Tag Archives: Yogi Babu

Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

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Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

I really enjoyed Suriya’s latest movie, although I haven’t seen the original Special 26, and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was a rollicking heist movie, with Suriya playing a kind of modern-day Robin Hood, albeit in 1987, as he and his merry gang thieves disguise themselves as CBI officers to rob various high-profile victims of their ill-gained wealth. With Suriya on top form, the support cast generally excellent and plenty of humour in the engaging screenplay, Thaanaa Serndha Koottam is well worth catching in the cinema if you can.

The film is a remake of Neeraj Pandey’s 2013 hit, Special 26, although director Vignesh Shivan has apparently given it a Tamil twist. Both films are based on a real-life robbery that took place in Bombay in 1987, and Thaanaa Serndha Koottam is set in the same timeframe, allowing for some period features such as the white ambassador cars that Iniyan and his gang use to pose as Government officials, and posters of old films displayed in the background. It also means we get such delights as the costumes and sets in this wonderfully OTT song from Anirudh Ravichandra:

The story goes like this. Suriya is Iniyan, an aspiring CBI officer who is rejected for his dream job mainly because corrupt officer Uthaman (Suresh Chandra Menon) holds a grudge against his father (Thambi Ramaiah). At the same time, many of Iniyan’s friends are struggling to find work due to corruption within the system and the high bribes needed to secure a position. Iniyan’s solution is to gather together a team of like-minded people who are willing to take part in his audacious scheme to rob the rich. And because the money they steal hasn’t been declared to the government, the victims are unwilling to report the crime, ensuring that Iniyan and his team escape scot-free every time.

Iniyan then gives all his ill-gotten loot away, ensuring that his character keeps an altruistic image despite his criminal activities. As the heat builds in Tamil Nadu, the gang move their operations to Hyderabad where they can’t speak the language. I could totally relate to their default use of words they had learnt from Telugu movies, although I’ve never found it to work quite so well for me, and the resultant confusion is perfectly developed into a very funny scene. Brahmi makes an understated appearance as a Telugu CBI officer while the Charminar is visible in almost every shot to make sure we know the action is now happening in Hyderabad!

There is a romance too as Iniyan falls for a girl who is drawn into his schemes. He doesn’t ever seem to find out her name, and I wasn’t clear on her connection to the original robbery, although to be honest I suspect there may not actually be one. Keerthy Suresh is fine as Iniyan’s love interest but really has little to do apart from appear in the songs and create the odd diversion in the storyline.

Suriya, Keerthi Suresh in Thaana Serntha Koottam HD Photos

The rest of the gang get better characterisations and even some back story to flesh out their various personas. Ramya Krishnan in particular is fantastic here and makes a scarily believable CBI officer. As “Jhansi Rani’, she uses her piercingly chilling glare (perfected in Baahubali) to excellent effect as she storms into various establishments demanding they hand over their illegal savings. Then in a blink of an eye she becomes regular housewife Azhagu Meena, planning her eldest daughter’s wedding and dealing with her disabled husband. I love her in this role, and it’s fantastic to see her in such a strong and effective role that combines comedy and drama so well.

The others in the team, KP (Senthil), Ondi (Sivashankar) and Muthu (Sathyan) have smaller roles, but still add plenty of interest to the proceedings, and ensure that the team appears as a real gang rather than just an odd collection of people Iniyan has gathered together.

Against them are the real CBI officers and Kurunjivendhan (Karthik), an honest if somewhat overly enthusiastic police officer who helps Uthaman in his search. Nandha is also good in a small but important role as a rookie police officer who is conned by the gang while Yogi Babu, RJ Balaji and Anandaraj all have successful cameos.

Anirudh Ravichander just keeps producing the hits as he delivers yet another great soundtrack, managing to make the songs all sound as if they really do all come from the eighties. For the most part they’re well integrated into the film too with appropriate picturisation that suits the ambiance.

The only real miss in this film is the end, where the story switches gear and becomes a more typical Tamil herocentric finale with action, drama and a few too many pontificating speeches. It’s a disappointing end to an otherwise engaging film, but thankfully there are some last-minute shenanigans over the end credits to make the audience leave with a smile.

Overall this is a fun film and with such a great cast of characters and the always charismatic Suriya, Thaanaa Serndha Koottam turns out to be an enjoyable and overall very funny watch. Worth catching for Suriya, Ramya Krishnan and Anirudh’s soundtrack.

Aandavan Kattalai (2016)

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aandavan-kattalai-poster

M Manikandan’s Kaaka Muttai was one of the best films from last year, so my expectations were high for Aandavan Kattalai, particularly since one of my favourite actors Vijay Sethupathi plays a main character. Now normally having high expectations is the worst possible scenario as it’s usually met with disappointment…. but not this time! Aandavan Kattalai delivers in every possible way. Co-writers Manikandan, Arul Chezhiyan and Anucharan have taken a simple story and imbued it with clever characterisations, entertaining diversions and a moral that’s delivered subtly enough to avoid even a hint of appearing preachy. My only gripe is that the songs and none of the written material (newspaper headlines, notes on paper etc) were translated, but otherwise this is a thoroughly  enjoyable film.

Aandavan Kattalai follows the story of Gandhi (Vijay Sethupathi) and his friend Pandi (Yogi Babu) as they attempt to fraudulently obtain tourist visas and then work illegally in England. Gandhi has incurred too much debt in his home village and has to try to pay the money back to salvage his reputation with his brother-in-law and sister. Later it is suggested that Gandhi isn’t a wastrel himself, but that his debt is partly due to raising dowry for his sister’s wedding but this part of the story isn’t explored in any great detail – at least not with subtitles. After another villager arrives back from overseas with plenty of money and shares his story, Gandhi and Pandi decide that working in the UK will be their ticket to riches too.

The pair travel to Chennai to meet with a broker, who has plenty of cons and shortcuts to circumvent the system. One of these leads Gandhi and Pandi to add a spouse’s name to their passport application. Pandi somehow manages to pass his visa interview and heads off to London with instructions on how to mimic a Sri Lankan refugee once he lands. Gandhi’s intrinsic honesty however sees him rejected for a visa and he is stuck in Chennai for at least 6 months until he can try again. Both Gandhi and Pandi are lost and bemused by the big city with Manikandan evoking thoughts on how they will possibly cope with London, where they will not only be in a large metropolis, but one where the customs and language are completely different. The little things; trying to find somewhere to stay and the vagaries of the Chennai householders, finding their way around the maze of the city and getting all their paperwork together are all shown as major struggles for the pair and serve as a way to further develop their characters.

While Vijay Sethupathi is excellent as the more aware and thoughtful of the two, his sidekick Pandi has simply the best dialogue with the funniest and most natural one-liners I’ve heard for a long time. Yogi Babu is simply superb here and his character is perfectly nuanced to be funny but also logical for his persona and completely genuine. His facial expressions are hilarious and he uses his remarkably untameable shock of hair to great effect. I don’t usually enjoy the comedy tracks in films but Yogi Babu shines here, even among the highly accomplished cast, and he really is very entertaining.

Vijay Sethupathi is excellent in a role that allows him to be at his laid-back best. He perfectly blends concern about his friend, his frustration with the system and his naivety about his visa application to give an overall realistic portrayal of an essentially honest man (at least most of the time) trying to deal with a difficult situation. The character suits him well and Vijay Sethupathi makes it look effortless as he demonstrates every possible emotion while making the audience laugh, cry and despair at the bureaucracy and limitless red tape. It really is a fantastic performance and the best role I’ve seen him play so far this year.

The rest of the cast though are just as good. Ritika Singh is great as a TV journalist named Karmeghakuzhali (the name Gandhi has given for his wife) who inadvertently gets dragged in to the divorce case. Again, her character is realistically written with genuine responses and a believable outcome, even if the coincidence of her name is just a tad too pat. I love how she is fiercely independent which helps make her suspicious of everything and everyone (with good reason in Gandhi’s case), but how she still has a kind heart.  Also excellent are the lawyers who work the divorce case, the crotchety judge who suggests marriage guidance rather than a divorce, and a genuine Sri Lankan refugee who is part of the immigration con. They’re a motley group of characters, thrown together by coincidence, corruption and fraud but Manikandan ensures that it all makes perfect sense by the end. No moment is wasted and every small detail is relevant to the final outcome – even when it seems that a scene is just to establish character, there is always something else that has relevance later on.

There are no big dance numbers in the film but there are a couple of good songs from K (Krishna Kumar) used as part of the narrative and these work well to move the story forward. The only thing missing are subtitles which really were needed in a song that includes dialogue and possibly further scene development. But really this is a small issue and overall the subtitles were excellent – easy to read and generally grammatically correct.

I really can’t find fault with Aandavan Kattalai and can’t wait to watch it again, as I’m sure there is more relevant detail I missed the first time through. This is a perfect film, a simple story expertly developed into a detailed saga of epic proportions with excellent performances from all involved and plenty of laughs along the way. Highly recommended for all the right reasons and definitely one not to miss.

Kaakka Muttai

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Kaakka Muttai

Kaakka Muttai is a little gem of a film that premièred at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and subsequently screened at a number of Film Festivals around the world before winning two National Awards earlier this year. It tells the story of two young brothers and their quest to raise money to buy a pizza when a new shop opens up in their area. However this isn’t as easy as it sounds. The two boys live in a slum area and finding enough money for their day-to-day necessities is difficult, never mind Rs. 299 for something as exotic as a pizza. As they set about achieving their goal, the story touches on poverty, corruption in politics, globalisation and the daily cons run by locals in the area, but mainly it’s the story of two young boys and their quest to buy their very own pizza.

We never find out the real names of the two brothers in the film as they refer to themselves as Periya Kaakka Muttai (big crow’s egg) and Chinna Kaakka Muttai (little crow’s egg) after their habit of eating crows eggs when they can find them. Chinna KM (Ramesh) tempts the crows down from a tree with rice secreted away from under his mother’s watchful eye, allowing Periya KM (Vignesh) to climb up and find the eggs. Their nest robbing is one of the early scenes and the charm of the two brothers is captured by Periya KM’s response when he finds 3 eggs in the crow’s nest – he divides them up as one egg for each of the brothers and one left for the crow – such equality!

The two brothers live in the slums with their mother (Iyshwarya Rajesh) and their grandmother (Shanthi Mani) while their father (Nivas Adithan) is in jail. They live in a small one room shack which is clean, tidy and incredibly well organised despite the surrounding squalor on the streets. Much of the family’s money goes to a lawyer, who is supposed to be working to free their father, but there seems to be no progress in securing his release. There is never any mention of the father’s crime or how long he has been in prison which deliberately keeps the audience in the world of the children who also have no idea what their father has done and don’t seem to care.

This technique of showing their world through the eyes of Periya KM and Chinna KM is one of the charms of the film. Life is simple for the brothers. They look for the crows’ eggs on a waste piece of land where their friends play cricket, spending the rest of their day collecting coal along the railway lines and selling it to supplement their mother’s meagre income.  Like all children they ask their mother for things well outside what she can afford; a TV and a mobile phone seem impossible when she cannot even afford to send the boys to school but the brothers happy go lucky approach to life seems to serve them well. However one day the developers move in and the land where the crow makes its nest and the children play is cleared to make way for a new pizza restaurant. Despite being forced out the children are ecstatic when the new pizzeria is completed and movie star Simbu comes to open the restaurant and eats the first slice of pizza. Watching him enjoy the novel dish is enough to convince the brothers that this is something they need to try for themselves and they begin the arduous task of raising the necessary money to buy their own pizza.

They are aided in their venture by a friend from the railroad tracks. Pazharasam (Joe Malloori) or Fruitjuice as the subtitles decide to translate his name, works on the railways but is happy to talk to the two boys and helps them find coal to sell. It’s obvious to the audience that the coal he leads them to is not free for the taking, but Periya KM and Chinna KM don’t seem to realise that this isn’t just a pile of forgotten coal and are deliriously happy that they have found the means to raise enough money to finally buy pizza. However they are quickly brought back down to earth when the restaurant security immediately calls them slum kids and refuses to let them in to buy their pizza even though they have sufficient funds. Just having the money isn’t enough and Periya KM and Chinna KM have a new goal – to raise enough money to buy new clothes that will allow them to entry to the pizzeria and their dream of pizza.

Vignesh and Ramesh are perfectly cast as the two young brothers and have plenty of impish charm and infectious energy as they roam around their area. There are plenty of note-worthy moments and small vignettes that give the whole film a feel good factor that is normally missing in films about slum dwellers. Watching the brothers wash clothes (Chinna KM wets the bed every night) allows Manikandan to juxtapose the younger brother throwing up wet clothes for his older brother to catch and hang up with a moment where the elder is distracted by watching a plane go past in the sky. His younger brother hits him in the face with the next item and the laughter chases away that brief moment of dreaming by Periya KM. There is another where Chinna M finds a toy watch in the scrap yard where they sell their coal and then takes it to a watch maker to make it work – the mix of Chinna KM’s delight in something so small as the watchmakers magnifier and his innocence as he tries to understand why his watch doesn’t work makes for beautiful cinema.

And Manikandan keeps them coming – there is the grandmother trying to make pizza for the boys when she discovers how desperately they want it, the boys attempting to sell their dog to raise money and their friendship with a richer kid who they speak to across the barrier of a metal fence. The physical barrier is nowhere near as daunting as the social divide which keeps Periya KM and Chinna KM firmly in their place but their determination is inspiring. Iyshwarya Rajesh too puts in an incredible performance as the boys’ mother and perfectly balances pride, ethics and desperation as she tries to cope without her husband and bring up her boys as best as she can. Later scenes of her interactions with the local politician and with the police are perfectly done to give her grace and dignity in trying situations and the conversations between her and the grandmother are beautifully natural. In fact all the performances are excellent with each member of the cast seemingly perfectly in their roles. Other stand-outs are Ramesh Thilak and Yogi Babu as the two local conmen trying to make a quick buck out of the brothers misfortune and Babu Anthony as the pizza shop owner, while Joe Malloori and Shanthi Mani are simply brilliant.

Manikandan makes an impressive début with Kaakka Muttai, not just writing and directing the film but also responsible for the cinematography. At any rate he makes the slums look much better than expected, giving them an almost magical appearance as seen through the eyes of the two brothers, although there is plenty of grim reality there too. However our eyes tend to slide past the garbage and debris, maybe because no-one else seems to notice it either. Manikandan seems to be an expert in multi-tasking and perhaps it’s his control over so many aspects of the film that explains why Kaakka Muttai is so completely satisfying too. The story shows the negative aspects of poverty but also illustrates that there is beauty everywhere, even in the slums, and that people are people, no matter where they come from.  I totally loved this film and particularly the two KM’s who remind me so much of the children I work with in India every year. I love their optimism and resourcefulness, and most of all their wonderful smiles and endless joy. Sure, this is a sugar coated view of the slums and there is little of the expected violence and absolute despair, but as a look at poverty through the eyes of two young boys it’s a winner all the way. Don’t miss it! 5 stars

Kaakka Muttai