looks the part and never has to dance which, along with a generally good wardrobe selection, makes her look more elegant.  I really like her here and it’s a shame that she doesn’t have more to do, although I do appreciate that Susindran didn’t just add in a heroine to make her another victim later on in the film.

Having set up the relationship between Jeeva and Priya, post interval the story switches back to the gang of youths from the opening sequence and basically ignores the romance for the rest of the film. Interestingly Susindran reportedly found a few of the actors he cast as the students when they were standing on a street in Chennai, although Vinod Kishan has played the role of a murderer before as  the young Suriya in Bala’s Nandha. Despite, or perhaps as a result of their collective lack of experience, the guys playing the murdering students really were effective in their roles as ruthless, callous killers and Susindran’s selection process seems to have worked. There is another first time actor, as the role of Natesan is played by cinematographer Arulhdass who also does a great job in front of the camera.  However despite good performances by all involved, the story starts to lose its way in the second half as there are a number of inconsistencies and gaping holes in the plot.

Jeeva’s father is a taxi driver and gets involved in a peripheral way with the gang’s abduction and murder of yet another girl and her partner.

The gang dismember the bodies and throw them into the local tip in various separate bags. The guys don’t seem to be at all disturbed by chopping up two bodies, one of whom is supposedly a friend (unlike similar scenes in the 1994 film Shallow Grave which has my favourite realistic body disposal scene) and are also not concerned about betrayal by each other. Perhaps a bit more depth to the characters of the students here would have helped to make the story more convincing but as it is they appear only as disposable and interchangeable as all villains seem to be. Despite all their efforts, it’s not long before the police discover various body parts, although there is no mention of why the investigating officers decide to look so closely at the tip.  It looks as if they use a local dump to film the search and discovery scenes here and it’s so vivid with the flies and piles of rubbish that I could almost smell it.

The gang decide that Jeeva’s father may be able to identify them so take the rather drastic step of organising his murder. Unlike their previous crimes, for this one they need the Dhana’s uncle, a plan drawn in chalk on the floor and a cyanide painted shard of glass.  It all seems excessive and the set up for the murder takes up a lot of the second half. The issue of Jeeva’s father recognising them seems too contrived as the gang appear more self-centred and focused on entertaining themselves rather than concerned. Besides, if Dhana just cut his hair I’m pretty sure he would be much less memorable.

The plan (which apparently could only have been thought of by one of 4 master criminals in all of Chennai), does work and a devastated Jeeva takes it on himself to discover the identity of his father’s killers. Karthi is just as good here in the action sequences as he was in the earlier romantic scenes even though he’s now in a different film and seems to be playing a changed character.

It seems as if Susindran couldn’t decide if he wanted to make an action thriller or a romance. Rather than combining the two together he splits the film into two distinct stories with very different approaches which means that neither is particularly satisfying. I think that the romance in the first half works better than the action of the second as the interactions between Jeeva, Priya, their families and friends are well depicted. Of course that could also just be because I prefer a romantic storyline, but while the action starts off well it just becomes too fanciful to maintain the suspense. It’s hard to believe that by himself Jeeva could take on a gang of youths who’ve managed to eliminate some of the top rowdy’s in Chennai, and for me his final actions don’t fit at all with the characterisation developed earlier in the film.

Despite the issues I have with the story, there are a number of good points to the film and a number of very well shot scenes. For a change there isn’t an irritating comedy track, and the performances by all the actors are consistently good. Jayaprakash as Jeeva’s father Pragasam does appear to be an older version of his son with similar views and approach to life, and the relationship between the two is well portrayed. There are only 3 songs in the film but the music by Yuvan Shankar Raja is beautiful. More would have been good, although the background score is also excellent.

The idea of trying to make a film around the crime statistics from any major city in the world to-day is a good one but the depiction of the characters and the development of their part of the plot doesn’t live up to the promise of the initial opening scenes. Susindran tries a different approach and while his picturisation of the seedier side of Chennai falters, Madhi’s cinematography does reveal a more realistic take on the city. Worth a watch at least once for Karthi and Kajal, and skip the second half if you want to avoid the violence and unlikely storyline. 3 ½ stars

Temple says: Considering all the rape and murder going on, I found this film surprisingly tedious. I think the problem was Karthi’s character or performance as to me it was more like a succession of performances than a rounded character with depth or variation. Jeeva started out a smart mouthed manipulator and charmer who could talk his way in and out of trouble, before suddenly becoming a total innocent who believed everything he was told and had none of the insight he had earlier demonstrated, then he was a breathless and gushing fan of an admitted killer, the next incarnation was a serious young man who had learned the value of money through just a small taste of having to shop and pay bills, and finally he became the invincible and implacable hero. None of these segments felt connected with the others, and I was completely disengaged from his character after a while. I’m not sure whether it was the performance or the writing that missed the mark – I think both, although I have liked Karthi in other films. The first half is all about the romance and Kajal is quite effective as the likeable but kind of stupid heroine. Priya is indecisive and eager to please so never knows or voices what she really wants – a flaw Jeeva points out several times as he also tells her what to do.  Kajal and Karthi have nice chemistry, but as Priya disappears for the second portion of the film, there is no point getting too attached to the lovey-dovey pair.

The crime and revenge plot is also patchy. The gang is initially shown as a bunch of drug fuelled opportunists under the leadership of a psycho.  Somehow despite their poor impulse control they manage to cobble together and execute a ridiculously complex plan to eliminate Jeeva’s dad.  The finale is too long, too improbable and as I couldn’t relate to Jeeva it lacked emotional intensity.

The performances are mostly fine, it’s a technically well made film, but it’s a bit hollow for me. 2 stars.