Harish Film views

Director: Rajkumar Hirani It’s not without reason that people say Engineers make the world; and Raju Hirani proves just that in his recent offering with the well engineered script. Well engineered script because a lie that Rancho conjures up in a wedding, which one would have thought to be just a “meant for laugh” geeky thing, actually becomes a major part in the climax. It doesn’t matter if you feel, it is far fetched, but what matters is what they have intended to say through that – demonstration of practical application of engineering. Like how Rancho tells Pia often that, she needs demo all the time to understand things. And that is what Raju attempts to sneak into the film, extending Chetan’s writing to a whole new level without losing the balance between fun and seriousness. This balance is evident with the way he demarcates the characters without making them caricatures. And if he does bring in caricature it is to tickle the funny bone with the ode to the yore evoking a Manmohan...

With a triangular love story (not again!) at hand, Aarya-2 could have been easily classified as a run of the mill movie. But what sets it apart is the way Sukumar captures the star presence and showcases it with his witty narration. In one particular scene, Aarya (Allu Arjun) has just sweet-talked a villainous fiancé of Geetha (Kajal Agarwal) into helping them and as the four elope in a car, Geetha sneezes; immediately three hands with kerchief emerge evoking laughter in an unexpected way over the turn of events.  For starters, Aarya-2 is not another episode in Aarya, Ajay and Geetha’s life. It’s about people like Aarya, Ajay and Geetha who go through the same things like in Aarya the film. While Aarya now is a calculative selfless person (oh yes, those two traits can exist together!), Geetha and Ajay essay the same role of innocent girl torn between two guys and brainless loser respectively. With such contrasting traits, its Aarya, whose unconventional “striking like a thunderbo...

Concise version: With the promotional team spilling us everything about the movie, there is no surprise when Eshaan locks Avantika after she finds out about the true colours of her neighbours. Instead we were waiting for the clichéd cupid love to get over and the movie to really begin. With on you face hints like when Avantika writes her address and the number of the flight in question, we were hoping for something gripping, but what we end up seeing are the ever lasting scenes just because the director had the vision that lingering the moment in the audience’s mind (not caring to convey what should be conveyed) is classy, thanks to the poor or absence of words when you need them. Ignoring the mediocrities that unfold, be it the operative nature of the FBI or the terrorists or for that matter an over indulgent reporter who becomes plain stupid to avenge for his fiancé death by infiltrating them, and if you try to look into the movie as an emotional tangle the director doesn’t let us do...

When Shakthi is shown meeting his ex with a flashback of their relationship following it, we get a glimpse of the “suitability to the native” tool that Kannan is going to use for this remake. While Jab we met was – jab things happens it reveals itself – Kanden Kadhalai is all about seeing is believing – everything said then and there, leaving us dry at the end as we know from the time Gautam (Munna) hides inside the car, Anjali will end up marrying Shakthi. It is as if the director has made up his mind that tamil audience’s intelligence is not adept enough to handle the multiple layers of the script Imtiaz had in hand. Where Imtiaz employs sarcasm and subtle emotions or witty dialogues for that matter to handle a situation which made the usual story that JWM was into an intelligent film, Kannan (who did something of that sort with Jayam Kondan) assuming we won’t understand them, adds commercial gimmicks to some of them which even though good only makes the movie an one time watch; or e...

When Suseela dies, Dhruvan instead of shedding tears, runs across in all directions to check if any threat still exists while others break down, and then joins them only to remove her shoes; for people alive are more important in war. Welcome to the world of Dhruvan who is leading a silent war to bring the tribal up the ladder of status; a model person who keeps quiet when insulted beyond disgrace and takes up the punishment for the fallacious acquisitions bestowed on him by his caste centric officer, but in a flash kills intruders cold blooded, that too with stealth, methodically. With an extremely high IQ thanks to his exposure to books, he speaks on world politics through the eyes of Karl Marx and many ideologists, the power of working people, internal and international politics, caste preference, farming, life in forest and the behaviour of fauna, physiology and even on advanced weaponry as a matter of factly which can only be answered by his books, as he takes us through the dense...

Director: Antony D' Souza As the piano strikes the majestic sound of jazz backed by Shreya and Sonu which swiftly changes to western classic ala Arabian nights which was about the mysteries of the land of no water, A.R.Rahman introduces us to the depth of the blue ocean, the similarity being that, both explores treasure, by which one might mistake this to be a riveting experience and sure it promised to be at the initial few scenes when Akshay sleep-swimmingly fights a shark and then makes fun of Sanjay for his over-weight and lazy approach to this role (which even in anyone’s dream he never fits) while boxing, Zayed ACTING like a pro aided by wonderful camera work backed by stupendous bgm races his bike to victory, and Lara clad in a two-piece bikini in her most glamourous self scorches the screen. But things get boring after Lara gets intimate with her grand-pa boy friend suggesting the other meaning for the title to be indeed true, Akshay still sleep-swimming and rambling just l...

Director: K.S.Ravikumar When asked what he knows, the over enthusiastic Murugan alias Aadhavan alias Madhavan like an adept who knows it all yet humble, starts rambling on for 10 reels about varies intricacies in cooking and then as one would expect, at various scenes throughout the film he demonstrates that he knows everything from enacting a monkey (the stunts; not Anand Babu), to yoga, to acting like Shivaji, to various forms of dancing and if you aren’t satisfied he does a Rajini ala muthu style and even shells out a sentimental scene for the sake of it akin to Varanam Aayiram; ultimately ending up proving yet again that none has the speed and grace of MGR to enact the “Naan aanaiyital” and when the cool dude sure-shot assassin walks out of his yacht with anger that he missed his target and being insulted for that, the wanna be cool act acclimates to great heights. If that is not enough we have the yesteryear overacting queen reprising her caricature, while the Thara without any sp...

Director: Susi Ganesan Cast: Vikram, Shriya Apart from good screenplay- a super hero movie needs a great build-up for the hero entry and then slowly with the power of deception, terrorize the enemy and bring a smile in our face which should widen as the hero displays his master stroke of appearance; a stylish movie demands great camera angles with rich colour tones, glamorous heroine dancing her way into our heart, exotic locations, a stud who is the epitome of trend; a Robin Hood movie should offer a clever and cunning hero with a completely contrast alias, a moving circumstance to be an outlaw, an intelligent officer to nail him down and finally a social message; a masala movie need a heroine exposing every time she appears on screen, an item number, few lines praising the hero, gravity defying fights, cantankerous comedy track and sentimental scenes. I guess Susi started off with a Robinhood script, digressed into other subjects and concocted a dish with the weakest ingredients from...

Director: Vishal Baradwaj This dedication to yore with its engaging as well as tiring allusion to the yesteryear is a winner from the start. The story is about two brothers who want to step out of their bourgeois life and accrete into the riches in their own contrasting way. Circumstances change their future one rainy night, which leads into a bloody battle of smuggling, gang-war and maharastrian language politics. Shahid plays the twins who are a mixture of callowness and callus in different ratios with their own speech problems, in his carrier best performance in this dark comedy-action drama. Having taken a typical bollywood masala plot, Vishal fills the screenplay with an overdose of cinematic depiction allover – be it the Charlie’s dream or him running like a horse race. He also employs witty conversations which takes a toil on so many topics which sometimes get overly multi layered that it becomes esoteric for the people who comes in for entertainment from this enormously packed ...

Director: David Yates Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint The shear spectacle of the annihilation of brockdale bridge, the arcanus work that Malfoy does to abet Voldemort, the way each antagonists flock the screen with their style rather than their terrorizing acts (excluding the abstruse Snapes with his acerbic nature), the glorified and magnified portrayal of magic as something chimerical for us – muggles contrast to the book, the beautified and uncurly Hermione - all intended to glamorize the movie and provide a visual spectacle doesn’t make the eyebrows rise. Instead the way Harry adulates Giny at the party, the amazing reactions that Hermoine gives whenever Ron romances Lavender, the bravade that Ron shows in Quidditch field assuming he had all the luck he needed, the gentle humour that Slughorn fuses into his conversation especially in the opening sequence – in short the lighter moments that plays around the fantasy makes the attenuated screen version of the 606 pa...

Director: K.V.Anand Cast: Suriya, Prabhu Take a story which deals about smart smuggling, but this has to reach the masses so cast the hottest stars in the town and make them prance in glamorous outfits, do breath-taking stunts, add sentiments and finally flavour it with bawdy comedy which borders chauvinism; but then the script is about smart smuggling, so lets add science say chemistry facts in to it; for this to be believed the hero has to be educated so lets make him do MSc. Comp. sci., but isn’t he a smuggler? Then let’s make him do distant education. Will the audience accept this? Then for their sake, let’s make him speak madras slang in two scenes and peter english in another two scenes. The screenplay has to be tight- then let the audience think that the bad guy out smart our hero every half an hour and at the end of those scenes by flash back technique we show who is the smartest. Isn’t this script heavy for the audience? Then let’s add a revenge angle to the story line by k...

Director: Vikram Cast: Madhavan Even with bizarre logics and clichés you can win over the audience, if you are in good command over the script: Vikram proves this with his Yavarum Nalam, a part horror and part thriller movie. Be it the standard flashback or the usual twists or the standard spine chillers like close up shots of eyes, sudden knock on door, dog seeing spirits, photos going haywire- Yavarum Nalam has good dosage of everything that a thriller usually shows, yet somewhere down the line falls short, due to the lack of creativity which the concept offers. The story is about how Manoj (R. Madhavan) tackles the situation, when spirits take control of machineries in his new flat. Vikram shows brilliance with the way he embeds humour in scenes which also scares you. His mark continues in the way he shows Manoj handling the troubles caused by the spirits as a part of his routine. He should also be applauded for not showing spirits in masked gory faces and also for avoiding dark...

Director: Rakesh Mehra Cast: Abhisekh Bachan, Rishi Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor Landing into a third world thanks to his grand mother, Roshan (Abhisek) a NRI born to hindu and muslim parents, narrates the journey within that he travels to accept a Nation for what it is, when he encounters various shades of real India and finally to give back the backward nation the lessons he learnt. Rakesh Mehra creates a mesmerizing screenplay by treating this linear story with a non- linear narrative style which travels parallel to the vanavash phase of ramayan being played for the locals, with the former intercepting with the latter at regular intervals and then adding multiple layers to the story by showcasing communal and emotional clashes that breaks out for pointless and oddest of all causes in which the protagonist unknowingly gets involved, due to the preconceived notion or plain immaturity of the average man living in this part of the world. Having created such a complex script, Rakesh smoothly c...

Director: Bala Cast: Aarya, Pooja Spell binding, captivating, haunting, exhilarating and outlandishly gory sums up Naan Kadavul; yet another master-piece by Bala. Handling a film that deals with three issues and giving equal importance to each of them while linking them to form a riveting screenplay with out the audience being bored is no less a mammoth task in which Bala succeeds but only after taking ample cinematic liberties. It takes immense strength to handle certain sequences that Bala exhibits in this documented drama; one being the introduction sequence of the physically challenged; he hits you hard on the face with the way he projects the harsh reality. Bala should also be applauded for touching many a controversial topics from who & where is God to the third eye of Shiva and finally to I am God. All said if you analyse all Bala movies one cant but deny that the central theme remains the same in all of them: An outcast, who is made to believe he is more than human brought...

Director: Prabhu Deva Cast: Vijay, Nayanthara No wonder Prabhu deva gives vijay a superman kind of introduction in Villu, because be it flying in air, planting bombs as easily as blinking the eye, riding jet boats and aircrafts and finally raising from deep sand after death to avenge the antagonists, Vijay does everything.   Prabhu is also not far behind; from writing gibberish B-grade comedy track to lifting every scene in the movie from some movie or the other, Prabhu tries everything. He even surpasses Vijay with the faith cum sentiment cum fantasy cum utter stupid climax projecting Vijay as the son of the soil.   Story-wise like any Vijay film there is nothing to mention. The formula adapted by MGR half a century back and followed by Rajini later in being the chauvinistic youth who molests the heroine in every manner possible till she falls in love with him is used here too. Even the dialogues used to boast Vijay's image throughout the movie are lifted from various Rajini movie...