After a break of 4-years, Shankar's S Pictures is back in limelight and this time he is distributing the film made by his former protege, Karthik G.Krish, which is produced by I Studios Entertainment. 'Kappal' promises to be a comedy-riot and is mainly targeted at the urban youngsters. When ones love is in trouble, he/she depend on his/her friends. But what if the friends are the actual problem here ? 'Kappal' explores this situation and did Shankar's protege make his mentor proud ?
For Vaibhav, who has been doing supporting roles, this is a big break for him and his role is an apt character for his style of acting. The character had enough comical shades to it and Vaibhav has made good use of his opportunity. His comic-timing is getting better and even his acting his improving as well. More experiments with his dialogue delivery and voice modulation can help him improve his performance. Debutante heroine Sonam Bajwa looks super cute, elegant, hot & sexy, all rolled into one. She scores in some portions and shows promise. With better choices of films, this young lass can shoot herself into the A-list of Tamizh cinema heroines ! 'VTV' Ganesh was in his usual elements and rocks in a few scenes, with his unique style of dialogue delivery. The team of Karunakaran, Arjunan Nandhakumar, Venkat Sundar and Karthik Priyadarshan complemented Vaibhav well and they had their own moments too. Robo Shankar, George, Steve and etc had supporting roles and among them, Steve stood out for his performance in a character, which strangely mimicked Silambarasan.
S.Tamil Selvan is in charge of costume designing and as per the script's demands, the characters looked their roles, especially Sonam Bajwa, who was looking charming and sexy, in her chic costumes. Art direction is handled by K.Arusamy, and his work gave the rich detailing in terms of set properties. 'VTV' Ganesh's house set-up, as well as the posh houses shown in the film, were aptly propped. K.Arusamy certainly made good use of the budget given ! Anthony's editing was surprisingly jerky, and he could have certainly trimmed many portions, which was slowed the pace of the film. Dinesh Krishnan.B of 'Soodhu Kavvum' fame has handled the cinematography work and it is very slick and functional. The way he has did the lighting for the indoor locations, gave the sequences the apt look and the rich-look of the film was achieved, thanks to his camerawork.
Natarajan Sankaran's musical score works well with the script's presentation style and the flow of the screenplay. "Oru Cup Acid" sung by Santhosh Narayanan is shot in Vaibhav, Karunakaran, Arjunan Nandhakumar, Venkat Sundar and Karthik Priyadarshan and serves as their introductory song. The whole song was shot in a college campus and has montages of the quadruplet of friends spoiling every attempt of Vaibhav in a finding a girlfriend. "Kaali Pasanga", also sung by Santhosh Narayanan, is a comical situation song, in which Vaibhav thwarts a group of rowdies by spewing bad words at them. The VFX executed by WEFX team is commendable. "Ekka Chakkama" is shot on the lead pair and has montages of their love scenes, shot in and around posh and urbane locations of Chennai. The pick of the lot, "Kadhal Cassatta" was shot on the lead pair and a group of dancers, against a candy & sweets themed, set work done by K.Arusamy. Both the sets and Sonam Bajwa looked yummy, indeed ! Dinesh Krishnan.B's camerawork deserves mention for this song. The cult-hit 'Isaignani' Ilaiyaraaja groove number, "Oore Vittu Ooru" from the film 'Karakaattakaaran', is used in this film, though the audio CD had a different remix-version. It was shot against Vaibhav, Karunakaran, Arjunan Nandhakumar, Venkat Sundar and Karthik Priyadarshan, in and around Chennai locations and they were accompanied by a group of dancers, dressed up as super-heroes. "Friendship" is a pathos song, and has montages of the main lead and the supporting artistes, dealing with the break-up between the hero and heroine. Natarajan Sankaran's background score is quirky and works well for the film's mood.
Karthik G.Krish's simplistic but realistic approach and treatment of the script, makes 'Kappal' a fun viewing for most of the time. The hero and heroine's characters were well etched and handled, and the detailing in their characters, could have been a little more articulate. The screenplay was simple and straightforward, although there are some lagging moments, which could have been edited out, alongside some unwanted song sequences. Karthik G.Krish's plus point seems to be his dialogue writing and there are plenty of one-liners, which were very funny and entertaining, especially in the first half and mouthed by 'VTV' Ganesh. There are some loopholes and continuity mistakes in the film, which the makers could have been more careful of, but Karthik G.Krish manages to divert our attention away from those mistakes, with back-to-back comedy sequences. The climax is a riot, especially with Steve's character and the antics played by Karunakaran, Arjunan Nandhakumar, Venkat Sundar and Karthik Priyadarshan. There are some adult-oriented comedy portions and dialogues, which we believe, is a toned-down version from the original scenes.
'Kappal' - Some rough water, but a safe sail overall !
Ratings: 2.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
Balaji Mohan simply oozes quirkiness and wittiness in his writing and with the runaway success of his debut, he is back with an intriguingly titled film, 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum'. The trailers and teasers spelled a fun rom-com, with a young cast and crew and a stylish presentation idea, can Balaji Mohan pull it off for the second time ? Can Tamizh cinema-fans expect a jolly, good ride with 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' ?
Making his Tamizh cinema debut is Dulquer Salmaan, the son of Malayalam Superstar Mammootty breezes through his role as the cherubic and talkative sales agent. Building upon the confidence of his Malayalam films' success, Dulquer makes a fantastic debut in this film and is also nearly flawless with his Tamizh pronunciation and dialogue delivery. A definite talent to look out for and hope Tamizh cinema utilizes his acting capability more and better. Nazriya Nazim was simply too good as the beautiful but introvert medical doctor. She perfectly nailed her character and shares good vibes with Dulquer. Madhubala or Madhoo makes her comeback to Tamizh cinema and my word, she looks gorgeous even after all these years and her experience speaks for her, with those minute and fabulous expressions, she gave ! There's a brigade of character artistes in this film and all of them are just wacky personalities. From the mumbling politician R.Pandiarajan, his wise-cracking assistant Kaali Venkat, the foul-mouthed Arjunan, the crazy 'Nuclear Star' John Vijay and his die-hard fan Ramesh Thilak, the always-drunk 'Robo' Shankar, the grumpy and wealthy, old Vinu Chakravarthy, and finally, Balaji Mohan himself as the wily newscaster, made their marks as each one of them has their own different sub-plots in the film. Besides them, there are a few more artistes like RJ Balaji, Nakshathra Nagesh, Abhinav, Satya Priya, Kamala Krishnaswamy, Abhishek, Mime Gopi and etc in the cast. Cool casting, indeed !
Niranjani Ahathian takes care of the costume designing and her work adds more color and charm to the film's presentation. The characters looked lively and colorful thanks to the vibrant costumes, especially for the gorgeous ladies, in the film ! Art direction is handled by A.R Mohan and his art work seamlessly blended with the natural surroundings. The indoor set-up of the lead characters' homes and rooms, were well detailed and had a sense of stylishness to them. Abhinay Sunder Nayak handles the editing, and though his cuts were smooth and easy on the eyes, he could have trimmed some scenes of the several sub-plots of the film. Some episodes become tiresome after a while and is only there for the funny-gag quotient. Nevertheless, it was still a clean and neat work from him. S.Soundar Rajan's cinematography was excellent, especially with the way he projected Munnar, as the cool and beautiful hill station, with his color tone and lighting pattern. Besides that, his camera movements add more zing and fun into the screenplay and complements Balaji Mohan's writing.
Young and fresh music composer Sean Roldan, popular within the independent music album circles, makes his debut in Tamizh cinema. The light-hearted touches and also the groovy touches he gives to his track, has its own charm and effect for the songs. "Shut Up" is the title track and appears during the beginning credits, which has a plain color palette based animation. "Podhum Ini" is the first track and is shot on Dulquer, with plenty of cut-shots, well put together by Abhinay and Munnar's green hillsides were beautifuly captured by S.Soundar Rajan. "Kadhal Ara" is the funky love track, which has mini fantasy episodes in the song, which had simple set works and interspersing of the original story track. "Udaigiren" is a slow, pathos number, which was shot on most of the main characters, especially with the lead pair, in their sad moments, which were shot and shown in montages. "Maatraparavai" becomes a sort of 'happy-endings' song for the characters which were facing separate dilemmas, in their respective sub-plots. The theme tracks such as "Mr.Fix-IT", "Beedhiya Kelappa Jazz" and "The Sound of Silence" appear sporadically, throughout the film, and feature prominently in the second half. Sean Roldan's background score in the second half, adds a good deal of impetus for the film's screenplay, since everyone goes 'silent' in the film. A very good debut !
What works in Balaji Mohan's 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum', is the simple message of how important and pertinent communication is to each and everyone, and how people take granted of it, being presented in a very fun, and quirky format ! The sub-plots, though has their own respective agendas, are simply funny and very well written by Balaji. Adding more credence to the fun-factor are Balaji's minute and creative ideas, be it the bulletins running during the prime news, the epic YouTube mash-up of R.Pandiarajan's mumbling act, the 'censoring' idea of Arjunan's foul-mouthed ramblings, the spoof and satire of cinema artistes and their real life antics, and etc, etc. Balaji has a proper structure to his screenplay and the second half, falls perfectly well, in which the message was articulately presented. The styling and overall look of the film, be it music, color, picturization, fonts and etc, complemented the script very well, and turned 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' as a cool and breezy, up-market entertainer of the year, thus far ! The second half slackens in the pace category, especially with the sentimental episodes, but nonetheless the scenes, were handled maturely. As mentioned earlier, the characters were very well written, keeping in mind the comedy element, and helping the artistes to make their characters stand out, are the humorously written dialogues, which had plenty of witticism, in them. Balaji Mohan has definitely set out a trend in light humor genre, and that too with a dash of fiction in it. This is what you call a whiff of fresh breeze, in Tamizh cinema !
'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' - Eccentricity woven into the script, with tenacity !
Ratings: 3.25/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
