Tag Archives: Santhanam

Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

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Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

I’m really not a Hansika fan and tend to avoid her in movies as much as possible, but with nothing else releasing here this weekend I decided to risk it and headed out to watch the latest Sundar C. romantic comedy Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru.  Rather surprisingly I enjoyed it! Haniska wasn’t too annoying mainly due to limited time onscreen, the film made me laugh even without subtitles and judging by the audience reaction it was even funnier if you did understand the dialogue.  Siddharth and Santhanam make a good comedy team and with the help of a good support cast, the film turned out to be well worth the drive out to the bijou cinema at Monash.

Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

The story is fairly straight-forward, easy to follow and doesn’t break any new ground.  Siddharth is Kumar, a bit of a nerd who works in an IT company where he’s essentially just another anonymous worker. At home he has a loving family who have a history of romantic marriages and seem to care for Kumar despite his generally apathetic attitude towards life. Although he works in an office full of women, Kumar doesn’t seem to have much interest in romance, but then the beautiful Sanjana (Hansika Motwani) starts working at the same company and suddenly Kumar falls in love.  Sanjana has to put up with the masses of frustrated IT workers falling at her feet, but seems to show a preference for office hero and all-round overachiever George (Ganesh Venkatraman). This could be the influence of a string ensemble and massive bouquet of flowers, but to be fair with his looks, success at work and dedication to romance, George really has a lot going for him.

Theeya Velai Seiyyanum KumaruTheeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

Seeing that his affair is destined to fail unless he takes some kind of action, Kumar consults love guru Mokia (Santhanam) to try and help him win the girl of his dreams.  With Mokia’s help, Kumar learns how to ditch the glasses and nerdy attitude but also discovers that devious deception is the way to win a girl’s heart.  Having used Mokia’s often dodgy advice, Kumar gets the girl but discovers that using unscrupulous means doesn’t mean that he will be able to keep the girl, especially when Mokia discovers exactly who it is that Kumar has been chasing.

Santhanam and Siddharth

The real star of the film is Santhanam who keeps the laughs coming and makes an effective partnership with Siddharth.  This is a role that Siddharth has played before but he is less hyperactive than usual and his geeky Kumar is just realistic enough to garner some sympathy for his ineptness. Santhanam suits this type of comedy where his character doesn’t just rely on one-liners but rather uses some physical comedy and his facial expressions to good effect.  Although his love guru is strictly in it for the money he does still manage to make Kumar more presentable and increases his confidence levels despite his rather dubious methodology.  Quite an impressive effort given what he had to work with and his own style choices.

Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

The support cast also add to the comedy and include a number of faces from TV including RJ Balaji and Bosskey who are both effective in their roles.  I don’t know the names of the actresses who played Sanjana’s friends at her lodgings, but they are good value and make the scenes with Hansika less excruciating to watch as well as having some genuinely funny moments of their own.  Manobala pops up as a brothel owner rather appropriately attired in red silk while Samantha and Vishal Krishna also make brief guest appearances.

Hansika doesn’t have a lot to do except look pretty and she actually does look much better than her last few films.  I’m not sure if she dubbed for herself in this film but her voice is rather screechy and irritating, although at least she doesn’t get a lot of dialogue.  Sundar C. has kept her role to a minimum and she is fine as the love interest, although there is minimal chemistry between her and Siddharth.

What doesn’t work so well though are the songs – the one above is probably the best of the bunch. All are pictured on Siddharth and Hansika and between Siddarth’s dreadful clothes and Hansika’s woeful dancing they really drag despite some pleasant locations. Hansika really can’t dance and to make her try to move in high heeled shoes and boots is just cruel, but somehow also quite amusing. In the pictures below you can see the high heels that she tries to dance in which perhaps goes some way to explain why she looks so stiff and inhibited.  There are times where it’s obvious she’s concentrating really hard on the steps, but that doesn’t seem to help and she looks very restrained compared to Siddharth.  Overall the choreography isn’t impressive and the backing dancers in Japan are particularly odd which adds to the overall disappointment.

Theeya Velai Seiyyanum KumaruTheeya Velai Seiyyanum KumaruTheeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru

If the songs are disappointing, at least the comedy is of a much higher quality and the cast do an excellent job of keeping the film from dragging.  Of course I noticed that Siddharth gets to wear some trendy glasses (as do quite a few of the cast) and there is a brief contact lens interlude which I appreciated. The humour is genuinely funny throughout and both Santhanam and Siddharth are engaging and work well to compliment each other.  Although the rest of the cast add to the comedy it’s all reasonably subtle (for Tamil comedy!) and best of all there are no terrible comedy uncles.   Overall Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru is a non-taxing and amusing watch which may not tread any new ground but does manage to entertain successfully.  And after all, that’s a lot more than I was expecting.

Velayudham

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Velayudham is the most entertaining film I saw at the cinema this Diwali and despite the lack of subtitles (and the presence of Hansika) it’s the film I enjoyed the most. It’s a full out masala experience and has pretty much everything; sword fights against machete and axe wielding rowdies, bomb blasts, shootouts,  terrorists, a wedding and a funeral, trains, helicopters, horse and car chases. Plus 2 heroines and a plethora of assorted and seemingly never ending supply of villains. M. Raja has added every possible ingredient and stirred well to make a fairly typical but very watchable movie.

The film starts on a serious note with a group of young journalists discovering a crime ring in Chennai. Two of the three fail to escape and are killed by the criminals, but Bharathi  (Genelia D’Souza) manages to get away despite being knifed and thrown into the river. Fate, or possibly karma takes a hand and the gang end up dead by terminal stupidity. Witnessing their final moments, Bharathi writes a statement of vengeance on behalf of a character she makes up on the spur of the moment. She signs this statement Velayudhan and leaves it by the bodies. I’m not sure what her reasoning was and perhaps the statement itself made it clear, but since I didn’t understand the dialogue I decided she wanted to let the villains know that they didn’t always have everything their own way. And perhaps the idea was to spark a little fear too.

It turns out that there is a real life Velayudhan (Vijay) – although he’s definitely not a hero. Vel is an accident prone milk man who causes total havoc in his local village. However his heart is in the right place and he is devoted to his equally scatty sister Kaveri (Saranya Mohan). Vel in turn is adored by his cousin Vaidehi (Hansika Motwani) who is determined that he won’t escape her plans for marriage. Vel’s happy go lucky nature and habit of helping people stands him in good stead as he manages to foil a number of terrorist attacks in Chennai by pure chance. In the course of one such attack he is befriended by Speedu (Santhanam) who is a petty thief and hangs around Vel in the hope of stealing his money. When Vel ‘borrows’ a costume from a jewellery exhibition and chases a gang of thieves on horseback his picture makes it onto the local media and it becomes the iconic image of Velayudhan for the public.

In true super hero style he is adopted as their saviour by the locals and they call for him whenever there is a problem. Vel initially doesn’t want to have anything to do with ’Velayudhan – crime fighter’ but eventually events conspire to make him take the on the role. The chief minister is backing the terrorists and they have an intricate and rather unlikely plot to cause a major disaster involving a train and a chemical plant. Velayudhan has to save the day, which of course he does with plenty of style and panache. There is even a Salman Khanesque moment where Vijay loses his shirt during one of the fight scenes which was appreciated by the audience!

Velayudhan switches between the serious theme of terrorism, over the top action and comedy but somehow it manages to make it all work. The scenes with Bharathi and the various criminal activities she uncovers are powerful and even moving so that once or twice the switch back to comedy with Vel feels a little jarring. However both Vijay and Genelia are excellent and their scenes together as Bharathi tries to convince Vel to take up the super hero role are the best in the film. The action scenes with Vijay are well choreographed if somewhat fantastical but I have to admit I prefer the action with Bharathi in the beginning as she tried to escape the criminal gang. This is more realistic and throughout Genelia does a good job with her action scenes. It’s always good to have a heroine who does more than shriek when there is trouble, and Bharathi is daring and brave even if not particularly good at spotting potential danger.

Although some of the comedy comes from Vel, his sister and his cousin, Santhanam as the opportunistic Speed is the main focus for the laughs and he does a fantastic job yet again. I found him funny just from his expressions alone since I couldn’t understand most of the dialogue and in general the physical comedy worked well.  R. Pandiaraajan has a small comedic role as the police inspector and M. S. Bhaskar, the other comedy stalwart pops up in the village scenes giving plenty of laughs to balance out the action. Although sometimes the action is pretty funny too.

Saranya seems good as Vel’s sister but she doesn’t have a large role to play and without understanding the dialogue I missed a lot of the interaction between brother and sister. Hansika thankfully doesn’t get much screen time either. So far I haven’t liked her in any film, and although I was willing to give her another go, she really doesn’t impress here at all. In particular she cannot dance at all and manages to make Genelia look  amazing by comparison. She is stilted and looks awkward in most of her scenes, although there are a few moments towards the end where she does manage to show a little more life. I don’t think the wardrobe team like her much either as she has some very odd outfits in the songs too.

The music by Vijay Anthony is generally good and the songs fit into the film reasonably well, but work best when Vijay is dancing showcasing his talents alone. A song with Hansika just looks terrible and one with the two heroines dancing with Vijay is spoiled by some very strange outfit choices.

It’s Vijay’s film all the way and he delivers as an action hero although Genelia does give him some strong competition and her performance is very impressive. The film does start to drag a little towards the end where the plot becomes too focused on action sequences and loses touch with reality but it’s still a fun watch. Worth seeing on the big screen for Vijay fans and anyone who likes action packed mass masala that doesn’t require too much thought.

Boss Engira Baskaran

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Tamil comedy is not my usual choice of film. I think comedy is the hardest genre to understand in a foreign language and often doesn’t translate well unless it’s purely physical. Even then, cultural differences often mean that what is funny to the writer just leaves me baffled. But Boss Engira Baskaran was recommended to me by my local Tamil DVD store as an entertaining film and I have to say – it’s actually pretty funny!

Arya plays Baskaran, commonly known to his friends and associates as Boss. He’s a happy go lucky guy who has never managed to pass his final school exams and has no gainful employment. Although he goes back each year to re-sit along with a group of other regular ‘failures’, he would have passed years ago if he only put as much energy into actual learning as he does into his attempts at cheating. His best friend, Nallathambi (Santhanam) runs a barbers salon which he acquired as a result of his rather unconventional marriage. Baskaran spends most of his time hanging out with his friend at the salon and generally making a nuisance of himself. In the course of his latest attempt to pass his final English exam he meets Chandrika who coincidentally is the sister of the girl his sensible veterinary brother Saravanam is trying to marry.

Despite the way in which Baskaran meets Chandrika and his subsequent idiotic antics, Chandrika seems fine with the idea of marriage. Perhaps she sees something in Baskaran that I don’t but he doesn’t seem like much of a catch for a well educated girl with a good job and excellent matrimonial prospects. It could be that this is part of the comedy that I just don’t get, but for whatever reason she encourages him in his quest to win her hand.

To get the girl Baskaran has to try and persuade her father that he would be an acceptable husband, despite the fact that her father obviously despises him. His sister in law and the rest of his family point out that as he is unemployed and has no qualifications he has no chance of getting her father to approve.  He leaves home determined that within 6 months he will have enough money to organise his sister’s wedding, an endeavour which he feels will demonstrate to his potential father in law that he is a responsible person who can support his daughter.

Baskaran hits of the idea to run a tutoring college for students who are re-sitting their school exams. After all, it’s a topic he feels he knows a lot about. To start the business he borrows money from the local loan shark Velpandi – Rajendaran in bad guy persona. Needless to say things don’t exactly go to plan with the college and Baskaran runs around trying various ploys to make his project a success. 

The film slows considerably in the second half and although there are some amusing moments, I don’t find most of the scenes in the school funny. The pace picks up again towards the end, although the final scenes fail to match the comedy in the rest of the film. The ending feels tacked on more as an afterthought to tie up all the loose ends. Jiiva has a special guest appearance as Chandrika’s fiancée and its possible that I may have found this funnier if I’d seen M Rajesh’s previous film Siva Manasula Shakthi and had an idea about the previous relationship between the two actors – but then again maybe not.

Most of the comedy is based on the dialogue with the best lines reserved for Nallathambi.  Santhanam does an excellent job in the delivery of these as far as I can tell and he steals the show when he appears. There were quite a few references to old films and older film songs which I’m sure were all very significant.  I think I felt much the same as a Bollywood virgin must have when watching Om Shanti Om! However, it was still funny even if I only caught a few of these – such as the salon being called Thala and Thalapathy, and the appearance of Rajnikanth’s Annamalai at a significant point in the story. I appreciate that unlike many recent Hindi films, or the often relatively unfunny comedy track, none of the humour is based on bodily functions or toilet humour. M Rajesh wrote as well as directed the film and deserves praise for his funny script and screenplay.

Arya is surprisingly good as Baskaran. Having seen him in more serious roles in Varudu and Madrasipattinam I wasn’t sure how he would deal with a much more light-hearted character but he manages to impress.  His facial expressions are more animated than I remember from previous films, his comedic timing is mostly good, and overall he strikes the right balance between ineptitude and stupidity for his character. Nayantara on the other hand is a bit of a disappointment. I expected more from her after her performance in Yarada Nee Mohini, but she seems very lifeless and there is no chemistry between her and Arya. Some of this may be due to the rather one-dimensional characterisation of Chandrika who just seems to be there as the love interest and nothing else.

While Saravanam mainly plays the straight man to his brother there is still a lot of comedy in his role and Panchu Subbu is believable as the respectable vetinarian. Vijayalakshmi looks beautiful in her role as his wife Nandhini and brings a touch of grace and dignity to the film. I must look out for her in more films as she had such a lovely presence on screen.  Chitra Lakshmanan as the father of Nandhini and Chandrika is a little too over the top, but his character is in keeping with the more typical Tamil comedy style for the father of the bride and he does well enough with this role. 

What works best is the first half of the film and the interactions between Bhaskaran, his brother and his friend.  A better end would have helped, but I was impressed at just how well the comedy did translate to a non Tamil speaker. A film worth watching as a funnier than usual comedy with an excellent performance by Santhanam and a totally different side to Arya. 3 ½ stars.