ALEX PANDIAN MOVIE REVIEW

As it was in 2011, Karthi starts off 2013 with another "masala" oriented action-comedy which borrows its title from one of Rajinikanth's epic characters list, 'Alex Pandian'. The name reminds us of the class, style, fury and charismatic performance of the one and only 'Superstar'. Suraaj who has been borrowing titles inspired by Rajinikanth lately, has teamed up with Karthi and Santhanam for the first time. A lavish budget from Studio Green, 'Alex Pandian' made no bones about the expectations audience should have on this film, through the teasers and posters. So, is 'Alex Pandian' worth all the budget ?

Karthi, who is armed with a charming and instantly likeable personality, sleep walks through the film. There is nothing much to do in the performance and this film only acts as another medium for him to improve his dancing and stunts performances. Karthi has been showing his inclinations in becoming an all out mass hero, but without a power-packed performance, will he succeed in his mission ? Definitely, no and he has been failing to realize it. The other 'hero' of the film Santhanam, carries the entire first half on his shoulders with his wise-cracking dialogues and funny antics. We have seen him do this plenty of times, and he does it with complete ease. The only difference here, is that he takes the opposing camp of Karthi, instead of playing the usual sidekick buddy. His dialogue delivery and timing are near perfect as usual, but he should control the level of double entendre jokes, since he is such a popular comedian now and kids are taking a liking for him. Anushka, pitiably has nothing much to do other then being the usual damsel-in-distress and dancing for song sequences. The film has a big star cast in Milind Soman, Suman, Prathap Pothen, Visu, Nikita Thukral, Akanksha, Sanusha, Manobala, Renuka, Saravanan, Vaiyapuri, Santhana Bharathi, Rajkapoor and Mahadevan, but sadly all of them have been wasted and appears as mere caricatures and laughable characters. Wonder what made all of them to choose to do this film, apart from the remunerations.

The film carries quite a big budget, but the works of the technical crew has been average. Costumes by Perumal Selvam makes the characters look lively and appealing, especially of Karthi's and Anushka's. The stunt choreography by K. Ganesh Kumar was too bad to be true. Laws of physics and practicality issue takes a severe beating. The opening action block was outrageously choreographed and if it wasn't for the editors, the opening scenes would have been a total mess. M.Prabakaran's art work was just nice. The interiors of Santhanam's town house, Karthi's jungle hideout, the sets for songs, all were neatly done. Praveen K.L and Srikanth N.B's editing work was crisp but sadly the film lacked maturity, which makes it hard to appreciate their work. S.Saravanan's cinematography was not bad and good enough for the script.

Devi Sri Prasad's songs are just below average, with some mass appeal. The first song, "Onnam Class" is a typical mass item song with Karthi dancing along with the three other girls of the film, Nikita, Akanshka and Sanusha. The setwork was good, with colorful blue, read and black themed sets and elaborate lighting. "Thakka Thaiya" was shot in a small town house set, with a joyous ceremony as its backdrop. The typical props such as serial lights, stage, flowers and back up dancers in traditional attires, are all there, with some comedic elements thrown into. "Naalu Pakkam" was well shot with very detailed set work. The tribal, wild western and pirates themed set works were very well done, especially the pirate set. "Rayya Rayya" is a typical "kuthu" song with simple sets erected in a studio, and the lead pair and dancers dressed in colorful costumes. "Bad Boy", which was used as the promotional song and appears during the end credits, was the best shot among all the songs. It has a little touch of class in its editing and the sets erected in the popular Binny Mills. DSP's background score is not worth discussing about, other than being sufficient enough for the film.

Coming back to the earlier asked question, Suraaj's script is not worth the budget spent at all, and it baffles why waste a big amount of money on a poorly written, half-baked script. The film has no cohesive screenplay, justified story telling, unnecessary comedy bits, and low-in-taste action scenes. Also, The plot wanders into no-man's territory in the second half. As mentioned earlier, Suraaj wasted the talents and capabilities of his acting cast. He tries to push the burden of the film on Santhanam for the first half and then shift the second half to Karthi. Suraaj's previous films such as 'Thalainagaram' and 'Marudhamalai' had humorous comedy scenes in them with less action, but here the action quotient is on par with the comedy quotient, and both elements were poorly written and executed.

'Alex Pandian' is an unabashedly, pretentious "masala commercial" which is poor in taste but high on budget. Karthi and Suraaj, what's wrong with you guys ?


Ratings: 1.75/5 STARS

BY:TAMIL

MURATTU KAALAI MOVIE REVIEW

'Murattu Kaalai', the remake of the evergreen Rajinikanth-Jaishankar classic was long overdue, with the production beginning in the year 2009. After three years, the film made it for release, and three years in Tamizh cinema is a big gap, because of the sea of constant changes we see in trends, artistes and etc. This film was started with the intention of reaping in the sudden popularity of Sundar.C as an actor but the scene has completely changed now, with him back to direction and, winning-ways as well with his recently released 'Kalakalappu'. Will this film reap any benefits by releasing?

Sundar.C, sadly did not and will not be able to match the charisma and energetic performance of Rajinikanth in the original. His good height and big size gives him a 'macho' halo around him but sadly, the performance is nothing extraordinary. Suman did a typical village villainous influential man. Nothing to talk about. Sindhu Tolani is there just for the glam appeal. Sneha has nothing much to offer, performance wise and shows a little skin here and there. Vivek as a transgender/transvestite was in his usual manner. Good body language and dialogue delivery but not all of his jokes evokes laughter, including the '16 Vayadhiniley' spoof with his regular partner "Cell" Murugan was insipid. The cast just did what they were asked to do and not perform out the character.

Technically the film has poor quality. Stunts by Silva was over-the-top most of the time, and only the climax fight on the train was a little decent. Shankar's art direction was minimal and detailing were not properly highlighted with simple pieces of work in songs as well. Praveen K.L and Srikanth N.B's fast-cutting helps the movie to go a little faster but nothing to impressive. Santtonio Tarziio's cinematography was pretty average and the opening song, as well as the climax fight sequence on the train was captured properly, though shaky at times. Srikanth Deva's tunes were very, very average. The iconic and legendary "Pothuvaaga En Manasu" song was lukewarm and dull though it was picturized on a grand scale with lots of fanfare. "Sundara" and "Bhonda" songs, the first on Sundar.C-Sneha and the latter on Sundar.C-Sindhu Tolani was poor with some montage sequences in the middle and the same orchard, paddy fields, barren lands used as the backdrop. "Punnagai" song picturized against the backdrop of a monument, also fails to impress. The background score reminds one of Deva's works and his contradicting sound plays, was weird.

The biggest flaw of the film is the screenplay and writing by K.Selva Baarathi. It was unimpressive, boring and lacks any energy. The director failed to tap genuine performances from his artistes, making them look like caricatures.

'Murattu Kaalai' has nothing to benefit from and the original should have been left untouched.


Ratings: 1/5 STARS

By:TAMIL

ENGEYUM KADHAL MOVIE REVIEW

Engeyum Kadhal, was a much expected film from the stable of Prabhu Deva, thanks to the publicity of Kalpathi for promoting it as a romantic flick armed with the super success of Harris Jeyaraj's fantastic album score for the film. This film has been shot lavishly in Paris which gives it a cool and urban feel to the film. Plus, the presence of a young and fresh pair of hero-heroine, Jeyam Ravi and Hansika Motwani adds more attractiveness to the film. Do Prabhu Deva deliver this time after the super-flop Villu? Unfortunately it's a big NO!!

Performance wise, hero Jeyam Ravi has done a neat job as the cool, rich entrepreneur. He oozes composure and freshness in his character and thanks to Nalini Sriram's costumes, he looks smart and handsome. His dialogue delivery and modulation was also up to mark. His dancing prowess was also well used in the film. Hansika Motwani who was supposed to be debuting with this film, has done a cute job or should say a much better performance than in Mappilai. Her bubbly talk, cute expressions and exuberant emotions are a treat to the eyes and Nalini Sriram once again picked out the suitable clothes for her as well which really reflects her character. Besides that, Savitha Reddy's dubbing has complemented Hansika well. Suman was totally wasted and Raju Sundaram with his buffoonery act was irritating except for one particular scene where he tries to put together the water soaked cellphone. Prakash Raj in a 2 scene cameo was absolutely hilarious.

Talking about the technical department, Prabhu Deva has some of the best of the industry in his disposal. Three major factors which are the USP of the film is the cinematography, costumes and music. Neerav Shah has done an absolutely brilliant job in capturing the beauty of Paris, Greece and New Zealand. Be it the old monumental buildings or the new urban settings, everything looks so fresh and beautiful, thanks to his amazing angles and color tone chosen for the movie. Nalini Sriram, as mentioned earlier has dressed the lead characters very aptly and they reflected the mood of the film and complemented well to the surroundings of Paris. Harris Jeyaraj has done a terrific job with his musical score and all his songs has a certain mood and feel to it which caters to a wide section of audience. Not only that, all the songs have been picturised very well. The title track was well picturised with several shots edited well by Anthony. Lolita and Nangai has excellent dance moves by Sridhar, whereas Nenjil Nenjil and Thee Illai has beautiful backdrops behind. The background score is very light and lilting as well which really keeps the mood of the movie intact. Kanal Kannan's stunts could have been toned down little bit and Anthony did a decent job with the editing.

Although the film carries excellent work technical wise, it really fails to capture the heart of the audiences because of the poor story or should say no story at all. The blame either falls on the story writers, Ravi Chakravarthy & A.C Mugil or on Prabhu Deva for his screenplay. The real backbone of a romantic film will be the depth of the love story between the lead characters. In Engeyum Kadhal, this aspect is totally missing and the audiences do not sympathize or empathize with the struggles of the lead characters. There are some cute scenes like ticket checking scene in the train, the birthday outing and etc but they are far in between and that alone will not hold the story together. Prabhu Deva should know that script is the backbone of a film and all the other aspects only helps the script to be elevated into a higher degree.

Final verdict, Engeyum Kadhal is a poor product from Prabhu Deva and AGS and the only saving grace are the songs, cinematography and costumes. Jeyam Ravi, hope you make amends with Aadhi Bhagawan.

Ratings: 2/5 STARS

BY:TAMIL