Set in the 1990's era of the violent North Madras area, 'Sundaattam' has the culture of carom board gambling as its backdrop, with a love story laced within it. Irfan of 'Kanaa Kaanum Kaalangal' series fame, plays the role of the hero, accompanied by a debutante heroine, Arunthathi. Debutante director Brahma G.Dev, shows some promise, with good detailing, but will his directorial and writing skill, be worth the watch ?
Irfan may have the camera-exposure experience, but he is certainly, no hero material. For now ! He lacks the energy and fizz needed to carry the machismo of a Tamizh cinema hero. He has to fine tune his voice modulation and also experiment more to make up for the lack of screen presence. Meanwhile, debutante Arunthathi, shows some promise with her confident performance. She carries her role well, and its not often we get to see such tall heroines. More good roles, and she has a good career, in front of her. Madhu as the antagonist, had the looks required for his role. But his voice lacks the grittiness, needed. The rest of the cast such as Naren, Stalin, Sendraj, Harris Musa, Sree Latha, Kumar, Sujatha, Misha and Vinoth, were apt for their roles.
Jeyaraj's costume designing was apt for the characters, pertaining to particular sections and area of society. 'Super' Subbarayan and 'Action' Prakash's stunt choreography was neatly done, with no exaggerated kicks and punches. Mohana Magendran's art direction was not bad, especially for the market street set-up as the main backdrop for the film and as well as the interiors of the carom club and the protagonist's house. Good job, indeed. L.V Thasson's editing was crisp, keeping the film not too boring and lengthy, with no abrupt jumps. But he must avoid making mistakes by retaining shots for different time period of the film. P.Balagurunathan's cinematography was in tune with the mood and backdrop setting of the script. The raw and edgy look was maintained throughout the film, and the night shots, were well handled, with good exposure lights. The color tone of the film, further complemented the cinematography, pretty well.
Newcomer Britto handles the song compositions of the film. "Adi Unnale" is a good melody number, which was picturized on the market set, with typical rain-and-dance mode, showing the hero falling for the heroine and dreaming of her. The lighting for the song was well handled. "Vizhiyil Vithai" is a situational song, which glorifies the uprising of the hero in the carom gamble scenario and his rivalry with his nemesis. With plenty of montages, the focus was on the hero and the villain, depicting their emotions, in the up-rise and downfall, respectively. The pick of the album, "Narumughaye" is a beautiful and sweet melody, with typical montage picturization of the hero-heroine couple in their love escapades, shot mostly in streets, beaches and in running buses. "Nethiyile" is the only song composed by Arunagiri, and is about the death of an elderly man. A situational song, it was shot with a good number of dancers with song montages slipped in between, in a funeral backdrop. "Kan Kondu" is a pathos song, showing the hero in search of his missing heroine, in sequences of montages, with plenty of close-ups. "Kadhal Varum Varai" is the final song, which was used only like a bit song, picturized on the hero and heroine, getting back together, with the beach and highway as the backdrop. The background score was handled by Achu, and he shows his promising talent, with fine touches of melody here and there.
Debutant Brahma G.Dev's script is shown to be based in the 90's, but honestly, nothing in the film reminded us of that particular time period, except for some film posters and the absence of 21st century gadgetry. It still puzzles, as to why he decided to have that aspect. The only element which reminds us of that time era, is the outdated love-blossoming sequences, which were as old as the hills. His attempt in capturing the dark and gritty North Madras ambiance, is laudable, though. Brahma G.Dev's script lacks the same grittiness needed, as it is too simple and straight-forward. There is nothing interesting which hooks us to the movie. There is no coherent screenplay and certain sequences stands out like a sore thumb, for no reasons. The antagonist lacks attitude needed for the role and though the voice modulation was good, it was not sufficient enough. Brahma G.Dev fails to notch up a clear-cut theme line for his film, which results in his screenplay wandering aimlessly.
Brahma G.Dev could have been roughly inspired by Vetrimaaran's 'Pollathavan'. Hence, the raw output.
Ratings: 1.75/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
'Maalai Pozhudhin Mayakathile', a wonderfully titled movie, this film is by newcomers entirely from the crew. It garnered attention through the success of one of its song on Youtube, "Oh Baby" hitting more than 200,00 views. Also, music director Achu's songs were very well received, especially the haunting, melody numbers. Well designed and photographed, it carried an interesting premise, that is the whole movie will be set in a coffee shop and what happens between the characters in that coffee shop, who are stuck inside, due to heavy rain. Did the film charm us as how the music did?
The protagonist role was done by Aari, who previously did the Shankar produced 'Rettaisuzhi'. He has an aroma of confidence with him and his appearance makes him a delightful to watch, to some extent. Heroine, Subha Putela, Miss India South of 2010, makes her debut in Tamizh cinema. Her performance is quite average and its a little obvious that she is struggling with the language. Not much of acting scope for her, as she has very less emotions to display. The rest of the cast did justice to their respective roles, be it Panchu Subbu, Sivaji R.S, Tejasvini, V.Balaji, Karuna, Sathish and etc. Choreographer Nandha and Ashwathy Warrier makes an appearance in a song.
Technical wise, the film has some decent output from the crew. Stills and designing by Maneksha and Jeff was good and romantic, keepin in mind with the theme of the film. JPK Prem used minimal but just necessary amount of props in the film as 90% of the film is based only around the coffee shop. Editing by M.Thiyagarajan was decent, and costumes were done by Narayanan Nagendra Rao and Gopi Amarnath, who are the director and cinematographer of the film. Gopi Amarnath, has captured some good shots in the songs and the color tone used in the film, especially the ambience it created for the coffee shop scene, was splendid. Not to forget, the beautiful rain shots, too. Achu, has delivered some beautiful melodies in the movie. "Oh Baby Girl" picturized against a bulbs-lit backdrop, was shot in a music-video format, something similar to the Asian music videos. Also it had some good choerography by Nandha. "Nerathin Neram Ellam", a poem recital was shot on the lead pair sitting romantically on a bench, with close-up shots, and a soft blue tone. "Yaaro Ivalo" was shot in colorful locations with good lighting. "Yen Intha Thideer" was shot in a dark color tone, with some ballerinas dancing around the sad protagonist. The song has been shot in the washroom of the coffe shop portrayed, so the angles were a little close and tight. The pick of the lot of the songs, is the 'Yen Uyire" track sung by Karthik. It was shot like a dreamy-sequence, in fog-filled, green pasture atmosphere. And also there's another version used at the end of the film, sung by 'Bombay' Jayashree. "Kadal Karaiyinile" a retrospective-montage song was picturized on the hero, reminiscing about the girl he met. Achu has also delivered soothing background score for the film, especially with the violin section.
Narayanan Nagendra Rao, the director, would have been inspired by Gautham Vasudev Menon's style of romance film, but sadly his script has nothing to offer, story wise. The script is very weak, dialogues are preachy, and the characters has no depth in them. There is no chemistry between the lead pair and there's no organic story development. Actually, no one can figure out what is the actual story of the film or what the director wanted to convey, in the first place ! Trying to present a romantic scene should be just left for advertisements and not feature films, unless you have a solid script and screenplay!
'Maalai Pozhudhin Mayakathile', a poorly written film with no story to tell ! Its a pity that Achu's wonderful music was wasted, entirely. The only other thing that can be appreciated is the 'effort' of the team to use live sound recording instead of dubbing the voices for the artistes, which gives a realistic feel to the settings.
Ratings: 1.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
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