Harish Film views

There was a time when Nolan used to be a complete filmmaker, a puppeteer if I may, controlling everything happening on screen and inside your brain with just two hands. By the time Prestige became an instant cult, Nolan had by then gotten a name for himself for pulling all the strings at his disposal to drive home a single idea. Then Batman happened. As his visions started getting grand, the compulsion to set up every string in the film towards that single idea became paramount. In a black and white world it would be easier to say this fetish of his is undoing him; that now he has a string attached to himself to which he will always be binded. But if you look at the glass as half full, this string isn't a chain around the neck, but around the torso to not let him fall as he reaches for the stars. And with Interstellar he has gone beyond the stars into a new galaxy in the safety of this string. Yes, Interstellar is convoluted, delusional and at times fabricated to drive ho...

Director: Soundarya Writers & Supervisors: K.S.Ravikumar / R. Madesh Kochadaiiyaan is an unique attempt from Rajni. Not because of the computer-generated-photorealistic-animation (phew that’s a very big word with zero meaning and negative output!), but because it dabbles with the unwritten philosophy of life. Beyond the huge kingdoms and epic wars, Kochadaiiyaan is a battle between people with myopic views and it’s opposite. While this in itself is a giant leap for Rajni, the script proudly goes one step further and teases us at times by swapping people from the either side of ideology and at times by depicting a guy with both ways of life. The last time Rajni tried something on these lines in Baba, he got a heavy beating in box office and rightfully so. But this time the stark difference comes in the form of the organic flow in the narration. While many writers are happy to just mount scene after scene primarily to fill-up the timeline and at times to convey the st...

Director: Imtiaz Ali Besides Child molestation, caged city life, sufferings of the improvised society, longings of a motherless son, Highway is inherently a road movie of two people from different walks of life enjoying the uncharted journey and each other’s presence. While Imtiaz Ali fabulously mounts these precious moments on screen which I have till now felt only through other senses in real life, he squanders in the remaining parts. Similar to how a long road drive starts with the commotions of the city, Highway begins with the eccentricity of the leads. While Veer (Ali) keeps rejecting the offer of her captor to escape, the latter keeps showering her with love like a quintessential rowdy with a heart of gold; all the while unsettling us. However, as the film unclutters from melodramatic reasons behind these events, similar to how the rustic beauty of the highway takes us to serenity, the film lands itself in its scenic stretch. It is in this stretch I realized what rea...

Director Vishnuvardhan could take a lesson or two from Director Siva (who has made the recent Veeram) on how to showcase the charisma surrounding Ajith. While Vishnuvardhan in his two films with Ajith was only able to exhibit the style quotient of the star, Siva here pulls of a spectacular show surrounding the magnetic personality of the star. In ground reality, it is very difficult to weave a mass entertainer depending only on Ajith. Beyond his handsomeness, unlike his contemporaries, Ajith doesn't have a convincing physique to pull of an action hero. When he punches bad guys, more than the wobble in their abdomens, the wiggle in the triceps, biceps and even the paunch of Ajith is more pronounced. The sluggish movements in the action sequences extends to the dance numbers as well. The only area that attracts attention is his elan to breeze through the anti-hero roles that he has been enacting off-late. Yet, the larger than life type films he chose haven't allowed the...