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

BLACK BUTTERFLY

BLACK BUTTERFLY

Theatre : Aluva Zeenath Screen 1
Showtime & Date : 11.35am, 17-02-2013
Status : Balcony Good status, FC around 45 people

BLACK BUTTERFLY is the official remake of acclaimed tamil movie VAZHAKKU EN 18/9 by Balaji Sakthivel. Whether it works in Malayalam??? Lets see

Story
Movie begins with a bad incident & the investigation leads to 2 stories - Its Benny's story on pre interval & Aarathy's on post interval part - both linked well & ended up with a hard hitting yet the most loving climax we need eventhough we have seen 1000 times & still we love to see.

Performances
Don't know the name of all 4 newfaces - all performed well. Ganapathy was cool. Janardhanan was fine. Manianpillai Raju had a scene to score well. Sithara was artificial in Bhagyalakshmi's dubbing. Nelson rocked in single scene. Rest of the cast were apt & delivered a realistic performance especially the policeman was good with Shammy Thilakan's effective dubbing.

Songs & BGM
No songs were there in the movie though situations were there a lot. Good & Bold decision by the makers.

HERE COMES THE SOUL OF THE MOVIE - BGM BY GOPI SUNDAR. When it comes to BGM, he's the Ilaiyaraja and Yuvan Sankar Raja of Malayalam Cinema, another Johnson mash on the way. May be we have Shyam, Rajamani & many others. But those BGMs were remebered for the heroic scenes. But for me, its GOPI SUNDAR who took us to a different level even if its a sentimental scene or romantic scene or whatever. HATS OFF GOPI SUNDAR!!! Waiting for the release of BGMs in SOUND CLOUD very soon

Technical
Cinematography had some nice moments. Alagappan did a good job. Editing by Saajan was apt. Art by GokulDas disappoints a bit.

Script & Direction
Though credits of story was given to Balaji Sakthivel, screenplay also deserves credit for him though rewritten by J Pallassery wirh malayalam dialogues. Dialogues were a bit artificial in initial few scenes but rocked towards climax.

Direction by debutant M Renjith needs special mention. We won't feel like a debutant did this. Awesome work. Second half was more racy than first half. Climax [portions were well concieved.

On the whole, a movie for Society TODAY for the future of TODAY's & TOMORROW's GENERATION

Verdict : WHAT I SHOULD SAY!!! VERY GOOD, EXCELLENT,AWESOME, GO FOR IT, MUST WATCH, DON'T MISS IT????? I DON'T KNOW. WATCH THE MOVIE & COME OUT OF THEATRE WITH A TINGE OF TEARS IN YOUR EYES - WHICH HAS FLAVOURS OF LOVE HOPE HAPPINESS PAIN.....

BO Verdict : Deserves a SUPER HIT

TERRIFIC CLAPS AFTER THE SHOW