Its the season of Thai Pongal and what better way is there to unwind the festival day, other than watching the brand new film releases ? And kick-starting 2014 with a bang is Ajith Kumar, in the elegant shirt-dhoti combo, living up to the spirits of Pongal ! After a string of urbane roles, Ajith Kumar has reverted to the traditional, rural look (remember 'Attagasam' ?) and teamed up with Siva of 'Siruthai' fame. Can "Thala" start the year with a bang and a back-to-back hit-ratio ?
As the main lead, Ajith Kumar helms the entire film on his shoulder and the film would not have sustained even a single bit, without his sheer presence. The man is majestic and charming, suave yet rural and as always it has been, performs all the action sequences by himself ! His mild changeover in the second half, in terms of facial hair, suits him still and he carried the role with aplomb. "Thala" had a field-day with this project and he has flexed his acting and fighting muscles, in every sense. And the train fight sequence ? Bravo to this gutsy hero ! Tamannaah, is there and that's about it. DOT ! The next person to take the cake is definitely Santhanam, with his wacky one-liners in the first half, who is in sizzling form whereas Thambi Ramaiah takes up the second half, and makes a buffoon out of himself. A National Award and still willing to take up such ludicrous roles ? Time for assessment ! Bala and Vidharth has the meatier roles among the band of younger brothers and they did what they are allowed to do by the character. Suhail Chandok and Munish are the remaining ones. As for the protagonist, Atul Kulkarni did what he was told and Pradeep Rawat was made to look like a fool, in the end. So much so for being a villain ! There is a huge group of peripheral character artistes in the film such as Nassar, Ramesh Khanna, Avinash, Appukutty, Abinaya, Suza Kumar, Mayilsamy, Vidyullekha Raman, Devadarshini, Ilavarasu, 'Crane' Manohar, Sujatha, R.N.R Manohar, Kalairani, Manochitra, Pawan and etc, who were simply there in the frame for no reasons. Waste of budget !
T.Rajan's costumes were okay, the characters looked their parts, just like what a commercial film, would demand. Milan has done a very detailed and labouring work in the production design department. The were just plenty of set work and numerous set properties, which gave the film a resplendently, rural look. Most of the film was done on artificial sets, and Milan and his team must have been on-the-run, all the time. A very well designed production, indeed ! Mu.Kasi Vishwanathan, could have done more trimming because the second half was just simply lagging in pace, but the stunt sequences were very well presented. Silva, K.Ganesh, Pammal Ravi and Vicky have handled the action choreography, and they sure did have a gallery of time, composing the shots ! Silva handled the train fight sequence, which had very dangerous moves, especially with Ajith hanging in the balance from the train, with 300 feet of depth below him. K.Ganesh handled the climax fight sequence, which was a little over-the-top. And the same applies to the works of the other two. Demands from director ? Perhaps, so. Vetri must have studied Ajith Kumar's body language a lot, and its pretty obvious that he has projected "Thala" in a very manly manner ! The rain shots are the best shot sequences of the film !
Devi Sri Prasad aka DSP, or whatsoever has tuned way, below-average compositions for the film ! None of the songs were really catchy nor did they linger in our minds. "Nallavanu Solvaanga" is the introductory song of Ajith and his band of brothers. There are plenty of montages in the song, with some action sequences as well. The set work by Milan, was of top-notch quality, though. The market set-up had all the little, intricate details needed to bring out the authentic look. "Thangame" and "Ival Dhana" were shot in the picturesque Switzerland (where else can they go !). The former had the usual foreign back-up dancers, and was shot in the city landscape. Whereas the latter had the best shots, with beautiful images of snowy mountains, lush & green landscape and etc. "Jingu Chikkan" is the customary temple festival song, with most of the character artistes, being involved. Once again, neat work Milan ! The pick of the lot among the songs, will definitely be the "Ratha Gaja" theme track, which was played out during the high-octane action sequences. Suits "Thala" to a T ! The background score was passable. Complement's the script.
The story was developed by Siva and Bhupathi Raja, and its pretty obvious that their reference were the corny village movies of the late 80's and 90's. A very, very, very old wine in a not-so-new, bottle ! Siva has teamed up with Bharathan for the dialogues, and some of them packs some punches, especially when delivered flawlessly by "Thala" himself. Tailor-made dialogues, aren't they ? Siva has single-handedly managed the screenplay and direction department. The first element was just a mess, second half, especially. Direction ? He nailed it. How difficult can it be to simply direct a film, which can be easily slotted into the films belonging to previous decades ? Its pretty obvious that some elements of the script has been simply thrust, just for the sake of a grandiose effect, and to extract the "larger-than-life" star power of Ajith Kumar. One must switch of their brains and leave the logical thinking at work, if you are to watch flicks, such as these. Siva should be appreciated for smartly incorporating Santhanam into nearly all the scenes of the first half, because if it wasn't for him, the screenplay would have been absurdness played for the entire duration ! Siva has certainly brought Tamizh cinema backwards by a few steps with 'Veeram'.
'Veeram' - The rating below is purely for the "Thala" Ajith Kumar factor, alone. Santhanam can take some credits, too.
Ratings: 2.75/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
Here we go ! Another week and another comedy film being released in Tamizh cinema. Creativity seems to be lacking, where producers are only thinking of pouncing on quick-bucks by producing comedy capers. But hey, a comedy film is still a film and it has to be good, in order to be successful. Shiva and Santhanam, are 'deadly' combination comes together after a brief flirt in 'Thillu Mullu'. Directed by I.Rajasekaran, a former associate of M.Rajesh, each comedian has a heroine each, but how did the movie live up to, in the end ?
Performance wise, Shiva and Santhanam were very pretty much in their comfort zone. Too much of comfort, frankly speaking ! Shiva with his poker-face reactions and Santhanam with his one-liners, are complementary to each other with their distinctively different styles and timing. But their gags together were not of rip-roaring quality, but just plain-silly gags. As for the heroines, Dhanshikaa, has the meatier role and, for an actress of her potential and substance, this was just a pathetic show. Though she could have wanted to do a simpler, attractive-looking, easy-going role, such roles doesn't not offer her much, other than a pay-packet. Sandhya makes her return after quite some time, and she was okay with her comic timing and in a limited portion of sequences. 'Powerstar' Dr.S.Srinivasan makes a cameo and does plenty of spoof gags, though he is improving with his dialogue delivery and comic timing. Devadarshini's role was just insipid and ridiculous. The rest such as Ilavarasu, Rekha, Manohar, Aarthi, Chitra Letchumanan and etc were just there to fill up the spaces.
Shanmugapriya.S's costume designing sufficed the need of the script, especially with the lead pairs looking good. 'Thalapathy' Dinesh's stunt choreography was over-the-top, though the script warranted it. T.S Suresh's editing has nothing to shout about, apart from the fact that it was just neat and the length of the film was short. K.Kathir's production design was okay, trying his best to make the surroundings to look convincing enough. Especially with the props. Vetri's cinematography was average but pleasant in a few shots.
Vijay Ebenezer's songs were below average and none of them were interesting to listen to. "Friendae" was shot on both Shiva and Santhanam, with a swanky shopping complex as a backdrop. "Needhane Endru" is a dream song on Shiva and Dhanshikaa, which had montages and was shot in common places such as beach, malls and theme parks. "Boomi Nalla" was also picturized on Shiva and Dhanshikaa, in a colorful, rural setting done by K.Kathir. While Dhanshikaa showed the glamorous side of her's, Shiva dabbled in real dancing ! "Oru Kannadi" was picturized on a bar setup, erected by K.Kathir. The song was shot on Shiva boozing around and also had Dinesh, the choreographer, throughout the song. "Yaaru Kitta" was like a face-off song, between Shiva and Santhanam and was shot in a wedding atmosphere-like, decorated home. "Nothing Wantu" appears during the end credits.
I.Rajasekaran is clearly motivated by his mentor's style of writing scripts, that is without a proper story but full of funny gags. There's nothing wrong in aping the same methodology, but the execution goes horribly wrong in 'Ya Yaa'. I.Rajasekaran tried to fuse both slapstick comedy and serious story-telling into one screenplay and both elements did not stick well. The film slowly wanders no where, and the screenplay goes completely haywire with farcical and unwanted sequences dished out for no apparent reasons. Some of the gags are filled with double entendres, which could have been avoided. Also, there is a lackaidisical attitude with the final product, with badly done post-production. Many sequences had the dubbing and lip-sync going completely non-sync !
'Ya Yaa' - A half-baked attempt in making quick-bucks, by harping on to the recent trend of comedy films being release.
Ratings: 1.75/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
