Monday, 9 September 2013
kICk ass 2 movie review
Critic's Rating: 3.5/5
Cast: Jim Carrey, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Donald Faison
Direction: Jeff Wadlow
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes
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Story: Can
anyone become a superhero? It certainly seems so! Here, Kick-Ass teams
up with other vigilantes to form the crime-fighting Justice Forever
clan.
Review: Jeff Wadlow's follow-up to Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass (2010) attempts to penetrate deeper into the contrast between the wish-fulfillment of ordinary peopleliving out their fantasy versus living a 'regular' life. You have an almost surreal situation where ordinary folks wearing clown-like (pyjamas included) costumes dish out the kind of gore that looks quite nasty.
High-schooler Dave (Taylor-Johnson, alter-ego Kick-Ass) tries to convince Mindy (Chloe, playing Hit Girl) to train him. But she has her own issues -an over-protective dad, an identity crisis and fellow students who try to erode her self-esteem. Dave (often parodying Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker) is turned down by her. Not to be outdone, he finds himself a new team comprising Colonel Stars and Stripes (Carrey), Night Bitch (Lindy Booth), Dr. Gravity (Faison), Ass Kicker (Augustus Prew) and Battle Guy (Clark Duke).
The bad guy, Chris (Mintz-Plasse) blames Kick-Ass for his father's death, emerges in a new avatar called The Mother f**ker (the costume being his dead mom's S&M outfit and sex toys), recruits a bunch of 'heavy hitters' and seeks revenge. In one violent sequence, the ripped Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina) feels the rage and shreds a bunch of cops using a powered lawnmower. Another involves Hit Girl paying cheeky homage to Kill Bill Vol 1's Yakuza battle scene.
Politically incorrect dialogues aside, Kick-Ass 2 is actually quite a fun ride. Beneath the deliberately ridiculous costumes and mock-serious dialogues lies a sea of brutality and gore gleefully topped off with the kind of language that would make a sailor blush. But violence aside, there's also the message about the real hero being the person behind the costume and not the accoutrements. Moretz gives a strong performance. All said and done, this movie definitely kicks ass.
Note: You may not like this film if you are put off by spoof flicks containing a lot of violence, bad language and sex jokes.
Review: Jeff Wadlow's follow-up to Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass (2010) attempts to penetrate deeper into the contrast between the wish-fulfillment of ordinary peopleliving out their fantasy versus living a 'regular' life. You have an almost surreal situation where ordinary folks wearing clown-like (pyjamas included) costumes dish out the kind of gore that looks quite nasty.
High-schooler Dave (Taylor-Johnson, alter-ego Kick-Ass) tries to convince Mindy (Chloe, playing Hit Girl) to train him. But she has her own issues -an over-protective dad, an identity crisis and fellow students who try to erode her self-esteem. Dave (often parodying Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker) is turned down by her. Not to be outdone, he finds himself a new team comprising Colonel Stars and Stripes (Carrey), Night Bitch (Lindy Booth), Dr. Gravity (Faison), Ass Kicker (Augustus Prew) and Battle Guy (Clark Duke).
The bad guy, Chris (Mintz-Plasse) blames Kick-Ass for his father's death, emerges in a new avatar called The Mother f**ker (the costume being his dead mom's S&M outfit and sex toys), recruits a bunch of 'heavy hitters' and seeks revenge. In one violent sequence, the ripped Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina) feels the rage and shreds a bunch of cops using a powered lawnmower. Another involves Hit Girl paying cheeky homage to Kill Bill Vol 1's Yakuza battle scene.
Politically incorrect dialogues aside, Kick-Ass 2 is actually quite a fun ride. Beneath the deliberately ridiculous costumes and mock-serious dialogues lies a sea of brutality and gore gleefully topped off with the kind of language that would make a sailor blush. But violence aside, there's also the message about the real hero being the person behind the costume and not the accoutrements. Moretz gives a strong performance. All said and done, this movie definitely kicks ass.
Note: You may not like this film if you are put off by spoof flicks containing a lot of violence, bad language and sex jokes.
Thanga meengal movie rating
Synopsis: Kalyani
(Ram), a school dropout with a non-paying job, is obsessively
affectionate towards his nine-year-old daughter Chellamma (Sadhana), who
lives in a world of her own. But the realities of everyday life
separate them. Can the bond between father and daughter withstand the
tests of fate and bring them together again?
Review: Ram managed to create a cult following for himself with his very first film, Kattradhu Tamizh. His follow-up, Thanga Meenkal, is in many ways a mirror image of the director's flawed but fascinating debut film. Like Prabhakar in that film, Kalyani, this film's lead character, wants to live in his own world and so struggles to cope up the realities of everyday life. He is a school dropout, having married his classmate Vadivu even before finishing school, and does a menial job (silverware polisher) that doesn't even guarantee him a regular income (he hasn't got the salary for the past six months). He is a constant embarrassment to his parents, under whose roof he is forced to live with Vadivu and his Chellamma, despite the slights hurled by his father (Poo Ram), a retired teacher, and the unconcealed contempt of his mother (Rohini).
But as long as he is near Chellamma, who looks up to him for everything, all these do not matter. She is clearly a dyslexic child, although none of the teachers in her 'prestigious' private school realize it. So, she is labelled W, for not being able to rightly differentiate between the alphabets W and M, and branded a dimwit. And, here again, there are parallels to Kattradhu Tamizh. Just as Anandhi's life seemed better when Prabhakar was around, all is well in Chellamma's world when she is with her father. To these women, the men in their lives are a crutch and vice versa, and these characters feed off the fantasies of each other, creating a world for themselves where ideal — and not money — is the driving force. Sadly, it is money, particularly the lack of it that brings their worlds crashing down. Prabhakar's Tamil degree was an impediment to his success in the other film; here, it is Kalyani's obsessive affection towards Chellamma and his desire to be with his daughter at all times, at the cost of personal progress that very much separates them. Even the decision that these characters arrive at towards the end to preserve their make-believe worlds feels similar.
Thanga Meenkal shares many of Kattradhu Tamizh's film's strengths and flaws. It is a well-intentioned effort, strikingly shot, and held together by persuasive performances. At the same time, it is also relentlessly grim and bludgeons you into submitting to the point of view of the filmmaker, and by the time it ends, makes you believe you have personally gone through the ordeals of the film's characters. But, thankfully, it doesn't have the intense — and incredibly misplaced — anger that scorched through the latter, to leave you feeling miserable in the end. In its place, there is a welcome amount of poetry and grey, and a little bit of warmth, which shows a filmmaker evolving, trying to polish off his rough edges.
Take the scene where Kalyani goes to the house of Evita, who Chellamma mentions as her favourite teacher. When the door is opened, it is by Evita's husband (Arul Dass), who seems a gruff person. He is suspicious (after all, it is well into the night) but calls out for his wife. When we first see Evita, she is teary-eyed, and we immediately think that somehow it is her husband who is the cause for her tears. He hands her the phone as Kalyani wants Evita to speak to his daughter, but puts it on loudspeaker. Evita speaks and Chellamma's words inject some joy into her mysteriously dreary world. Later, Ram cuts to show her husband wondering at Kalyani's love for his daughter, and, in that moment, makes you realize he might not be a bad person after all. We might never know the reason for Evita's tears, but this person might not be behind it.
There are also other scenes that show Ram maturing as a filmmaker. In a throwaway shot during a song in the latter part of the film, we see Kalyani's mother and wife sharing a happy moment, which makes you refine your opinion on his mother, who constantly faults her daughter-in-law and even removes her granddaughter's photo before her own daughter's return from Australia. The bond between Kalyani and Vadivu is also never spelt out. The love that forced them to get married even before passing out of school might have been buried under the harsh reality of their family life but the embers have managed to stay hot, fanning a fire every now and then.
But such moments of restraint get overwhelmed at times by full-scale melodrama. When Kalyani leaves the house, the sky bursts open, he has to beg to a teacher to forgive Chellamma, he gets beaten up when he tries to find the whereabouts of the 'rainmaker', which would help him buy the 'Vodafone Dog' that his daughter wants, and finally, he is forced to literally climb mountains (and in a single day!) to make his daughter's wish come true.
While its feel-good moments involving the drama in Kalyani's family are mostly genuine, the film feels a little false whenever Ram turns this relationship drama into a propaganda vehicle on the pros and cons of our educational system. The school scenes are the film's weakest ones, and Stella, the teacher who is forever harsh on Chellamma, seems to belong in the world of last year's Sattai, a preachy film if there was one. And, the ultimate denouement that it is uncaring teachers who are responsible for Chellamma's problems comes across as finger-pointing rather than provocative.
Review: Ram managed to create a cult following for himself with his very first film, Kattradhu Tamizh. His follow-up, Thanga Meenkal, is in many ways a mirror image of the director's flawed but fascinating debut film. Like Prabhakar in that film, Kalyani, this film's lead character, wants to live in his own world and so struggles to cope up the realities of everyday life. He is a school dropout, having married his classmate Vadivu even before finishing school, and does a menial job (silverware polisher) that doesn't even guarantee him a regular income (he hasn't got the salary for the past six months). He is a constant embarrassment to his parents, under whose roof he is forced to live with Vadivu and his Chellamma, despite the slights hurled by his father (Poo Ram), a retired teacher, and the unconcealed contempt of his mother (Rohini).
But as long as he is near Chellamma, who looks up to him for everything, all these do not matter. She is clearly a dyslexic child, although none of the teachers in her 'prestigious' private school realize it. So, she is labelled W, for not being able to rightly differentiate between the alphabets W and M, and branded a dimwit. And, here again, there are parallels to Kattradhu Tamizh. Just as Anandhi's life seemed better when Prabhakar was around, all is well in Chellamma's world when she is with her father. To these women, the men in their lives are a crutch and vice versa, and these characters feed off the fantasies of each other, creating a world for themselves where ideal — and not money — is the driving force. Sadly, it is money, particularly the lack of it that brings their worlds crashing down. Prabhakar's Tamil degree was an impediment to his success in the other film; here, it is Kalyani's obsessive affection towards Chellamma and his desire to be with his daughter at all times, at the cost of personal progress that very much separates them. Even the decision that these characters arrive at towards the end to preserve their make-believe worlds feels similar.
Thanga Meenkal shares many of Kattradhu Tamizh's film's strengths and flaws. It is a well-intentioned effort, strikingly shot, and held together by persuasive performances. At the same time, it is also relentlessly grim and bludgeons you into submitting to the point of view of the filmmaker, and by the time it ends, makes you believe you have personally gone through the ordeals of the film's characters. But, thankfully, it doesn't have the intense — and incredibly misplaced — anger that scorched through the latter, to leave you feeling miserable in the end. In its place, there is a welcome amount of poetry and grey, and a little bit of warmth, which shows a filmmaker evolving, trying to polish off his rough edges.
Take the scene where Kalyani goes to the house of Evita, who Chellamma mentions as her favourite teacher. When the door is opened, it is by Evita's husband (Arul Dass), who seems a gruff person. He is suspicious (after all, it is well into the night) but calls out for his wife. When we first see Evita, she is teary-eyed, and we immediately think that somehow it is her husband who is the cause for her tears. He hands her the phone as Kalyani wants Evita to speak to his daughter, but puts it on loudspeaker. Evita speaks and Chellamma's words inject some joy into her mysteriously dreary world. Later, Ram cuts to show her husband wondering at Kalyani's love for his daughter, and, in that moment, makes you realize he might not be a bad person after all. We might never know the reason for Evita's tears, but this person might not be behind it.
There are also other scenes that show Ram maturing as a filmmaker. In a throwaway shot during a song in the latter part of the film, we see Kalyani's mother and wife sharing a happy moment, which makes you refine your opinion on his mother, who constantly faults her daughter-in-law and even removes her granddaughter's photo before her own daughter's return from Australia. The bond between Kalyani and Vadivu is also never spelt out. The love that forced them to get married even before passing out of school might have been buried under the harsh reality of their family life but the embers have managed to stay hot, fanning a fire every now and then.
But such moments of restraint get overwhelmed at times by full-scale melodrama. When Kalyani leaves the house, the sky bursts open, he has to beg to a teacher to forgive Chellamma, he gets beaten up when he tries to find the whereabouts of the 'rainmaker', which would help him buy the 'Vodafone Dog' that his daughter wants, and finally, he is forced to literally climb mountains (and in a single day!) to make his daughter's wish come true.
While its feel-good moments involving the drama in Kalyani's family are mostly genuine, the film feels a little false whenever Ram turns this relationship drama into a propaganda vehicle on the pros and cons of our educational system. The school scenes are the film's weakest ones, and Stella, the teacher who is forever harsh on Chellamma, seems to belong in the world of last year's Sattai, a preachy film if there was one. And, the ultimate denouement that it is uncaring teachers who are responsible for Chellamma's problems comes across as finger-pointing rather than provocative.
Ainthu Ainthu Ainthu movie rating
Critic's Rating: 3/5
Cast: Bharath, Mirthika, Erica Fernandes, Santhanam
Direction: Sasi
Genre: Thriller
Duration: 2 hours 25 minutes
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Synopsis:
Arvind (Bharath) wakes up from his accident with the memory of his dead
girlfriend Liyana (Mrithika). But why is everyone, including his
brother Gopal (Santhanam) and psychiatrist Anand Murthy, claiming that
she is just a figment of his imagination? And, how is the number 555 the key to his past?
Review: Sasi, who has so far made soft films like Sollamale and Poo, tries his hand at a commercial thriller with action, suspense, and of course, the inevitable romance. While the director's intent in giving us a fresh and different commercial film is evident, sadly, he doesn't manage to sidestep the genre's pitfalls.
Take for instance the story (by Aravind and Suresh). It sets up the intrigue very well — a young man finds everyone telling him that he is imagining things. It is, in this aspect, a thematic cousin of Samar, which too was about a man who is confused by what is real and what is not. However, the chinks become evident when the mystery is revealed. The antagonist juvenile behaviour belies the intelligence that we expect his character to have, considering the manner in which he has toyed with the hero till then. Worse, this character's motivations, while plausible, are not at all convincing and the fact that it is played by yet another import from the north (with atrocious lip sync) only adds to the ludicrousness of the role.
Then, there are the songs which pop up out of the blue only to bring the story to a halt, despite the attempts to make them different. In fact, when the Ezhavu song breaks out in the middle of a chase, you only want to go 'Enna ezhavu da idhu?' Even the elaborate action sequences in the latter half soon become tiring and preposterous. Arvind is terribly beaten up, tied with barbed wire, hung upside down and even electrocuted, but still manages to be fit enough to hit the bad guys black and blue. Sasi seems to have been under the wrong impression that going 'commercial' means forgoing realism. It is only because of Bharath, who deserves an 'A' for the effort that he has put into the role, that we even indulgently bear these scenes.
The romantic track between Liyana and Arvind, however, is one of the elements the movie has going for it. Despite the functional performances by Bharath and Mirthika, the way it is constructed — Liya thinks that Arvind has some ESP-like power, while he's actually pulling a fast one — brings a smile to your face. If this track had failed, the entire film would have fallen hard and flat, but Sasi shows that when it comes to romance, he is very much a proven hand.
Review: Sasi, who has so far made soft films like Sollamale and Poo, tries his hand at a commercial thriller with action, suspense, and of course, the inevitable romance. While the director's intent in giving us a fresh and different commercial film is evident, sadly, he doesn't manage to sidestep the genre's pitfalls.
Take for instance the story (by Aravind and Suresh). It sets up the intrigue very well — a young man finds everyone telling him that he is imagining things. It is, in this aspect, a thematic cousin of Samar, which too was about a man who is confused by what is real and what is not. However, the chinks become evident when the mystery is revealed. The antagonist juvenile behaviour belies the intelligence that we expect his character to have, considering the manner in which he has toyed with the hero till then. Worse, this character's motivations, while plausible, are not at all convincing and the fact that it is played by yet another import from the north (with atrocious lip sync) only adds to the ludicrousness of the role.
Then, there are the songs which pop up out of the blue only to bring the story to a halt, despite the attempts to make them different. In fact, when the Ezhavu song breaks out in the middle of a chase, you only want to go 'Enna ezhavu da idhu?' Even the elaborate action sequences in the latter half soon become tiring and preposterous. Arvind is terribly beaten up, tied with barbed wire, hung upside down and even electrocuted, but still manages to be fit enough to hit the bad guys black and blue. Sasi seems to have been under the wrong impression that going 'commercial' means forgoing realism. It is only because of Bharath, who deserves an 'A' for the effort that he has put into the role, that we even indulgently bear these scenes.
The romantic track between Liyana and Arvind, however, is one of the elements the movie has going for it. Despite the functional performances by Bharath and Mirthika, the way it is constructed — Liya thinks that Arvind has some ESP-like power, while he's actually pulling a fast one — brings a smile to your face. If this track had failed, the entire film would have fallen hard and flat, but Sasi shows that when it comes to romance, he is very much a proven hand.
Dalam movie review
A still from the movie Dalam
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Critic's Rating: 3.5/5
Cast: Naveen Chandra, Piaa Bajpai, Kishore, Nasser, Abhimanyu Singh, Harshvardhan
Direction: Jeevan Reddy
Duration: 2 hours 29 minutes
Avg Readers Rating: 3..5/5
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Story: Twenty
disillusioned naxal cadres headed by Sathru (Kishore) and Abhi (Naveen)
surrender to the police hoping to start afresh. But they get arm
twisted to form a criminal gang that executes criminals the cops can't
lay their hands on. A wicked politician, JK (Nassar) uses them as pawns
to settle his political scores. But the gang soon finds itself in hot
water when a trigger happy encounter specialist, Ladda (Abhimanyu) comes
after them forcing them to run back into the jungles.
Movie Review: It's pretty obvious from the movie that the debutante filmmaker has no worthwhile understanding of the naxalite movement, and is even less informed about the behavioral patterns of the young men that make up the naxal cadres. In any case when did lack of lack of well rounded understanding over subject matter ever deter our filmmakers from going ahead and making movies regardless?
Thankfully, this movie isn't about naxalism. It is just another lame duck love story that uses the backdrop of naxals much the same way an interior decorator would use different properties to spruce up a living space. However the good ones (interior designers is) choose properties that compliment the overall theme of the design they have in mind.
Unfortunately this film lacks that level of integrity in its design. The naxal element in the movie purely serves a decorative purpose, perhaps which is why we see them behave much the same way riffraff gangster characters gangster characters behave in RGV's - the director is a protege (read as ex-assistant director) of RGV - crime thrillers set in the backdrop of Mumbai underworld. There must be something seriously wrong when characters in one movie remind you of characters from movies made over a decade ago.
The plot tools are just as dated. The radicals come in all sizes - there is a fat guy (Krishnudu), a wafer thin guy (Dhanraj), a nerd, a drunk (Thagubothu Ramesh) a guy who breaks into a speech at the drop of the hat and some with dreadlocks as well, who provide comic relief with their antics in the first half. Thagubothu Ramesh takes the cake playing a guy who addresses himself as Yadav all the time.
The love story begins when Abhi takes Shruti (Piaa) hostage as bait to force her absconding dad (a broker) out of hiding. Then two gang members get killed by a rather eccentric encounter specialist, Ladda, who is out to execute them. Cornered, Abhi and co retaliate with a grenade attack which Ladda survives. Shoot at sight orders are issued and the gang disappear into the forests to escape the heat and from then on it's a predictable drag. The performances are adequate. Naveen and Kishore have a natural screen presence which the filmmaker uses to good effect. Piaa has too little screen time to merit an analysis. The cinematography is easily the best part of the movie and is largely responsible for making it look a lot better than it actually is.
Note: Thagubothu Ramesh's antics and some nifty cinematography are the most watchable parts of the movie, so it will help if you go to the movie hall with lowered expectations.
Movie Review: It's pretty obvious from the movie that the debutante filmmaker has no worthwhile understanding of the naxalite movement, and is even less informed about the behavioral patterns of the young men that make up the naxal cadres. In any case when did lack of lack of well rounded understanding over subject matter ever deter our filmmakers from going ahead and making movies regardless?
Thankfully, this movie isn't about naxalism. It is just another lame duck love story that uses the backdrop of naxals much the same way an interior decorator would use different properties to spruce up a living space. However the good ones (interior designers is) choose properties that compliment the overall theme of the design they have in mind.
Unfortunately this film lacks that level of integrity in its design. The naxal element in the movie purely serves a decorative purpose, perhaps which is why we see them behave much the same way riffraff gangster characters gangster characters behave in RGV's - the director is a protege (read as ex-assistant director) of RGV - crime thrillers set in the backdrop of Mumbai underworld. There must be something seriously wrong when characters in one movie remind you of characters from movies made over a decade ago.
The plot tools are just as dated. The radicals come in all sizes - there is a fat guy (Krishnudu), a wafer thin guy (Dhanraj), a nerd, a drunk (Thagubothu Ramesh) a guy who breaks into a speech at the drop of the hat and some with dreadlocks as well, who provide comic relief with their antics in the first half. Thagubothu Ramesh takes the cake playing a guy who addresses himself as Yadav all the time.
The love story begins when Abhi takes Shruti (Piaa) hostage as bait to force her absconding dad (a broker) out of hiding. Then two gang members get killed by a rather eccentric encounter specialist, Ladda, who is out to execute them. Cornered, Abhi and co retaliate with a grenade attack which Ladda survives. Shoot at sight orders are issued and the gang disappear into the forests to escape the heat and from then on it's a predictable drag. The performances are adequate. Naveen and Kishore have a natural screen presence which the filmmaker uses to good effect. Piaa has too little screen time to merit an analysis. The cinematography is easily the best part of the movie and is largely responsible for making it look a lot better than it actually is.
Note: Thagubothu Ramesh's antics and some nifty cinematography are the most watchable parts of the movie, so it will help if you go to the movie hall with lowered expectations.
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