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“Thamizhukku Enn Ondrai Azhuthavum”… Less thriller than comedy, but some big...
Spoilers ahead… The opening minutes of the intriguingly titled Thamizhukku Enn Ondrai Azhuthavum hint at one of those films that’s so out of the box that the box is here and the film is on the moon....
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“Anegan”… A great plot and nothing else
Spoilers ahead… One thing we have to say about KV Anand: the man believes in spinning a yarn. At purely the plot level, Anegan is something of a pulp masterpiece. It may have to do with reincarnation....
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“Yennai Arindhaal”… A first-rate Ajith movie
Spoilers ahead… Before we begin to discuss Yennai Arindhaal as a Gautham Vasudev Menon film, we need to discuss it as an Ajith film – because he’s the elephant and you can’t get a proper look at the...
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“Kaaki Sattai”… Heavyweight film for lightweight hero
Spoilers ahead… Sivakarthikeyan’s star is on the rise, so you can’t just cut to him in the midst of a scene in your movie. But he doesn’t have that larger-than-life image – not yet, anyway – and he’s...
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“Enakkul Oruvan”… A knockout conceit, a middling movie
Spoilers ahead… One must hand it to Siddharth. For an actor whose successes have come mostly from playing characters in a narrow bandwidth (Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi, Rang De Basanti), he sure...
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“Bench Talkies”… An okayish showcase for amateur talent
Spoilers ahead… Short films come in two flavours. One, the really professional kind, made by real filmmakers – these are shown at festivals, nominated for Oscars, and they do everything that feature...
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“JK Enum Nanbanin Vaazhkai”… A melodrama pulls its punches by getting all hip...
Spoilers ahead… A glance at the title of Cheran’s new film, JK Enum Nanbanin Vaazhkai, is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. That word: nanban. Friendship has been reduced to such a boisterous,...
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“Rajathanthiram”… A solid heist thriller
Spoilers ahead… Rajathanthiram is a curiously old-fashioned title that suggests Machiavellian – or closer home, Chanakyan – deviousness in matters of statecraft, and it’s perhaps the only false note...
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“Mahabalipuram”… A “Subramaniyapuram” wannabe that’s just crude melodrama
Spoilers ahead… The quick way to sum up Mahabalipuram is that it’s a veritable how-not-to manual. How not to write characters. (A thus-far decent-ish bloke suddenly becomes a rapist.) How not to...
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“Kallappadam”… A meta movie with good ideas that needed better filmmaking
Spoilers ahead… In Jigarthanda, we got a meta movie that was about moviemaking itself, and the meta-ness was underlined by the protagonist being named after the director. Kallappadam tries to go...
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“Valiyavan”… An easy contender for the year’s worst screenplay
Spoilers ahead… Most mainstream movies are based on the philosophy followed by the makers of potato chips. When we pick up a packet, it seems so full, so ready to burst, but when we rip it open, we...
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“Ivanuku Thannila Gandam”… Enough jokes to warrant a YouTube viewing at some...
Spoilers ahead… Titles come in cycles. There was, at one time, the “pa” series of names, and alongside, we had long titles that left us in little doubt about what we were in for – Thaai Magalukku...
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“CSK – Charles Shafiq Karthiga”… A modestly mounted but well-written thriller
Spoilers ahead… So many small films are dumped on us every Friday – without proper marketing or publicity – that it’s become difficult to sense which small movie is worth checking out. This week,...
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“Komban”… So dull… that’s the real controversy
Spoilers ahead… Why do the men in these rural dramas bother with veshtis? This isn’t something we wondered about in the Bharathiraja movies, which narrated stories set in the deep south but were...
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“Thilagar”… Or what ‘Thevar Magan’ might have been without a big star
Spoilers ahead… Perumal Pillai’s Thilagar is the story of two brothers in a village by the Thamirabarani. The older one (Bosepandian, played by Kishore) is the most respected man around, and he wants...
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“Nannbenda”… No wit, but plenty of twits
Spoilers ahead… So who’s the target audience for Jagadish’s Nannbenda? If you say it’s summer-holidaying families, I’d say not. An early scene has Sathya (Udhayanidhi Stalin) walk into a room filled...
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“Sagaptham”… Uh, um, well, cough-cough, whatever
Spoilers ahead… How does one talk about Sagaptham, directed by Surendran? Maybe we could begin with the scene where ‘Power Star’ Srinivasan gets out of his Jeep, unzips and begins to urinate. We hear...
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Towards a better critical culture in Tamil cinema
With the Internet’s help, we finally seem to have entered an era with more people being able to say what they really want to say. No wonder actors and filmmakers appear rattled. There used to be a...
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“Chennai Ungalai Anbudan Varaverkirathu”… A sprawling, unwieldy drama about...
Spoilers ahead… Chennai Ungalai Anbudan Varaverkirathu is a variant on Angadi Theru. This, too, is about people from outside Chennai who come to the city with dreams of making it big, but find that...
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“O Kadhal Kanmani”… A lightweight but enjoyable romance
Spoilers ahead… After a long time, I caught myself smiling while watching a Mani Ratnam movie. The cuteness, the zingers, the youngness – it’s all back. Seen one way, O Kadhal Kanmani is something of...
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