Tag Archives: Tamil

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.

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.

Kaathvuvaakula Rendu Kaadhai

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Vignesh Shivan’s latest film with Vijay Sethupathi is a romantic comedy with the ‘twist’ that Rambo is equally in love with two girls. In any other film, this would be called two-timing or cheating, but here we are supposed to feel sorry for Rambo and support his attempts to commit bigamy. For all of that, there are some entertaining moments, and all three leads put in good performances. But at the end of the day, Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhai is a one-time watch with an unsatisfying love triangle.

The film starts with a TV show called ‘Real or Reel’ that’s explaining how Rambo ended up with two loves. There is a flashback to the story of young Rambo (Kamalesh) and his unlucky family. None of the family are able to marry due to their reputation for bad luck until the day Rambo’s father decides to wed Minah Kaif (Divya Pillai). Thinking their luck has turned, the family celebrates, but on the day he is born, Rambo’s father names him as Ranjankudi Anbarasu Murugesa Boopathy Ohondhiran (aka Rambo), which you would think would be bad enough luck all by itself. But then his father dies, and Rambo’s mother has a stroke that leaves her bedridden. From here, nothing goes well for Rambo. His mother becomes more unwell when he nears her bed, and as soon as he walks out into the rain it stops. Saddest of all, he can never manage to buy a chocolate ice-cream and the entire village considers him to be unlucky. Despite all this Rambo manages to grow up and back in the present day has 2 jobs and a nice apartment, so he can’t be all that unlucky all the time – just with rain and ice-cream.

By day Rambo is a driver for Ola cabs, and this is how he meets Kanmani (Nayanthara). She is looking for a husband and uses Rambo’s cab to travel to meet prospective grooms and their families. Kanamani has two siblings, her younger sister Minmini (Dipika Kothari) and her brother Bhargav (Bhargav Sundar) who has Downs syndrome. Part of her problem is that she needs to marry to regain ownership of the house her father left her, but she also wants to be sure that any prospective husband will also look after Minmini and Bhargav. This appears to be a major sticking point as none of the families she visits are willing to accept Kanmani along with her siblings. However, in her journeys with Rambo, Kanmani finds him to be kind and accepting of her brother and sister, while in turn they both accept him too. Slowly Kanmani starts to think of Rambo as a potential life partner and eventually she proposes to him.

By night, Rambo is a bouncer at a nightclub and there he meets Khatija (Samantha), the rather reluctant girlfriend of club owner Mohammed Mobi (S. Sreesanth). Mobi is a drunken rich prat who is abusive and generally unpleasant, so when he slaps Khatija, it’s a relief to see him get his comeuppance from Rambo. Naturally Rambo and Khatija become friends and he keeps her safe when Mobi starts stalking Khatija and generally behaving in a threatening way. Both Kanmani and Khatija declare their love at the same time leaving Rambo at a loss of what to do as he loves them both equally and decides he cannot give up one for the other.

It’s bad enough that Rambo is two-timing the two women, but the story takes a turn for the worse when Kanmani and Khatija both fight over Rambo after they all end up moving into Kanmani’s house together. It gets even more problematic when Rambo’s friend (Lollu Sabha Maaran) tries to convince both women to marry Rambo since their love has turned his life around after his tragic childhood. Frustratingly it’s left to the women to ‘save’ Rambo, who really does not need saving at all given he is gainfully employed, has a number of friends and a family who care about him. Regardless, Kanmani and Khatija have to put their differences aside to soothe Rambo and ignore their own distress at finding out he has been two-timing them with each other.

This is the central problem with the story, and it leaves a really bad taste behind. The rest of the comedy with Rambo’s aunt (Kala Master) and uncles desperately trying to get him to marry to lift their own ‘curse’ feels tacked on to give a reason for the idea of Rambo marrying two women, while the drama with his (now older) mother (Seema) seems superficial and again a device solely to promote Rambo’s wedding. 

And yet, there are parts of the film that do work well. Despite the rather low-key nature of the two romances, there are couple of standout scenes. One on a bridge with Rambo and Khatija trying to get to know each other is written to bring out Rambo’s vulnerability while a sequence with Kanmani in the cab demonstrates his kindness and thoughtfulness. I also like how cinematographers S.R. Kathir and Vijay Karthik Kannan change the lighting to show the difference between Kanmani and Khatija. The lighting for Khatija is bright and fluorescent, with scenes shot in the nightclub and on neon-lit city streets, while Kanmani is shown during the day in more natural lighting. The women are divided in their clothing as well with Kanmani depicted as traditional, wearing sari’s and Indian clothing while Khatija frequents night clubs and only wears Western clothes. To continue the dichotomy, Kanmani is Hindu while Khatija is Muslim. Other examples include Kanmani having a job in a show shop while Khatija is wealthy enough to give Rambo money without asking him any questions and Kanmani having 2 siblings while Khatija appears to be an only child. It becomes farcical when Kanmani tells Rambo she prefers plain shirts, while Khatija votes for patterned, which leaves Rambo wearing a hybrid of the two to try and keep both women happy.  

While Vignesh Shivan has focused on the issue of Rambo’s supposed jinx and his inability to choose between Kanmani and Khatija, he adds odd details which never go anywhere. When Kanmani and Rambo meet there is a log dialogue about her being Bengali but after this scene, her heritage is never mentioned again. The house Kanmani’s father left her is being used as a film set and a rather unpleasant relative is living there, but again this is never explained, nor this relative’s brief supposed interested in Kanmani as a potential wife. There are just as many unexplained questions about Khatija. For instance, she tells Rambo she wants to be a singer, but after this we hear nothing more about her career. It’s also never explained why she puts up with Mobi, apart from some vague mention of not wanting to make her father ill. A further exploration of any of these points, and just 1 heroine would have made this a more interesting and satisfying film to watch, but instead Vignesh is determined to go stick with his two-timing hero.

While Vijay Sethupathi, Nayanthara and Samantha are all fine in their roles, the romances are sterile and there is little passion between Rambo and his two fiancées. Of the support cast, Redin Kingsley and Kala Master fare the best and S. Sreesanth is nicely repulsive as Mobi. Thankfully Anirudh is back on form after the woeful Beast soundtrack, and his songs here are a mix of sweetly sentimental and upbeat dance numbers that all sound great. However at 2 hours and 39 minutes, Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhai quickly outstays its welcome and despite the music, performances and general all round greatness that is Vijay Sethupathi, this really is one just for fans. 3 stars.