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
The explosion of daringly innovative new directors in Tamizh cinema, continues with another fellow alumnus of "Naalaiya Iyakkunar", Nalan Kumarasamy. Known for his unique style of attempting black/serious comedy, Nalan has teamed up with the potential 'Superstar' of shoe-string budgeted different films, Vijay Sethupathi, for his debut mainstream cinema venture. A bizarre title, talented crew, a visionary young producer in C.V Kumar, and influential distributors in Studio Green, there could be no other better platform for Nalan to launch himself into the stratosphere of Tamizh cinema.
To start off with the cast, where else can we open up other than the man of the moment, Vijay Sethupathi. As Das, the leader of the motley, chaotic 'kednaping' crew, he should be commended for choosing to play a role which is off much senior to his actual age. His paunch and looks have been very well sketched out and he fits into the role as perfectly as a glove. Brilliantly, composed performance ! Perfect body language added more sheen to his acting delivery. This boy's place is definitely cemented and he is for sure here to stay as a poster boy of the unique small-budgeted films. Way to go Vijay !! The pretty and petite Sanchita Shetty, a literal dream girl, was near-perfect with her dialogues and lip-sync but she could work out more on her body language to improve her performance. The other three crazy guys of the 'kednaping' crew were fantastic as well. Simhaa's soft image worked out very well for his character, RJ Ramesh was brilliant with his voice modulation and Ashok Selvan's expressions were spot on. The rest of the cast such as the incorruptible politician M.S Bhaskar, the psychotic silent-killer Yog Japee, the straight-in-the-face Radha Ravi, the scheming son Karunakaran and whacky henchman cum gangster Aruldass, were too good in their roles.
'Soodhu Kavvum' is definitely one of the films to have had all of its technical department, deliver fantastic outputs. Costume designer Shiva did a wonderful job with Vijay Sethupathi's costumes, which gave Vijay the dirty, odd look. Whereas Sanchita was looking very pretty in Reshma's costume designing, which was a necessity as she is an 'dream-girl' after all ! 'Billa' Jagan's stunt choreography was very professionally done, with precision executions, which was a difficult thing to do, since Yog Japee's stunts had changing backdrops ! Not to be left, the bar fight sequence, was also well choreographed. Vijay Adhinathan's art direction was veridical in detailing. The dingy, half-torn, home of the lead character, which was filled with odd props, the moderately decorated house of a minister, the warehouse setting, and also for the "Kaasu Panam" durbar sequence. Everything was bang-on and its laudable achievement, since he has done it, with moderate budget. Leo John Paul's editing was sharp yet smooth. The transition from one event to another was smooth and his hard-work was evident throughout the film, with many cut-shots and montages pierced together into particular sequences. Brilliant work ! B.Dinesh Krishnan's cinematography complemented the mood and feel of the directors vision of his script, which gave the film a neo-noir look. His lighting and angles for many sequences were unique touches, which added more fun element to the script.
One of the exciting talents of the current Tamizh film music arena, Santhosh Narayanan has once again smashed it, with a brilliant album, which has fantastic outputs mastered by Steve Smart, who has contributed his talents to Madonna and Michael Jackson ! The theme music, "Sudden Delight" is literally a sudden delight which is played sporadically along the film's screenplay. "Mama Douser", a zany song sung by Andrea, was picturized on a bar fight, with fantastic lighting and props, with good camera movements, and also re-used again later for a thrilling chase sequence. "Coma Na Come" is a montage filled song, which showcased the 'kednaping' crew with their funny 'kednaping' ordeals. "Kaasu Panam" was fantastically picturized, with Karunakaran in a dream song, which resembled the old Durbar courtyard of ancient Indian kings. 'Gaana' Bala makes a groovy cameo in this song as well. "Sa Ga" is a short situational dream song, which resembled like a lullaby, shot on the lead pair, showcasing Sanchita in an angel-like role, comforting the brutally battered Vijay. "Ellam Kadanthu" is another situational song, showing Karunakaran's rise in politics, picturized in montages. This same song was also picturized separately for promotional purposes, with most of the cast singing the lines, in scenes of the films ! The background score was brilliantly composed, with unique tracks for each characters and they did not overwhelm the flow of the screenplay. 'Soodhu Kavvum' is a milestone in Santhosh's career !
What works for 'Soodhu Kavvum' are the crazy and quirky ideas layered throughout the film, and none of them were simply thrust into the film for the sake of it. A creative script and story (jointly developed by Nalan with Srinivas Kavenayam) is further strengthened by the strong and well-written roles of the main artists. Each of them uniquely varied from each other and has their own sense of comic timing. The congruence of all these characters led to a zany and wacky situations, and these episodes were very well conceptualized and executed by Nalan, who deserves a big round of applause, for achieving it. And what worked well for the film was the manner the concepts were executed, which was very light-hearted, yet quirky in nature. The experimentation did not go wrong for Nalan most of the time, but there was a light dip in pace in the second half, which stretched the duration of the film. Yet it can be forgiven, since the final output was master-class. Nalan also impresses with super dialogues, which were well timed and delivered perfectly by the acting cast. Wacky ideas, creative script, fun screenplay, near-perfect execution, an aptitude cast, a quality crew, what else can we ask from Nalan's debut noir-comic film ?
'Soodhu Kavvum' - scooped our attention, in a big way !
Ratings: 3.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
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 ! 
