Madrasapattinam

Medium : Tamil

Starring : Arya, Amy Jackson, Alex O’Nell, Cochin Haneefa, Nasser
Director : Vijay
Music : G.V.Prakashkumar

A movie which is very relevant in this week, when our country is celebrating its independence day, has got released, the venture is titled 'Madrasapattinam'. The story happens in the pre-independence days and ends in the current period. Arya and the English lady Amy Jackson did the lead roles along with many foreign actors. After movies like 'Kalapani', 'Lagaan', 'Magal Pandey', 'Hey Raam', 'Rangde Basanthi' etc; once again the mix of freedom fighting and romance forms the back bone of a project.

'Kireedom' and 'Poi Solla Poram' fame director Vijay (former associate to Priyadarshan) is the writer and creator of this movie. Nirav Shah is there with a good support as the cinematographer. Star editor Anthony has done the cuts. This periodical subject demands equal contribution from V.Selvakumar (art), Deepali Noor (costumes) and the much experienced Pattanam Rasheed (make-up). Music is given by G.V.Prakashkumar. This big budget production comes from Kalpathi S.Aghoram for AGS Entertainment.

The film starts in London, when an old lady attending the funeral of her husband, fainted and the doctors giving a half chance for surviving the brain surgery. She wants to see Madras city again,where she lived once. Thus the old lady reaches Chennai with her daughter. Her life, as the daughter of governor general is shown in the flashback. She (Amy Jackson) gets in touch with Paruthi (Arya), a wrestler from the group of dhobis (washermen), who stays in the locality. Amy is being forcibly engaged to the police chief (Alex O’Nell) by her parents. Amy doesn't like that relationship, as she is aware of the cruel behaviors of her fiancee. She also opposes the decision of evacuating the dhobis from their home ground. At this time, the country becomes independent and the girl's family members decided to kill Paruthi. What happens to Paruthi's affair, whether the old lady is able to meet any one who lived along with Paruthi has all shown in the later portions.

After giving of couple of remake subjects, Vijay has given an extra ordinary venture that helps to put his name also in the list of promising directors. The boldness to mix a subject happening in the pre-independence period with the current era, is notable. The movie involving a bulk of chroma sequences (to do the computer graphics sequences in creating the old Madras), has been excellently done by Nirav Shah. Editor Anthony did his job in style. The visual effects sequences has also been managed to the best way it can. The works by art director V.Selvakumar (railway station, trams etc), costumer Deepali Noor and make-up man Pattanam Rasheed are neatly evident in each and every frames. The songs goes with the mood, but it is the bg score section that gave the real life for the movie, which are done well by G.V.Prakashkumar. Fight scenes are also done well.

Arya has done good for the lead role. Amy Jackson is charming and she also suits well in the character. Alex O’Nell has got the usual body language of the negative English character. Late Cochin Haneefa is there in his usual style as the translator, the notable thing is that Kottayam Nazeer has dubbed for him in this movie, which also felt realistic. Haneefa's continuity in appearance is affected in certain scenes, when taken into account the fate happened to him, it is a negligible thing only. Nasser, M.S.Bhaskar and Bala Singh also did their job well.

The wrestling sequence resembles the situation in 'Lagaan'. The second half lags a little, which should have been avoided. The old man in the ICU identifying the lady all on a sudden is a cinematic thing. The cliche situations happening while telling such a story, like the love matters, the angry of the family members, the foreigners speaking the local language etc has happened here also (I am not criticizing by simply avoiding the creative effort).


'Madrasapattinam' is a story starts in the pre-independent period and ends up in the current Chennai city. This is another 'feather' in the hat of tamil movie industry...


Rating : 8.5 / 10

The Expendables

Medium : English
Starring : Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke
Director : Sylvester Stallone

These days, every week 4 or 5 releases from different languages are reaching theaters. So choosing a movie from them, to watch on the first day, would be a tough task. This time, the choice was unique for me, I have decided to watch one of the costliest and richest productions from hollywood (as far as casting is concerned), titled 'The Expendables'. Days before, seeing the trailer of the particular movie, I was wondering how could it be possible to make a 'Twenty 20' type project in English. The number of faces that came one after other in that video were beyond imagination as it included Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham ('Transporter' series fame), Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren ('Universal Soldier' fame), Mickey Rourke ('Iron Man 2' fame) along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis ('Die Hard' series fame). The mega multi-starrer project is directed by Stallone, who himself is the writer and director of many action oriented movies.

In the beginning, a group of highly trained private defense force named 'Expendables' (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren etc) has been shown, involved in a mission to save hostages in Somalia. Though they were successful in it, there happened a misconduct of a member (Dolph Lundgren) during the fighting and he is being thrown out from the group. Now they gets another mission (from Bruce Willis) to free an island in South America from the dictator military general. Two among (Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham) the gang, goes there and got successful in building a stepping stone for the fight. The leader of the gang getting into love at first sight with the General's daughter. How the gang frees the country from the military general and some ex-American officials are shown in an action packed second half.

The relevance of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, who are there for a minute, is unknown. The only good thing happened there is Stallone making funny remarks regarding the President's role on Arnold. The end shots of the opening mission are confusing. The way in which the gang reaches the island and then move to the destination for the climax is not shown clearly. The family matters of Jason Statham is an old Indian concept only. Action hero from Asia, Jet Li has not been given a stable role. The tattoo expert (Mickey Rourke), giving sentiments about his family would have been a wastage of time if Stallone wouldn't get motivated to go back to see his lover. As usual, here also you have ultimate bomb blasting in the end killing all the soldiers, leaving the heroes with our much wounds. The action sequences are done well, especially the one involving Stallone and Statham in the aircraft.

As we have seen super hits like 'Rocky' and 'Rambo' series from Stallone in the olden days itself, it is difficult to support his creativity in this project. The director had used a darkish tone for telling the story. Though it creates the mood, it is not good to have such frames in night sequences. We will find it difficult to follow the incidents happening at night, due to lack of clarity.


'The Expendables' is an action movie with an old theme, the only advantage in watching it is that we can see so many action heroes together in a single project.


Rating : 6.5 / 10

Predators

Medium : English
Starring : Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga
Director : Nimród Antal

Usually trailers of a movie are made as a part of promoting the project and thus to attract crowd to theaters. In the case of the new hollywood movie 'Predators', the promo had created an adverse effect on me. The trailers has been shown in various cinema halls, since last 2-3 months. To be frank, I didn't felt any attraction in that video or the theme and the over doze (i have to watch the same visuals at least once in every week), has created a disinterest in me regarding the movie. Hence, I decided to stay back when it is released. To watch a movie is a tough job for a few among us, but for me, spending days without watching a notable movie will be a herculian task. I had fed up, hearing Why...Why ? In the end, the decision was made to flow with the wind, keeping full faith in 20th Century Fox, who had distributed the movie.

It was heard somewhere that 'Predators' had got link with Arnold Schwazneigher's old movie 'Predator', some refers this as an independent project. Nimród Antal had directed this movie with a different theme and it has got actors like Adrien Brody ('The Village' fame), Alice Braga ('Blindness' fame), Topher Grace ('Spiderman 3' fame) and Laurence Fishburne ('Matrix' series and 'MI 3' fame) in lead roles.

In the opening scene, we are shown, a group of 8 people (Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga etc) falling to the jungle from top, one by one. None of them know the reason for their arrival to that place. Traveling through the bushes, they came to know that it is another planet where some different species are living. They were attacked by some ugly looking beasts, they were able to kill them or thew them away with their arms and guns. After the attack, they came to know that they had lost a companion. He is being killed brutally. On the way, a person (Laurence Fishburne) came for their rescue and he gave the details regarding the planet and also gave shelter for the gang. Later, it was known that he has got some hidden plans to work out. How the group escapes from the planets and who all are left with them are shown in the later portions.

The first half portions of the movie where the group roaming and wandering the jungle is interesting. But, the tempo was lost once the predators are shown. The huge creatures with the mask is not at all an attractive sight. 'Predator' was accepted, as it was the first of this kind. Later we have seen similar characters in a couple of projects belongs to 'Alien vs Predator' series. The reason told by a member in the gang to stay back at end, remains funny. As usual, here also you have got a 'good' predator, who tries to help the gang. Also the doubts regarding the existence of the number of predators in the planet left unanswered. The climax is shown in such a way that the director want to make a sequel of this project. The cinematography and the visual effects sequences have got high standards.


As we have watched many better projects with similar themes, it is difficult to place 'Predators' on top of the charts.


Rating : 6.5 / 10

Guru Sishyan

Medium : Tamil
Starring : Satyaraj, Sundar.C, Santhanam, Hema Malini, Saranya
Director : Sakthi Chidambaram
Music : Dhina

Sakthi Chidambaram, the writer - director notable for making action comedy masalas, has come back with a movie having Satyaraj and Sundar C combination for the first time. Some of the movies by Sakthi includes 'Charli Chaplin' (acted by Prabhu and Prabhu Deva, the original version of malayalam movie 'Happy Husbands'), 'Englishkkaran', 'Kovai Brothers' (both by Satyaraj), 'Rajadhi Raja' (by Raghava Lawrence), 'Vyabaari' (by S.J.Soorya) and 'Sandai' (by Sundar.C). Hema Malini, the north indian girl, who did movies like 'Indravizha' and 'Naan Avan Illai 2', is the heroine. The title 'Guru Sishyan' is borrowed from an old super hit movie with Rajnikanth-Prabhu combination.

Guru (Satyaraj) is a rich man based in Rajapalayam. He is a financier who is strict in running business. Yettu (Sundar.C) is a person who is willing to do anything for money. Soon Guru and Yettu became close friends and the latter is given an important position in Guru's gang. At this time, there enters Mahalakshmi (Saranya). Guru is openly acting against her and at one stage, he even destroys the shop run by her family. Eettu also supported him in such activities. Eettu's love track (with Hema Malini) is shown parallelly. Later, an incident caused the split in relationship between Guru and Yettu, the reason is showed in the post interval period of 'Guru Sishyan'.

Satyaraj handles the comedy oriented lead role with ease. Sundar.C has done the character in his usual way. Hema Malini has got much glamor to do in songs. After doing so much 'mother' roles, Saranya seems to be having an aged look. Kiran has a guest appearance in one song. The songs by Dhina are not the best, but bg score goes with the pace. The story line is not new and the flash back portions resembles some hit movies in the past. The comical dialogues by Satyaraj, the reason told by him for putting his name as 'Kaalu', Guru's combination scenes with Yettu, the re-creation of 'kodiyile...' song featuring Satyaraj and Saranya etc are some of the areas that creates laughing.


'Guru Sishyan' is a mix-masala of action, humor, songs, dances and glamor, targeting the low class audiences.


Rating : 4.5 / 10

Aisha

Medium : Hindi
Starring : Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Cyrus Sahukar, Ira Dubey, Amrita Puri, Arunoday Singh
Director : Rajshree Ojha
Music : Amit Trivedi

In the last decade, a new culture of movie making has happened in bollywood. They have been making some projects especially for high class multiplex audiences and most of them gave profit to the distributors. Some of the examples of such type movies are 'Life In Metro', 'Mrs and Mr Iyer', 'Hyderabad Blues', 'Page 3', 'Jhankaar Beats', 'Iqbal', 'Bheja Fry', 'Being Cyrus' etc. Director Rajshree Ojha's movie 'Alisha', produced by Anil Kapoor and PVR Pictures also belongs to the particular category. It has got Abhay Deol ('Dev D', 'Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!' fame) and Sonam Kapoor ('Saawaria', 'Delhi 6', 'I Hate Love Storys' fame ) in lead roles.

Aisha (Sonam Kapoor) is an upper class girl living in Delhi, who takes others problems into her own hands. After finding a partner for her aunt, she wants to help her friend Shifali (Amrita Puri), to find a perfect match. Arjun (Abhay Deol) is Aisha's childhood friend. He always criticize her behaviors by telling that she should mind her own business. Though she loves him, she is not willing to accept it in public. Aisha is too possessive of Arjun, she doesn't want him to be in the company of any other girls. Aisha tried to get Shifali engaged to a business man (Cyrus Sahukar), but failed in the end. Whether Aisha is able to get a match for Shifani and how she expresses her love for Arjun, is told in the later areas of 'Aisha'.

Sonam Kapoor who comes from the experienced actor Anil Kapoor's family, has done an excellent job in the title role. Here 'rebel and jealous' like expressions, especially in front of Abhay Deol is notable. Abhay, nephew of veteran actor Dharmendra, has given a matured performance here. The chemistry between these two characters have been natural and the tic-tac dialogues between them are also executed well. All the other artists have given a good support for the project. Cinematographer Diego Rodriguez had done his job without any gimmicks. Songs and bg score by Amit Trivedi goes with the mood. Director Rajshree Ojha, with the help of writer Devika Bhagat had presented the movie in the way it goes, but you won't get bored.


'Aisha' is not a speedy entertainer. This slow paced romantic subject has got some realistic situations, reflecting the north indian culture to a certain extend.


Rating : 7 / 10