Adiradikaaran song was e-x-p-l-o-s-i-v-e !! Great picturization which fits the Rhythm to the "r" – it was adiraadi!

Obviously Superhero movies don’t need logic – anything can be added/subtracted as the hero’s image warrants. Add that to Shankar’s coerced exaggerated logics – you get a movie which is pure fun and time pass. I missed 2 mins after interval – so the second half was even more logic-less (how in the world did he land up the villains black money loot – that is awfully supremely lucky).

I enjoyed:

• Tongue in cheek dialogs/comedy (Mottai boss, M.G.R, Sivaji Mimicry)
• Rajini’s undeniable star presence and smart style.
• He doesn’t look like a 57 year old! Was it graphics?!
• Rahman’s BGM and punch music was infectious.
• Editor Anthony did a great job injecting dynamism whenever and wherever needed.
• Vivek’s and Rajni’s one liners and comic timing was spot-on.
• Stunts were well done. It had traces of Matrix, but still it was well shot.
• Songs as usual with any Shankar movie, was well picturized (50% credit shd go to AR Rahman).

Things that didn’t sit well:

• I hated the "getting to know the family" scenes and all the related "romantic" scenes.
• Rajini’s English or lack thereof. Its funny when he used to say "Stupid of the nonsense of the idiot" and not when he says "Richh get richer, and Poor get poorer or I was cornered your honor…"
• Hate the idea that a hero can literally bully his way into getting the heroine to love him (with a different BGM & hero – the same scene could be construed as ‘villain’s sidekicks’ threatening heroines family) 
• The climax was superbly shot – but I hated its placement (that it became a 2nd/3rd climax, instead of the only climax)
• Even simple logics were missing¹
• Poor Screenplay – that too from veteran Sujatha (But he made up for it in the dialog dept.)
• Why was a "Ballelakka Ballelakka" song which is speaking about Tamil values, culture and LAND – shot abroad, where you can see yachts sailing in the background)
• Sets – The was so much talk about it that I was underwhelmed – Sure, it was grand and all – but some sets screamed fake-fake-TRajendar-fake

It was 3 hours well spent, the fun – the energy – the rush was all there, along with a reborn Rajini – Cool!

[ ¹ * Instead of electrocuting himself, hero could have just destroyed the laptop - how? shankar doesn't need any help in this - even if he put a mini keyboard bomb inside the laptop, no one would have objected
* A simple fingerprint could have given the hero (MGR) away.
* A free Medical/Engineering college + Free Hospital for Rs200c? What after this money runs out? However philanthropic hero is, its idiotic to build a system which cannot self sustain its existence - what will happen after 1-2 years after Rs200c runs out? Sell AdSense on blackboards and patient charts?
* Whatever happened to the poor alternate hero-look-alike body - and why was he placed in the first place? Shankar could have easily blown up the Jeep in 'Shankar-Style' - ie., Jeep traveling like a rocket up the sky, with no trace of anything;]

3/5

[Review of Indian Film]

Watching SJ Surya’s “Aahaa”, though the story is fresh for Tamil audience (wait, before you pat him on the back, more on that in 3rd para), you wonder ‘what if’ scenarios – what if Vijay/Shaam had played lead in this movie? coz SJ Surya just sucks! His gimmicks, mimics and that horrible voice modulation – unbearable! Add to that his fake machismo, tight close-ups of his 40+ face – so pretentious! – whats next ? His Autobiography?!

Coming back to the fresh story – well, I just said it’s fresh for Tamil audience. For anyone who has seen Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar winning movie ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ would immediately recognize it.

• Jim Carrey/ Kate Winslet are live-in couples (SJ Surya/Nila are live-in couples)
• They fight have minor tiffs, eventually escalating into break-up. (ditto)
• Their memories refuse to die; even tho they try to forget each other (ditto)
• Eventually the realize that they can’t forget each other – get back (ditto)

It even has the famous beach scene, photo arranging scenes – SJ just stripped out complex memory erasing part of Kauffman’s wonderful script and simplified it for Indian audience by dressing up memories in blue attire.

Overused Ultra-WA lens, unnecessary tight close-ups, loud production design, tacky acting, empty characterization and indigestible hero – we had to endure all this coz his last movie ‘New’ was a hit – I sincerely hope that this movie doesn’t click; I just cannot digest another movie with him in the lead!

** (2/5)

One of the evergreen Indian films of all time – Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The one with pure heart will conquer the girl) released in 1995 completed its 500th week in Bombay’s Maratha Mandhir Cinema Hall. Apparently it is still running full houses on weekends and public holidays!

This is the film that started the trend to pander the NRI’s and tug their purse strings in the guise of nostalgic entertainment. This one did it the best – lush beautiful locales, catchy music, wonderful screen chemistry and high production values. This film worked at all levels, like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (Who am I to you?)

I came across an indie movie ‘Let’s Talk’ from India at my local Mercer Island Library. The premises sounded interesting, so I picked it up last week and watched it yesterday. It is a small budget movie, shot with 3 actors and 2 rooms. I have a fascination with movies shot with limited resources, locations and characters. I like to see how they pull it off. This movie was shot with a $2,500 Sony DSR-PD100 3-Chip DVCAM with anamorphic adapters. The movie was then reverse telecined to 35mm after being shot full digital. Apparently this is the first reverse telecined movie in India.

The story is simple: Radhika bears a child out of wedlock, and mentally conjures up different ways her husband Nikil (Boman Irani) would react when she tells him. I was immediately reminded of Harold Ramis’ excellent Groundhog Day (1993) – one of my fav all time movies. Lets see if it is an inspired effort or an original one.

Structure
Why am I talking about its Structure ? Coz it is so unique that it forms the backbone of this movie. It is a straightforward ‘non-linear’ format (pun intended). It is based on Indian Classical Musical form Tumri – where the same lyric is repeated over and over in different moods. So here the lead character imagines how her husband will react when she breaks him the news. So we go through a cycle of Depression, Denial, Disbelief, Anger, Understanding, Violence and Jealousy. Each non-linear transitional portions are musically overlapped with tumri music with “Do you know what is love?”. There is also an unnecessary sub-plot as jarring as bad rock music.

Review:
As a new-age movie, the dialogues were excellent – so natural and flows like a normal conversation between two people. It was almost impossible to believe the dialogues were simply rehearsed lines spoken by actors. It had overlaps, casual mannerisms, off track dialogues. Full marks to the dialogues team (which comprised of both lead actors and director) to have perfectly captured the lingo of upper middle class Mumbaiites.

Boman Irani (famous for Munnabhai MBBS) is excellent as Nikil – but sometimes his acting goes over the top or he looks uninterested. But to his credit many times I almost forgot he is an actor, he was just Nikil (the scene in which he demands Radhika to discuss the issue with him right now – he shows irritation which looks so real that it made me clench my fist uneasily – excellent). Miai as Radhika was very good – but very hollow – I don’t know if it is the character which she plays is hollow or her acting was.

Direction by Ram Madhavani was unfortunately very visible. He used a few gimmicks which took away the sophistication from the movie. Use of digital camera gave the director a good opportunity to extract spontaneous performances from his actors – as digital productions tend to have smaller crew and un-intimidating equipment which relaxes the actors. Lighting and cinematography was poor – and as usual the blame was shifted on Digital Medium. Poor composition, blown out highlights, and glaring lighting doesn’t give the film makers an excuse to blame the medium. But that is exactly what they did. You can easily spot the cinematographers shadow in the screen and lighting from odd places. Who would keep a bright light on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet ? Only those who require sidelight to fall on actors face. So obvious mistakes like these distract the viewer and take us off track wondering about whose shadow was it on screen – like I was.

Sound design was very good, and so was sound mixing. They had a few blue screening – which also was a bit gimmicky but I guess it was a necessary gimmick to show overlap. Overall a good novel effort – pushed to big league due to extremely natural dialogues, and situational simplicity – but the overall movie didn’t impress me as I had a hard time trying to figure out who the real Nikil was, and what would have really happened in those 6 scenarios had the real character been present. Good to know indie films are getting decent distribution in India (Shringar Films), and how well they stand is up to the content of the movie. For a movie like this, once the novelty falls off the content should keep people glued. But due to the lack of any impending foreseeable resolution as audience we lose interest in the characters.

Credits:
Director: Ram Madhvani
Producer: Shift Focus (Ram Madhvani and Sumantra Ghosal)
Actors: Boman Irani, Maia Katrak, Anahita Uberoi
Scriptwriters: Maia Katrak, Boman Irani, Sanjay Sipahimalani, Ram Madhvani
Music: Ram Sampath
Cinematographer: Sumantra Ghosal

*** (3/5)