PATTATHU YAANAI

PATTATHU YAANAI

Theatre : Aluva Matha
Showtime & Date : 3.00pm, 27-07-2013
Status : Balcony No idea, FC 30%

Rehashing a winning formula is not a crime in Cinema if its done neatly. Vishal-Bhoopathy Pandian teams up after a well made mass entertainer MALAIKOTTAI which had good songs. Whether this time it works??? Lets see

Story
Gauravam(Santhanam) runs a catering service. He recruits 5 new people - Saravanan(Vishal) and his friends. Gauravam runs into trouble when he cancels goon's catering order and takes up police officer's by sending him to jail. This forces them to leave to Trichy to start a new hotel. The rest is the same MALAIKOTTAI story with an as old as hill flashback for Saravanan.

Performances
Vishal is not at his best. Except song sequences and with Santhanam scenes, he looks like he's not that interested. Even in action scenes, he is not at his best which is for the first time in his career I hope. Debutant Aishwarya Arjun(Daughter of actor Action King Arjun) is not that promising. She plays the cliched social worker-student role who has to fall in love with hero after initial scenes and just 2 scenes to cry and songs. Santhanam entertains and irritates. If he's not too careful about script, he'll be on the lines of Vadivelu soon. The initial scenes of Santhanam was too lengthy and boring though dialogues at times were fine. The cfinal portions of Santhanam were good. Panchu Arunachalam wasted in a single scene role. Villains were usual - loud and TATA SUMO. Rest of the cast were ok only. The one who played villain's henchman was good in comic scenes.

Songs & BGM
Songs by Thaman were disappointing. And badly picturised ones too. The biggest plus points of Vishal movies so far is adrenaline pumping BGM score which takes scenes to a mass level. Here Sabesh-Murali team disappoints big.

Technical
Everything as usual except editing. Editing was a bit too bad I must say.

Script & Direction
Is this the same Bhoopathy Pandian who made MALAIKOTTAI & THIRUVILAIYADAL AARAMBHAM. Story, though a rehashed one of MALAIKOTTAI had a mass element in it. But the 80's model flashback episode for hero and forced comedy scenes makes screenplay lagging and boring. Remember, MALAIKOTTAI & THIRUVILAIYADAL AARAMBHAM had no separate comedy track or stars. It was the leads and their relative roles who did the job well. Here everything is out of place. Post flashback scenes were a lot MALAIKOTTAI inspired ones. Dialogues by Srinivas was disappointing. Interval punchline was a rehash of THIMIRU & MALAIKOTTAI, but lacked punch.

Direction too lacked sincerety. The whole movie was like completed just because we started this. A disappointing work.

On the whole, if you get the DVD of this movie, make sure that FORWARD button works well.
Verdict : Disappointing
BO Verdict : Flop to Disaster

BUDDY

BUDDY

Theatre : Aluva Zeenath Screen 1
Showtime & Date : 6.15pm, 07-07-2013
Status : Balcony no idea, FC 40%

BUDDY is the new film by debutant RAAJ PRABHAVATHY MENON. A well edited trailer and release by UTV Motion Pictures were the calling cards. Whether the movie surprised??? Lets see

Story
Two ladies - an Indian English writer(Asha Sharath) and a dancer(Bhumika Chawla) discloses their child Kunju(Midhun of Black Butterfly fame) on his 18th birthday that he was the product of artificial insemnation. Kunju founds out that his father is Manikunju Thaadikkaaran(Anoop Menon) from hospital records & meets him. Rest is one hundred times told same old wine.

Performances
This one is the film in recent times which had the best or near perfect miscasting.
Anoop Menon as Manikunju Thaadikkaaran was in usual Anoop Menon style of acting & style of dialogues with an overdose of Mohanlal. Asha Sharath looked out of place & Bhumika Chawla looked too young for the role. Srikanth was wasted. BalachandraMenon's comeback did not make any impact in this poorly written role. Babu Antony had nothing to do, so as the serial artist who played the cook role. Arun was just ok in his small role. Lal and T G Ravi in their scenes were the only better ones. Aju Varghese disappoints big time in this cliched role which was executed poorly. Anil Murali was routine. Honey Rose just for one song and one scene with no dialogues.

Songs & BGM
Songs by Navneeth Sundar were okay  only. Some of them had many old A R Rahman tunes rehashed. BGM by Gopi Sundar as usual worked especially second half towards climax.

Technical
Editing - I won't say bad, what else can be done with whatever taken and what director says. Art direction was good. Costumes by Sameera Saneesh needs special mention.

Here comes the high positive point of this movie which makes us sit till the final scene - CINEMATOGRAPHY. Prakash Kutty who debuted with Kunchacko Boban-AnilBabu movie INGANE ORU NILAPAKSHI, after a gap is back. AWESOME WORK. EVERY FRAME WAS A VISUAL WITH GREAT COLOUR COMBINATION. ACTION SEQUENCE WAS WELL TAKEN, ABOVE AN AMAL NEERAD WORK.

Script & Direction
Story & Screenplay by Raaj Prabhavathy Menon itself. A decent plot on the hangover of Vicky Donor was there. A storyline which a good director could make us engaging too. But the sceenplay was horrible. Just like Manikunju character in the movie, the screenplay also lacked a presence of mind or direction. The problem I felt was what to do till the final portion was an empty page which was filled with routine TV serial stuff. Dialogues by Bipin Chandran disappointed a lot. Is this the same person who worked in DADDY COOL??? Forced kind of newgen items couldn't make any impact in screenplay or for the movie

Direction was fine in respective scenes at times. But as a whole movie, a below average work. Action Sequence as such was superb. Certain scenes were well executed and some others in rather poor manner.

Overall BUDDY minus Cinematographer PrakashKutty is below below average

Verdict : Watch it only for Cinematography
BO Verdict : Flop to Disaster
WAITING FOR A LAL JOSE - PRAKASH KUTTY WORK SOON.

The same plot if given to Priyadarsan or Lal Jose could have made wonders.

Don't know whether Mr or Miss or Mrs, whatever Raaj Prabhavathy Menon, putting such a lengthy name in direction part and influence of english in dialogues will not help in making another Gautham Vasudeva Menon

SINGAM II

SINGAM II

Theatre : Aluva Matha
Showtime & Date : 5.45pm, 06-07-2013
Status : Balcony No idea, FC 30%

SINGAM II, the sequel of Suriya-Hari combo's superhit SINGAM, a well made mass masala entertainer in last few years ,came with high expectations. Lets see whether the expectations were met.

Story
SINGAM II starts from where SINGAM ended. Making public believe that DuraiSingam(Suriya) resigned, he is on special deputation to know more about the illegal activities happening in Tuticorin area. Now he is working as PT in a school. After a series of incidents, Satya(Hansika) falls in love with DuraiSingam. On the otherhand, Kavya(Anushka) is still waiting for him to marry her. The marriage didn't take place before as Durai's father refused as he resigned his job in part one. An incident forced him to join back in the duty. The rest is a racy entertainer.

Performances
Suriya as Durai Singam did a neat job. He excelled in certain scenes and in some scenes he lacked the punch. Certain mass scenes did not suit that well for him. Overall a SURIYA SHOW. Anushka repeated her role and came in two songs and some scenes. Hansika got a better role and did a fine job. Vivek was wasted. Don't know why Santhanam was given a role done by Vadivelu or Ganja Karuppu in previous HARI movies. His comic scenes lacked comedy and were speedbreakers. Rahman was fine. Thalaivasal Vijay was wasted. Mukesh Rishi was good. Danny as main villain lacked the screen presence and punch. Still the old scenes of PrakashRaj makes such an impact which no other actor could match. Nasser, Vijayakumar, Radharavi, Manorama repeated their roles as usual.

Songs & BGM
Too loud though SINGAM DANCE and Kannukkulle were hummable. Nowhere near SINGAM. BGM was a disappointment compared to SINGAM. Except the family sentiment scene BGM, from first part & Puriyavillai song BGM, nothing impresses. The remixed SINGAM SINGAM was used in a small portion only.

Technical
Priyan's camera needs special mention - SUPERB work for a mass entertainer and new frames definitely needs appreciation. Editing was racy and apt. Art direction was good.

Script & Direction
Both departments handled by Hari. Script lacked the punch which was there in first part. Dialogues were fine at parts and funny at parts. From interval portion onwards, the storyline is just a rehashed version of Viji Thampy - SureshGopi team's SATHYAMEVA JAYATHE. In that SureshGopi arrests Hemanth Ravan not knowing who really he is for traffic case. Here Durai Singam arrests Danny without knowing he's an international drug dealer as a person having not enough papers to land on port. Though script was thin, especially Kerala episode was made too comical, it is the awesome direction by HARI which makes the show engaging with no time to think about anything even the scene before.

Overall an enjoyable mass masala entertainer

Verdict : Well directed MASS MASALA ENTERTAINER
BO Verdict : Sure HIT