Tag Archives: Prabhu

Varisu

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Vamshi Paidipally is usually associated with films in Telugu but this time he’s worked with Thalapathy Vijay to make Varisu in Tamil. Thankfully, Varisu is better than Vijay’s last film, Beast, although I think it would be difficult to make a worse movie! Although the story here is nothing new and the setting in a rich and privileged family tends to grate, the songs are fun, the action plentiful and Vijay is in top form.

Vijay plays Vijay Rajendran, the youngest son of rich businessman Rajendran (R. Sarathkumar) who has incorporated his other two sons into his mining and shipping business. Vijay has been disinherited for refusing to take part in his father’s succession plans and has managed instead to develop a start-up company distributing food to people in need. His success is apparently down to an MBA degree, which magically seems to give him amazing knowledge and ability in business and ensures that everything he suggests works amazingly well. If only! Meanwhile, Rajendran has set up his other two sons to compete against each other to become his successor and run the business empire he has developed.

But all is not well in the Rajendran family. Eldest son Jai (Srikanth) is married to Aarthi (Sangeetha Krish) with a daughter Ria (Sanjana Tiwari) but is also having an affair with Smita (Nandini Rai). Middle son Ajay (Shaam) is happily married but is struggling with his work looking after his father’s interests at the dock and is in debt to a financier Mukesh (Ganesh Venkatraman) as he tries to develop his own business ideas to impress his father. To add to Rajendran’s woes, his wife Sudha (Jayasudha) is unhappy at the forced separation from her youngest son, and his chief rival Jayaprakash (Prakash Raj) is snapping at his heels at every possible opportunity. When his doctor, family friend Dr Anand (Prabhu) tells him he only has months to live it seems to final blow that will fracture the family beyond repair.

But of course that’s not going to happen – enter Vijay and his amazing business prowess to save the day. Naturally Vijay is also able to defeat thugs at the docks, run off a gang of people smugglers and otherwise destroy any and all attacks on the family, his father and himself. The film settles into the usual ‘Vijay as all conquering hero’ and we know that everything will work out all right. While Vijay saves the business, sorts out his brothers and rescues Ria from kidnappers, there are plenty of fight sequences, numerous songs and a brief romance with Divya (Rashmika Mandanna), Aarthi’s sister.

What works here are the songs and the action sequences. There are a lot of songs, which I suspect is to help offset the thinness of the plot. The music is by Thaman S with lyrics by Vivek, and together they have come up with toe-tapping numbers that fit into the film well. Vijay dances up a storm with Rasjmika and a large number of enthusiastic backing dancers, and the songs are full of energy, bursting with colour, and just lots of fun. Best of all, rekhs has managed to make the translated lyrics rhyme and actually sound like songs, which adds to the overall emotional lift of each number. Unfortunately though, the background music would have benefitted from being turned down a few notches and at times I really couldn’t make much out other than just noise.

The action sequences are also well choreographed and Vijay smoothly eliminates every villain that attempts to stop him on his path to the top. It all looks effortless, which I’m sure means there was a lot of work put into these sequences, and it pays off. Perhaps more surprising are the number of rather odd diversions in the story that appear to have been included solely to allow fight sequences to be added. For a corporate and family drama, there are a lot of moments where Vijay has to fight his way out of a corner and, although these action sequences are impressive, they mostly don’t fit well into the rest of the story.

More problematic though is the rest of the film. For a start there are outdated attitudes on view from most of the male characters, who have little time or thought for the women in their lives. As a result, most of the female characters are thinly drawn and leave little impression although to be fair, all of the cast outside of Vijay have minimal impact on the film. The romance with Rashmika Mandanna is over before it starts and she mainly just looks pretty in the songs. Jayasudha does the usual mom routine, but she’s mostly relegated to serving food and worrying about her husband and family. As the two brothers, Srikanth and Shaam have little to do before the interval and not much more in the second half. Even R. Sarathkumar and Prakash Raj, who should have been tearing up the screen with their rivalry, are both very much side-lined by Vijay and end up appearing ineffectual and almost irrelevant. Everyone except Vijay appears one dimensional, which further erodes any plausibility of the story. While Vijay is excellent, the hero-centric nature of the film even starts to dull his shine and it’s only the energy of the songs that keeps the film moving along. The second half does have more energy than the first, but by that stage I was getting tired of Vijay’s relentless ability to conquer every difficulty so easily. A little more failure would have stopped the character from being quite so insufferable by the end of the film.

In the midst of all this, I do have to mention that at least the subtitles were excellent. During the interval I realised that I hadn’t even realised I was reading subtitles at all for a change! Usually I’m distracted by poor grammar, spelling mistakes and odd phrasing, but rekhs and her team have added subs that are easily readable, accurate and which make total sense. It makes a huge difference to be able to concentrate fully on the action and not have part of my attention diverted by trying to work out what is being said.

This is Vijay’s film from start to finish and he’s in almost every frame. Like most of his more recent films, this is made for fans, and there are plenty of nods to previous Vijay films throughout (thanks rekhs for the handy notes in the subs for those of us who didn’t get all the references!). I enjoyed the songs and the action but the story needed more depth, as did the characterisations of the supporting cast. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s not Vijay’s best, despite his energetic performance. Entertaining for a one-time watch, but wait for streaming if you’re not a Vijay fan.

Darling

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Darling

My motivation for watching Darling was less in the expectation of experiencing an enthralling story (although I always live in hope) and much more based on being a Prabhas fan – which in hindsight was the right attitude to take.  Although the underlying themes of friendship and father-son relationships are reasonably well dealt with, the romance between the two leads follows a fairly dull and predictable path despite the attempt at a twist at the interval.  However Prabhas and Kajal are both entertaining to watch in spite of the inevitability of the storyline and for a romantic comedy, what it lacks in passion it more than makes up for in the humour.  Especially since for a change, the comedy is part and parcel of the story rather than a separate unfunny and irrelevant track.  Best of all, there is not even a sniff of Ali or Brahmi anywhere in the proceedings. There is plenty of Prabhas instead and really, that’s enough right there to make this a film worth watching!

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Prabhas is Prabha (why not just stick with Prabhas I wonder?), who is the devoted son of a loving father Hanumanthu (Prabhu).  The film opens with the last day of Hanumanthu’s time at college and the pledge of all the friends to meet up every 5 or 10 years to renew their friendship.  This opening section is all shot in black and white and the lack of colour ensures this section features some of the most conservative and tasteful outfits the men wear for the entire film, despite the fact that it’s set in the eighties.

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These reunions give the various families a chance to get to know each other too, and a young Prabha is smitten by Vishwanath’s daughter, Nandini.  However before love gets a chance to bloom, Nandini and her family move to Switzerland while Prabha grows up to celebrate his own last day at college with a similarly dedicated group of friends.  Although rather than vowing to meet up every few years, Prabha’s friends seem to be permanently welded to his side since they all come along for Hanumanthu’s latest big college reunion.  They all also play in a band together and seem to share Prabha’s (lack of) fashion sense (the manband!), although perhaps there is a rule that states if you are performing in a band scarves are obligatory.  The first half involves a side trip to Switzerland where amazingly everyone seems to speak Telugu, although given Dharmavarapu Subramanyam’s pronouncements that may not be quite so surprising.

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Prabha is hopeful that a meeting with Nandini will be enough to restart their love story, but there is a minor complication in the form of Nisha (Shradha Das in a very brief cameo) who is in love with Prabha.  Her father (Mukesh Rishi) is a local don and he is determined to ensure that his daughter gets whatever she wants even if that means forcing Prabha at gunpoint to marry his daughter.  Despite his threatening persona, Mukesh Rishi mainly plays his character for laughs and it’s fun to see him in this type of role blending mayhem with merriment and revealing a surprisingly sensitive soul.

While the main feature of the film is the romance between Prabha and Nandini, the relationships between the various older men are actually more interesting and appear more genuine.  Sure they’re cheesy, over-simplified and even a little too dramatic at times, but these moments give the film some much needed warmth.

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Prabhas seems to have been lumbered with a stylist that hates him, and in a complete reversal of normal, Kajal is the one who gets to wear much more reasonable outfits.  There are a few misses, after all this is Tollywood where apparently giving someone fairy wings means they are wearing a ‘holy dress’, but overall Kajal looks fantastic.  She also puts in a convincing performance although it would perhaps have made the story a little more interesting if there had been a difference in character between the dream Nadini of the first half, and the real Nandini in the second half.   Kajal throws herself into the dancing, and apart from one bizarre attempt at what I think was supposed to be Bharatanatyam (what were they thinking!!) the choreographer has stuck to her strengths and put her enthusiasm to good use.  There is plenty of hip shaking and arm waving but less actual dancing, so she looks more co-ordinated than usual.  The choreography is a little less successful for Prabhas, but then again I may just have been distracted by those hideous outfits.  This is a beautifully shot song that features the scenery of Switzerland morphing into Hyderabad and also some beautiful CGI scenes of snow, along with some of the better outfits worn by Prabhas.

Added in to the mix is an attempted suicide by Nisha which infuriated me (completely unnecessary), a side story involving Hanumanthu’s adopted father and brother and a rival for Nandini’s affections in the form of Appala Naidu’s son Rishi (Santosh).  There are a limited number of fight scenes but with Peter Hein choreographing, they all look good and generally fit into the flow of the film.  The music by G. V. Prakash is unremarkable but Andrew’s cinematography makes the most of the settings in Switzerland – if only the costumes had matched.

Overall Darling is a film that’s not too taxing to watch and is certainly less gory and more family friendly than the recent Rebel.  Director A. Karunakaran ensures good performances from all but a sharper story would have made for a better film.  Worth it for Prabhas, Kajal and the gang of older actors who looked to be having a great time. 3 stars.

3

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I’m a big Dhanush fan and since Shruti Haasan had impressed me in her last Telugu film, I was excited with the prospect of seeing them together in 3. In addition I wanted to see how Aishwarya Dhanush would approach her first film considering she had worked with one of my favourite directors, Dhanush’s brother Selvaraghavan on Aayirathil Oruvan a few years ago. The hype surrounding 3 since Kolaveri Di became such a hit seems likely to have been the reason that this was the fourth Tamil film to be shown here in Melbourne with subtitles and I really do hope that this trend continues. So it was with high expectations that I headed in to watch 3 and while the film as a whole didn’t quite meet them, the first half surpassed them easily.

3 follows the lives of Ram and Janani who first meet while they are both at school and relates their romance through three stages of their life together. The two leads somewhat surprisingly don’t look too out of place in school uniforms and certainly with their attitudes and mannerisms they are convincing as high school students. But the real star of this part of the story is Siva Karthikeyan as Ram’s friend Kumaran.  The interactions between the two friends are very natural and the dialogues between the two as Kumaran deals with Ram’s sudden infatuation are snappy and very funny. They had the whole cinema in stitches and it was fantastic to be able to understand and laugh along with the audience for a change.

The love story progresses with the usual hurdles in the form of parents and familial expectation. Janani’s family are preparing to move to the USA and she has to deal with the prospect of leaving Ram just as she has realised her feelings for him.  Shruti Haasan excels here as the young girl infatuated with her lover but struggling to conform to her family’s wishes and she finally makes a decision in spectacular style. The young actor playing her sister is also very impressive and overall the romance is beautifully developed. Shruti and Dhanush have great chemistry together onscreen and their relationship progresses very naturally. The interactions between Ram and his father (Prabhu) were also very genuine and well written with plenty of humour and a real sense of the sincere relationship between father and son.

However the promise of the first half doesn’t carry through to the rest of the film. I can appreciate that Aishwarya wanted to show a total contrast in the second half but it gets carried to extremes and the screenplay starts to drag as the melodrama goes into overdrive. The film starts with a dead body and Janani in mourning before moving into flashback mode, so we all know that there isn’t going to be a happy ending – well this is a Tamil movie after all, but the story just doesn’t make sense.

Janini spends most of the second half crying and Shruti Haasan is not an actor who can cry prettily, so the excessive amounts of sobbing become wearing very quickly. The assured and determined young woman of the first half totally disappears and while it is likely a much more realistic reaction it doesn’t make for such interesting watching. Kumaran has also vanished from the story and Senthil takes over as the concerned friend trying to help. While Sunder Ramu puts in a good performance his character is generally less convincing as most of his actions aren’t consistent with the family relationships shown in the first half. Dhanush puts in another amazing performance but it’s a role he has done shades of before in Mayakkam Enna and Kadhal Kondein so while impressive, it does feel a little overdone in the last scene. The general idea of the twist in the story is good but it seems let down by the over the top screenplay and some very dodgy medicine and ethics.

What does work well is the music. Anirudh Ravichander’s background score fits the screenplay very well and the songs are well placed within framework of the film. Kolaveri Di is certainly not as expected and although there are a few odd moments, specifically with a blonde tourist, it generally succeeds and adds a bright moment to the otherwise very heavy second half.

The first half of 3 is a delight to watch and for that reason alone I think it is worth seeing in the cinema. The support cast are all excellent and while Shruti Haasan does overact later on, Dhanush is as impressive as ever with a very convincing performance. The film is let down by an unconvincing and over dramatic second half but there is still much to enjoy. As a friend remarked on twitter, if only the second half had matched the first this would have been a perfect film. It’s still good, and an impressive debut by Aishwarya Dhanush, but it could have been even better.