Romeo

Medium : Malayalam
Stars : Dileep,Vimalaraman,Samvritha,Suraj Venjarammood
Direction : Rajasenan

Dileep's new film 'Romeo' directed by Rajasenan has got the script by hitmakers duo Rafi-Mecartin.These people has worked together for a film long years ago,'Swapnalokathile Balabhaskaran' where Jayaram was the hero and Dileep has got only a supporting role to do.


For years, after a bunch of 5 flops in a row like 'Nakshathrakannulla Rajakumaran Avanundoru Rajakumari' , 'Swapnam Kondoru Thulabharam', 'Immini Nalloral', 'Madhuchandralekha' & 'Kanakasimhasanam', director Rajasenan is here trying his luck again with the script writers who has once given him a good name through films like 'Aniyanbava Chettanbava', 'Aadhyathe Kanmani' etc.

Dileep playing the role of a male nurse in a private hospital.The lady doctor in the hospital played by Vimalraman is in love with him.Our hero likes another girl,Samvritha who is the star singer in a tv reality show.In order to marry her,as per request from her father,he is converted to Christianity.But her father didn't kept the word.Since he lost his job,the hero leaves the native to another Brahmin area,stays there as a Brahmin.

A girl in the Agrharam happened to be in love with him.By the time he understands and realize the love and try to marry the doctor,the rest two characters also came to his palce and finally after some confusions and fowl plays,how he manages to get through all is what 'Romeo' is.


'Romeo' opens with the hospital scenes in which the male nurse and his colleagues watching the star singer shows and the hero asking others to send sms for his lady love.Hero's father played by Cochin Hanif is ajunior artist needs five lakhs to do a good role in the film.All those scenes has got the standard of a doordarsan tv serial or an amature drama only.We cant understand why the name of 'Kitex' Star Singer is being repeatedly used in the name of publicity.The scene in which the Samvritha, who is the star singer asking others to send sms for her is irritating.


The Brahmin family episodes in which the hero reaches there with a different name and casete has been told many times before.Most of the scenes there are dramatic.Though a right choice for such a role in appearance,the new heroine is not at all appealing.Only good thing there is the casting of Asokan.

We dont know what is happening in the heroine's family.Her father who is a CBI officer asks his deputies to watch the hero.Close up & tight shots,seriously used for the new actor who comes as Vimala's father gives us a drama feel only.The scenes in which the hero tries to impress him is created deliberately, resembles some of the films in the early 90's.


The Ayurveda resort in the second half in which all the characters assembles and play hide & seek game has been shown a thousand times before.Though repetetive, only things which are tolerable in the whole film happens there only.The scenes in which the star singer travels and stays with the hero's father searching for the hero is not at all genuine.The climax and anti climax scenes are also unrealistic.


Most of the castings and the situations in the film are mismatched.The whole hospital scenes should have totally avoided.Hero's family episodes wont create a sympathy.The new face who comes as heroine's father is a wrong choice, though he can be good in dramas.Also his deputies with big moustaches resembles circus clowns only.Heroine Vimalraman is not opening her mouth throughout the dialogue delivery.( it has been solved to a certain extend by the dubbing artist)Performance by Mallika Sukumaran,Cochin Hanif,Bheeman Raghu,Rizabava etc. stands average only.


Suraj Venjarammood who is emerging as the most wanted name in the cine field now a days,is a relief in most of the scenes.Asokan and Salimkumar has also performed well.Dileep has done the role as if this film has released in the later 90's.


Rafi-Mecartin should have concentrated more on the stability in their scripting.To an average extend they had done their job,but the director Rajasenan has broken it with his hopeless direction and casting.KP Nambiathiri has handled the camera.Music is by Alexpaul.


This 'Romeo' is not charming, he wont attract you.
One after another, Rajasenan is giving worst films only.Its time for him to take a break and if necassary come back later after some good home works.

Rating : 1.5 / 5

'Heartbeats' to 'Rock N Roll' - a review on songs

The films include ''Heartbeats', 'AKG', 'Thakarachenda', Orey kadal', 'Alibhai', 'Kichamani MBA', 'Nivedhyam', 'Paradesi', 'Choclate', 'Nasrani', 'Blackcat', 'Ayurrekha', 'Hareendran Oru Nishkalangan' & 'Rock N Roll'.


Here is an attempt to review the songs from the films released in the last 3-4months.
Last time while reviewing the music part,i was going through all the films and all the songs separately.But this time,i am not attempting the same. Here I am specifying only the top ten songs from the list and its details.In the last few months, the quality of the songs has been affected and
the number of hits is also reduced to the minimum,i think no need for me to do a big research work here.


Some of the songs from the group should be specially noted here.

Among them,romantic duets like 'Kolakkuzhalvili ketto...' from 'Nivedhyam' & 'Kannippenne ninne...' from 'Hareendran Oru Nishkalangan' stands top for its melody and presentation by M Jayachandran & Berny Ignateous respectively.

'Ravereyayi poove...' from 'Rock N Roll' is notable for its excellent orchestration by Vidhyasagar.

'Pranayasandhya oru...' sung by Bombay Jaysree from 'Orey kadal' is a composition by Ouseppachan with a different mood & feel.


The top ten songs from the films are given here.
The credits are in the order of Singers - Lyricist - Music Director

01) Kolakkuzhalvili...(Nivedhyam) - Vijay Yesudas,Swetha - Lohithadas - M Jayachandran

02) Kannippenne...(HareendranOruNishkalangan) - MGSreekumar,GayathriVarma - Sarath Vayalar -
Berni Ignateous

03) Ravereyayi...(Rock N Roll) - Madhu Balakrishnan - Girish puthenchery - Vidhyasagar

04) Manjadimazha...(Rock N Roll) - Madhu Balakrishnan,Sujatha - Girish puthenchery - Vidhyasagar

05) Pranayasandhya...(Orey kadal) - Bombay Jayasree - Girish puthenchery - Ouseppachan

06) Manassinte Kavalvathil...(Orey kadal) - Venugopal,Sujatha - Girish puthenchery - Ouseppachan

07) Ohmama chandamama...(Rock N Roll) - Anitha,Rija - Girish puthenchery - Vidhyasagar

08) Valayonnitha...(Rock N Roll) - Vijay Yesudas,Renjith,Pradeep P - Girish puthenchery - Vidhyasagar

09) Chittattinkavil...(Nivedhyam) - Sankaran namboothiri - Kaithapram - M Jayachandran

10) Ishtamalle...(Choclate) - Shabaz Aman - Sarath Vayalar - Alex paul

________________________

11) Thattam pidichu...(Paradesi) - Sujatha - Rafeeq Ahamed - Ramesh Narayan

12) Thamthakida theyyare...(Nivedhyam) - Pradeep P,Vijay Yesudas - Kaithapram - M Jayachandran

13) Pokkiriyane...(Kichamani MBA) - Pradeep P - Kanesh Punoor - Alex Paul

14) Nagaram vidhuram...(Ory Kadal) - Vineeth Sreenivasan - Girish puthenchery - Ouseppachan

15) Kalkkanda malaye...(Choclate) - RimiTomy - Sarath Vayalar - Alex Paul

16) Aadimekha...(Alibhai) - MGSreekumar - Girish puthenchery - Alex Paul

17) Mundirikkallu...(BlackCat) - Afsal,Jyotsana - Sarath Vayalar - M Jayachandran

18) Yamuna veruthe...(Ory Kadal) - Swetha - Girish puthenchery - Ouseppachan

19) Eeran meghame...(Nasrani) - Manjari - Anil panachooran - Bijibal

20) Jiruthana...(Rock N Roll) - Tippu,Renjith - Girish puthenchery - Vidhyasagar

Top Albums : Nivedhyam, Orey Kadal & Rock N Roll

Best Album : Rock N Roll

* Only a few songs from the chart qualifies to be the best and be a hit, rest has been included to make the count only.Dubbed films has not been included.

Kannamoochi Yeneda

Medium : Tamil
Stars : Prithviraj,Sathyaraj,Sandhya,Radhika,Sripriya
Direction : Priya V

'Kannamoochi Yeneda' is special to me in a different sense.You wont often see the combination of a women producer and a women director being teamed up with a women cinematographer in a feature film.'Kannamoochi Yeneda' is such a rare occassion where you can witness all these.Radhika Sarathkumar,Priya V & Preetha handled these roles respectively.


Priya V,who assisted Maniratnam in few films has directed the film,'Kanda Naal Muthal' before.Though it has not created a sensation,she has caught attention of the media by entering the list of previous women directors in the country like Sheela,MeeraNair,HemaMalini,Suhasini,Revathi,Farah Khan etc.
Radhika has given some films before as a producer, but for the lady behind the lenses, this is a new experience.


The story of the film starts in Malaysia,where the young hero Prithviraj meets the heroine Sandhya. She,being the daughter of Chennai City Police Commissioner played by Sathyaraj and housewife Radhika reached India as per request from the her family to attend their parent's marriage anniversary celebrations.Hero who belongs to an upper caste follows the lover,tries to impress her strict father and finally after some hurdles how he is being accepted as the bridegroom is what 'Kannamoochi Yeneda' tells us.

In the middle you have quarelling between the parents, Sathyaraj & Radhika - the lovers, Prithviraj & Sandhya - the siblings, Sripriya and Sathyaraj also.All of them supporting and helping each other to find a solution for a good ending.



The first few scenes in the film is very impressive.When hero reaches his lover's house,there was a good chemistry going on between the hero and heroine's father.Later on,gradually the tempo is minimised.Somewhere the script writer-director might have lost the idea of finishing the story smoothly.As a result,a twin sister character is being created for Sathyaraj,played by Sripriya.She is coming to the movie arena after a pretty long gap,eventhough busy in the tv field.(Very few people knows that Sripriya has acted with Rajnikanth & Kamalhassan as their heroine in the maximum number of films)


Some of the scenes in the film should have avoided totally.The episode in which Sathyaraj using bow and arrows against the young hero to make him remember and tell his old faults infront of the family.Another one in which the serious father who is also the police officer,behaving childishly and begging infront of her wife.The misunderstanding between the hero and heroine is cinematic only.We also cant digest the cheap atitude of hero's uncle when he reject's the proposal from a rich man's family.Some of the songs' situations are mismatched with the timeline.


Performance of Sathyaraj,Prithviraj,Radhika and Manobala,who comes as an orderly to the police officer is remarkable.Preetha has done an excellent camera work.YuvanShankerRaja has done the music according to the mood.Picturisation of the first song happening in abroad is also notable.


'Kannamoochi Yeneda' is a hide and seek game.
Sometimes you win,sometimes you lose; it is not stable from beginning to the end.

Rating : 2.5 / 5

Aaja Nachle

Medium : Hindi
Stars : Madhuri Dixit,Konkanasen Sharma,Akshay Khanna,Irfan Khan
Direction : Anil Mehtha


'Aaja Nachle' was in the medias for months, since the bollywood queen Madhuri Dixit is coming back as a heroine after a pretty long gap.The film is produced by the big banner YashRaj Films.The experienced cinematographer Anil Mehtha,who once gave films like 'Lagaan','Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' and 'Khuda Gawah' is here in the role of the director.

The film opens when Madhuri, who is in US, returns to her native with her child after a gap of 10years hearing the news reg death of her dance Guru.In the journey she is thinking about her past.The scenes in which she is practising the dance,her friendship,moments in which she got love with an English journalist and once her marriage is fixed, she left her house with the lover.

When she reaches her home town,she came to know that some new multi storeyed projects are coming in the place of their old open air theatre and dance hall.She decides to renovate their old school atmosphere for the memory of her teacher.She took the theme of Laila-Majunu for the dance drama.Thus search for characters began.In the beginning most of the people were non co-operative.After a hectic task all the artists were arranged and they finally performed infront of a large crowd and won their hearts.In the end the State Government has decided to preserve the theatre as it is and thus the happy lady leaves back to abroad with her child.

On the release day itself,'Aaja Nachle' is banned in states like UP,Punjab and Haryana.This is because the film got an opening song lyric in which the Dalits were humiliated.After watching the film,I felt that such a contraversy was necassary for a film like 'Aaja Nachle' to attract audience.

Jaydeep Sahni has penned the script for 'Aaja Nachle'.I dont know what happened to him after he gave a brilliant one like 'Chakde India'.Also the new director has failed to keep the stability of the film.Most of the scenes is happening in an open air stage.The village backdrop where we can see Advts of Bata,SBI Atm etc are not colorful.The flashback scenes between teacher and the student is never appealing,we dont feel any sympathy for the Guru character in such a make-up.The sequences in which the heroine passing through the streets in a cycle richshaw announcing the dance programmes is boring.The comedy created while practising the dance steps is not realistic. The climax dance drama which is honestly presented, has a duration of 20-25 minutes.It is too lengthy and while watching a movie we cant afford to have such scenes.

Madhuri is good in her performance.She is looking old,but for a mother character of a 9year old baby she is ok.Konkanasen sharma has done well in her role.Salim-Sulaiman's music goes well with the movie.Vaibhavi Merchant,as a choreographer has more job to do compared to her previous films.Since the backdrops are dull,camera work by Mohanan is not remarkable.

'Aaja Nachle', as the name indicates, does not encourages you to dance with the party.
It is boring and also makes you sleep in some situations.

Rating : 1.5 / 5

Pollathavan

Meduim : Tamil
Stars : Dhanush,Remya,Murali,Bhanupriya,DanielBalaji
Direction : Vetrimaaran


After the failure of his previous film,'Parattai Azhaku Sundaram',young hero Dhanush is back with the new film 'Pollathavan'.Dhanush,son-in-law of Superstar Rajnikanth is popular among the malayalees with the film 'Kathalkondein'(2004) directed by his brother Selvaraghavan.So its a long gap since he has delivered a big hit.So usually we go to watch a film like 'Pollathavan' casually, without much expectations.


'Pollathavan' is directed by new comer Vetrimaaran who was once associate to biggies like Balumahendra,Shanker etc.The heroine,Remya comes from kannada; years before she has done a movie named 'Kuthu' with Chimbu.Music is handled by GV Prakashkumar.Velraj has done an excellent work as cinematographer.


This movie does not starts with an usual style.It shows an youth who is being involved in a murder sequence and he tells us how he came to such a negative situation.So from there the story takes an U-turn towards the beginning periods of happiness,in such a life the unexpected things are coming and through a lot of +ve and -ve happenings, pollathavan's journey continues.



Hero who comes from a middle class family living with his parents(Murali & Bhanupriya) and an younger sister.There are scenes showing his friendship,quarellings in the family,parent's affection,how they helps him,how he gets a job,how he come acoss the villain gangs etc.In the middle the hero gets in love with a girl, how he wins her heart is also shown.Ups and downs are blended equally in his lifespan.So how a person's life is changed due to some unexpected problems faced by him is neatly executed by the writer-director and whether the hero claims victory in the end or not is what the net result of 'Pollathavan'.



The debutant director Vetrimaaran has treated this film in a realistic way.There are many examples like the scenes between the father and the son,the scenes showing the contrasting changes happening in the family when the hero gets a job,the hospital scene involving villain gang and the family members,the scenes involving the street robbers and goondas etc.



All the artists in the film has performed exceptionally well.Among them Dhanush,Murali,Daniel Balaji('Kakka Kakka' & 'Vettaiyadu Vilayadu' fame) and the new comer Kishorekumar,who comes as gang leader needs special mention.Though we can see a cinematic approach in the love scenes,romantic songs,hero's passion for motor bikes and the climax fight sequences, its defenitely not giving us a boring atmosphere.


The film has got some good action scenes by RamboRajkumar.Music director GV Prakashkumar has got a remix of old hit number by MSV,'Engeyum Eppothum...'

'Bicycle Thief' (which was an international hit in the olden decades), 'City of Gods' (the portugal film, which i rate as one of the best action thrillers of all time), 'Virumandi' ( Kamalhasan's film which differentiates in its presentation ) and different action films in which the hit maker Ram Gopal Varma has created a style - might have inspired director Vetrimaaran to come with a subject similar to those in treatment.But this family based action movie gives you a different experience.


Those who love to watch realistic action films can watch 'Pollathavan'.This film should be noticed for its good scripting presented in the best way it can.

Rating : 4 / 5