NERAM MOVIE REVIEW

Adding to the list of next-gen different thinkers of Tamizh cinema, here comes Alphonse Putharen, who churns out a bilingual in his debut venture. Simply titled as 'Neram', this film evoked curiosity with its well-cut trailer and a rocking video song, "Pistha" which had lyrics taken from Sathyan Anthikkad's 'Kinnaram'. With a totally new cast and some known faces, did the young and compact team of 'Neram' lived up to the expectations ?

Nivin Pauly from Malayalam cinema, makes a decent debut in 'Neram'. He is idealized as the chap-in-bad-luck very well and brings out the emotions, pretty well. There is definitely room for improvement in regards to expressions and dialogue delivery, but credits for Nivin for delivering a neat performance comfortably. The cute and pretty Nazriya Nazim, steals our hearts with a spirited and believable performance in the character of the cute girl-next-door type. Its a little minus though, in regards to her character getting lost during the middle of the story. All in all, we have the next homely-cute girl of Tamizh cinema in Nazriya ! Simhaa, who has been making names appearing in 'Pizza', 'Soodhu Kavvum' and etc dons an antagonistic role for the first time, and its a complete makeover for him. He looks very much convincing and menacing as 'Vatti' Raja. Better films and directors can bring out even better performances from him ! Thambi Ramaiah and John Vijay shares a special 'chemistry' in this film with their repartee and counter dialogues ! The rest of the cast such as Charlie, Ananth Nag, 'Crane' Manohar, Deepak Nathan, RJ Ramesh Thilak, D.Crawford, Anand Chandrababu, Sabaresh Varma, Sai Prasad, Sherif, Akhilan, Vijay Muthu and etc made their presence felt. But the real icing on the cake was Nassar, who was a scream in his role as 'iPhone' ! The veteran certainly brought the house down with his antics and excellent dialogue delivery. 

The film carries very good technical work, from a relatively young and ambitious crew. Muralidharan's costume designing was very apt for the characters, as each artistes were made to look convincing as the characters they played. Rajakrishnan M.R's sound mixing was spot on, especially for the chase and stunt sequences, which brought out the effect well, on screen. 'Run' Ravi's stunt was very natural and realistic, and mostly involved chase sequences, which were well conceptualized and shot. Mohana Mahendiran's art work involved many props, used to fill up backgrounds involved in the film. The work was minimal, but efficient. The director, Alphonse Putharen himself takes up the editing work, and the film was very astutely directed, according to his vision of the script. The chase sequences were very smoothly done and also not to forget, the lovely montages in the songs. Anend C.Chandran's cinematography was gritty, has several moods in the film, pertaining to the sequences and has good framing sense. The sepia color tone was very well handled by the young cinematographer and he certainly shares a great sense of understanding with the director. Very well done job !

Newcomer Rajesh Murugesan delivers refreshing and cool music, which complemented the script and style of film-making of the director's. "Kadhal Ennule" is a sweet melody picturized on the lead pair in montages, showing their lovey-dovey moments. The camerawork had plenty of close-ups, which brought out the love moments pretty well. "Kaatru Veesum" is another simple yet beautiful number, which was used as a cheeky situational song, shot on Nazriya and Deepak Nathan. The slow motion effect was well used for this song and Mandaiveli was never shown so beautifully on screen. Even the simple streets looked so fresh and pristine ! The popular "Pistha - The Run Theme" was used during the penultimate chase sequence and also for the end credits, which the latter has gone to be a viral video on social medias. The theme music tracks such as "Neram Theme", "Phone Booth" and "Thiruttu Isai" were well placed as background scores with additional lovely rendition of Beethoven's classic Für Elise !

Alphonse Putharen's script which was developed with a team consisting Pradeep Palarr, Mohsin Kasim, Jegesh Vijay, Krishna Shankar and Sherif, is a simple thriller with some very well conceptualized sequences. The usage of the Chaos Theory or popularly known as 'The Butterfly Effect' was a cheeky, nice touch. There are moments in the film, which keeps our attention hooked to the screen, and there are moments were the momentum falls flat and goes slow-mo. Pradeep Palarr's dialogues, especially the one's involved between Thambi Ramaiah and John Vijay were brilliantly and cheekily written ! As mentioned before, the chase sequences, which plays an the most important part of the film was very well conceptualized. The story telling was pretty smooth, probably due to the editing work carried out by the director himself. The premise is engaging, the thrill effect is there, but still the audiences will be left feeling wanting more from the script and idea of Alphonse Putharen. Right from the beginning, with the opening card starting off with Quentin Tarantino's saying which goes, "I steal from every movie ever made" the premise takes off very well, but the end product falls a little bit short of meeting our expectations. Nonetheless, the film was still a tension-free product, with good dosages of entertainment.

'Neram' - worth watching and investing our time !


Ratings: 3/5 STARS

BY:TAMIL