Jan 21, 2006

Pongal releases

Three releases - Paramasivam, Aathi and Saravana.. Nothing much to write about them.. Common things b/w them:
1) Prakash Raj has become Kollywood's Amitabh Bachan.. (he is there in pretty much any new movie.. what happened to his pick-and-choose policy?)
2) Titles carrying the hero's name: You know well what would happen.. a) the hero would not die/go to jail after life-sentence c) hero would unite with heroine.
3) Each has a flashback, which jars at times.
4) Hero commits murders at will and goes to exotic locations for duets with heroine.
5) Very loud villains and 'eeeeyy.. Haaayyy' shouts.. earbuds recommended.
6) Totally forgettable, ordinary music.
7) Vivek.. who just manages to bring out a few chuckles from us.. far from his best.

Paramasivan

Ajit looks very different after slimming down.. not as cute as in Amaravathi or Aasai but definitely better than his recent round-figures in 'Ji' and 'Attagasam'. Laila is downright irritating and proves that she is a one-dimensional artist, unless handled by some very 'intelligent' directors (I am referring to Jeeva and Priya, who made her bearable in Ullam ketkumey and Kanda naal muthal).

Story:
Seen numerous times with our Captain and Arjun having done the 'Nation saving act from terrorists'. The hero here is neither a police officer nor a military-man but a murder convict. This twist could have been used much more intelligently. The movie seems to show some intelligence by quickly moving to present time but invariably comes the flashback. The villains are shown to be mindless.. they do really silly things. Better than the other two.

Plusses:
Action scenes, racy screenplay.

Aadhi

Nowadays, the name 'Vijay' is synonymous with blood and violence. In 'Thiruppachi' and 'Sivakasi', there was some novel concept, however wafer-thin it was.. In 'Aadhi', Ramanaa has chosen the age-old (*SIGH*) 'revenge for family mass-murder' story which we thought was a really old wine and beaten to death. Having chosen such an old story and spending a good amount of time in the flashback plus the customary 'pre-interval' comedy of Vivek plus the 'kuthu' and 'duet' songs havent really given much time to the director to show any novelty in the execution. There is even a 'family song' in the flashback, which luckily isnt used for the family reunion later.

The movie begins in Rameswaram, with a beautiful Trisha in white dress on the beach helping out a pigeon and all smiles.. within seconds, blood starts to spill which doesnt stop till the end. Here again, there was a twist-cum-coincidence that could have been intelligently exploited.. but alas.. the director probably remembers his more-recent and disasterous 'Sullan' and not his debut film 'Thirumalai'.

Saravana

Coming after the hits 'Manmadhan' and 'Thotti Jaya', Simbhu has teamed up with KS Ravikumar, the king of small-budget masala movies. They seem to have chosen a wrong telugu story, though. Simbhu has attempted a bit of comedy here and has managed to pull it up well.. but, at times, he goes overboard and reminds SJ Suryah (!!?). Jo, here again, looks like Simbhu's akka and this wouldnt change in the future until he grows some muscles quick.

Story:
Very much on the lines of 'Gilly'. Hero saves the heroine from a Madurai-based villain, provides her shelter in his home and helps her go abroad, with both of them loving each other but not conveying it till the end.. Simbhu carries the movie on his energy.. Jo is getting more beautiful with each movie (kalyaanakkalai vandhundey irukku).. Vivek's and Simbhu's monologues at the shopping mall and at the temple are good and enjoyable..

Plusses:
Simbhu, Jo, and the fast script.

Overall, a bad beginning to 2006.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

which, among the 3 movies are the best Raju, then I can watch that, I dont want to waste my time watching all the movies. I saw previews for Paramasivan, I am happy that ajit has slimmed down, but I think he has slimmed down too much, he looked like a michael jackson in those scenes where he has long hair in the jail. I was thinking Saravana would be the best of the three. Yeah, Prakashraj and vivek are in all 3 movies. But, I feel Prakashraj's acting is getting repetitive,and boring too. Might just watch the movies for vivek's comedy, he tries his best, but it wont come close to his earlier comedy in minnale, dhool, etc.. better than vadivelu though.

Adaengappa !! said...

3 padamum kadi..
MHO...utter disregard for judicial systems,police,law and order..

paurna said...

seems parmasivam is a hit here in chennai.as for vijay,he keeps churning out these illogical crass potboilers that somehow manage to make money.i really dont understand how people watch his movies

Anonymous said...

heh, paurna, people watch vijay's illogical movies, just like they watch rajni's illogical movies. both of them are crap actors, but due to their standard pattern of dialogue delivery, and action sequences they have become a hit among the people. whereas, actors like kamal, surya, vikram are down the list in the people's favorites. btw, Raju, did u check out vettaiyadu villaiyadu trailer, hope its not a rehash of kaakha kaakha, and has something new to it, just have to wait and see.

Me too said...

Amazed with your system which digests all these masalas(+ cricket + chemistry)!!
Prakash raj is going the Kamal, Parthiban way, I guess. He has to become Kollywood's AB if he wants to continue the good work of producing decent movies!!!

Visithra said...

I didnt mind aathi - at least there was suspense - but yes the gore was bad

NaiKutti said...

nowadays action movies have become the talk of the town :-)... paramasivan is probbly better than the rest... i haven't seen any of them and don't plan to see them in the near future :-)

Raju said...

Nitin, all three are worth giving a miss.. my rating would be Paramasivan > Saravana > Aadhi, in terms of the (less) violence and (better) story-telling. Yeah, slimming down too much has its disadvantages like looking and being tired and ragged. He looks like that in the movie too.. and it has something to do with the kind of role as well.. But in dance sequences he looked OK....

After a spate of Vadivelu movies, now seems to be Vivek's turn.. True.. the comedy is nowhere near the movies u mentioned. Prakashraj, interestingly, plays a non-villainous close-aide to hero in all the 3 movies (police in 2).. and there is a mention of his 'Chellame' act in all of them.. yeah it is getting repetitive..
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Veda, LOL.. I regretted watching all of them within a week's time, hoping that there would be something interesting at the climax... only to get disappointed.. I am OK now, slowly recovering from the 'shock'.. :-)

About Trisha's role, yeah.. it is a really big news.. but that is only relative.. since we compare it with 'Thiruppachi' and, to some extent 'Sivakasi'. It is like flattering to deceive-type.. she gets nice screentime in the beginning only to slowly fade away...
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Prabhu, yeah.. I agree. No judicial system at all (except in Paramasivan). Police ellam joker nilaimaikku aakkittaanga..

Raju said...

Paurna, Paramasivan is a hit, huh? mmm.. best among the worst.. no choice for the movie-goer..

I sincerely hope that Vijay watches his earlier silver-jubilee movies like 'kadhalukku mariyathai', 'Poove unakkaaga', 'Thullatha manamum thullum', and 'Khushi'. For the last 3 years, his success with masala movies (and failure of soft-hero type movies didnt help either) has prompted him to such a big role-reversal. I would think he has to pick-and-choose romantic (and even masala) movies..
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Nitin, I am not a Rajini fan but Rajini began his career as a Masala hero and continues to please his fan-base with his variety without resorting to gory stuff (with few exceptions like Naan Sivappu manithan but hey, that is a SA Chandrashekhar movie, who has produced 'Aadhi').

I saw the 'list of favorite actors' out of the Loyola college poll. Thats the way the masses are.. they prefer 'larger-than-life' super-hero.. thats the reason why everyone wants to please them with some standard formula movies..
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Raz, bad examples for a masala movie, indeed..

Raju said...

Aparna, LOL.. my system has been battered to this current state from a dose of the 80's tamil movies.. so no damage done.. ;-)

I appreciate Prakash Raj in producing good movies but I am afraid he is agreeing to all the roles that come his way.. gotta be selective.. And to think of it, he is famous in Telugu too..so no reason why he cant say no to these monotonous roles..
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Vis, yeah.. the suspense in 'Aadhi' was good for sometime but think about it.. how badly handled afterwards.. as if the director didnt want to think anything creative at all apart from that one secret. Trisha's screaming 'Maamaa'.. ayyoo worst. too much time spent in the flashback.. the directors know that the audience would have seen dozens of such movies.. I wish they get innovative while showing such flashback scenes.. even inspirations from 'Kill Bill' wont hurt..
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Karthik, good decision. I agree with u on masala movies and Paramasivan. Wait for Pudhupettai and VV, in the next few months.

Anu said...

hm... Saravana sounds okay when compared to the other two movies. Will watch that movie this weekend. Infact I am waiting for Pudupettai.

Raju said...

Anu, Saravana has a high energy Simbhu doing cameo acts in both the halves.. but it is too much similar to Gilly..

TamilPonnu said...

Thanks Raju! eventhough they all have same storyline.. I will watch it. when? I dunno.. I have yet to see Majaa.. I'm slackin big time brother.. hopefully this weekend- I'm going to DC Auto Show this saturday..!! woohoo! I hope I get to see some hot cars...

Yours Truly said...

This weekend me planning for a movie marathon. Paathu mudichuttu sollren...

Ram C said...

as expected... the beginning of 2006 is turning out to be bad.

anyhow, chk out my new post on vijay's approach.

Raju said...

Priya, so, despite me telling how good and bad they are, you are gonna watch all of them? Majaa is better than most of these, except for the climax.. Have fun watching hot cars this weekend!!! :-)
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Yours truly, movie marathon? Charge urself fully to watch these movies.. you need quite a bit of energy to complete this marathon.. :-)
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Ram, though one can say in hindsight, 'as expected', there was a scope for novelty and pure entertainment.. To me, the pace with which these movies have been completed explains why they turned out to be this way. A little bit more thought-process, editing and some creativity would have helped reduce the glitches quite a bit..

I will read your post this weekend..

Raju said...

Vee-jay, yeah I agree that in terms of entertainment, Saravana was the best..

mm.. Prakash Raj must think of some serious and different villain roles, which suit him better than the supporting actor role that he has been largely doing post-Ghilly..