Monday, 24 December 2012

DA THADIYA


          AASHIQ ABU had repeated his magic of youthful success through 'DA-THADIYA'. A fully youth-oriented movie, that is what 'DA-THADIYA' is. The simple style of story-telling that AASHIQ ABU had in 'SALT N PEPPER' as well as '22 FEMALE KOTTAYAM' is also followed in 'DA-THADIYA' which makes the movie beautiful.
          'DA-THADIYA' is the story of 'Luke John'(Played by SEKHAR MENON) who is obese. The complexes and habitat of the obese Luke is discussed beautifully in the movie. SEKHAR MENON had done his role in this debut venture very well. ANN AUGUSTINE, NIVIN PAULY, SREENATH BHASI and senior actors like IDAVELA BABU, MANIYANPILLA RAJU etc had performed well in this AASHIQ ABU movie.
          Along with discussing the problems and conditions of Luke, the movie also sarcastically points finger towards few political and social conditions of Malayalees. A lot of fun and youthfulness in the movie makes it interesting.
          The script is beautifully framed by SHYAM PUSHKARAN, DILEESH NAIR and ABHILASH S KUMAR. It had made the full use of the central character. All the twists and turns that can be created using the central character is beautifully included in the script. Although it makes a lot of fun out of the obese Luke, it never breaks any limit.
          As was in AASHIQ ABU's previous ventures, BIJIBAL had done the music for the movie as well as SHYJU KHALID the camera. Both had done their work beautifully.
          The fight scene prior to the climax was clearly adopted from the Hollywood animation movie 'KUNGFU PANDA'. This creates a feeling that the whole thread of the movie was adopted from 'KUNGFU PANDA'.
            With another beautiful movie, AASHIQ ABU had strengthened his place in Malayalam film industry.

Saturday, 22 December 2012

BAVUTTIYUDE NAMATHIL






                                    
          BAVUTTIYUDE NAMATHIL is the film MAMMOOTTY - RENJITH team had done after 'PRANCHIYETTAN & THE SAINT'. Although it was RENJITH who wrote the script, G.S. Vijayan directed it. it was the return of G.S. Vijayan to Malayalam films after 12 years (his previous film was coverstory (2000)).
            Many instances in the movie represents the punches of a typical RENJITH script. The usual criticism to Malayalees appears many a times in the movie. Apt dialogues were also nicely included in the script. The story being based in Northern Kerala, the Malabar slang of its characters was inevitable. None in the movie presented it with sarcasm or exaggeration.
            'Bavutti'(played by MAMMOOTTY), being an orphan is portrayed as a character who values for relationships very much. His attachment to 'Sethus'(played by 'SHANKAR RAMAKRISHNAN') family is nicely discussed in the movie. KAVYA MADHAVAN had played her role of 'Vanaja' very well.
            Although the script by RENJITH was the main attraction of the movie, it can only be rated as just an average venture & nothing more. As ' BAVUTTIYUDE NAMATHIL' succeeds 'MAMMOOTTY - RENJITH' team's 'PRANCHIYETTAN & THE SAINT ', it was awaited with a great lot of expectations. But MAMMOOTTY's performance as 'Baavutti' comes nowhere near the shadows of 'Pranchiyettan'. Even 'Bavutti's' characterization wasn't strong enough to make the audience feel him.
            Though RENJITH's script gave strong backbone to the movie, the direction wasn't good enough to meet the expectations it had created before its release. In fact many scene & styles in the movie made it feel little over and bored.
            Although it wasn't RENJITH who directed the movie, his usual teammates, RAFEEQ AHMED and SHAHBAZ AMAN are also part of this movie. SHAHBAZ AMAN had done the music to lyrics of RAFEEQ AHMED in 'BAVUTTIYUDE NAMATHIL'. The title song was wonderfully done by this team.
            Considering the movie in its whole, it is just an average movie. But it never does any harm to the hopes of good and better movies from RENJITH.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

JAB TAK HAIN JAAN






The last movie from Yash Chopra gifted the viewers with a beautiful love story. Though the story was beautiful, the screenplay couldn’t support the story well. The weakness in the screenplay caused the nearly three-hour movie feel little boring.
Yash Chopra’s last film and Shahrukh Khan’s Diwali release for the year had created great expectations in the people for these reasons. But it was nothing but an average Bollywood a love story movie for them. Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma, who played the lead female roles in the movie made the movie colourful by their presence.
The real beauty of the movie was AR Rahman’s music. All the songs he had composed for the movie are beautiful and had obtained positions in the hit chart. Gulzar’s lyrics also had equal importance in creating the songs beautiful.
As usual SRK had played the role of a romantic hero very well in his own class. Through JAB TAK HAI JAAN, he had tightened his position as bollywood’s most romantic hero. Anushka Sharma also did her job wonderfully in the movie. While, Katrina Kaif couldn’t does it well.
Although the movie represented a great love story, it couldn’t get the real attraction due to its weak script. In fact the weakness in the script made the movie really lengthy. The screenplay couldn’t make the viewer’s feel the story. It failed to represent the highly emotional situations within the story with their required strength.
Katrina’s not-so-good acting and Aditya Chopra’s script made the beautiful story look ‘just an average movie’.
Let the memories of Yash Copra be long living through his beautiful movies.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

AYALUM NJANUM THAMMIL



                               Ayalum njanum thammil is a beautiful movie from Lal Jose and the Bobby – Sanjay team. Bobby & Sanjay had written the movie well. They seem to be placing themselves among the leading script writers in Malayalam film industry. As for Lal Jose, it is just another good movie he could make.
          Bobby & Sanjay had included many instances in the script to emotionally evoke the viewers. It starts with the heart surgery of a 6 year old girl who happened to die during the surgery. This incident draws the media attention to Dr. Ravi Tharakan (played by Prithviraj), the movie then explores into the life of Dr. Tharakan. The script is beautifully framed and exhibits traits of what is called a new-generation movie.
          The script is framed in such a way that the life of Dr. Tharakan is explained through different characters who have known him at one stage or another of his life. The life of Dr. Tharakan and molding of himself into a dedicated and matured physician is explained beautifully in the script. Prithviraj have done well in this role.
          The movie explains to the viewers the life and hardships of doctors. Dr. Samuel (played by Prathap Pothan) who runs the Redemption Hospital is pictured as a highly dedicated and committed doctor. Dr. Tharakan’s rural service in Redemption Hospital and his co-working with Dr. Samuel cover most part of the movie. This phase of Dr. Tharakan’s life is explained through Dr. Supriya (played by Remya Nambeesan), who was also doing her rural service in the hospital with Dr. Tharakan.
          Narain played the second lead role of Dr. Vivek, the best friend of Dr. Tharakan. Dr. Vivek’s character explains campus & love life of Dr.Tharakan. Like in ‘Classmates’, he was chosen to replace Kunchako Boban, who was the primary consideration for Dr. Vivek’s role, but opted outs. Though the movie had been compared with ‘Classmates’, there isn’t anything similar in both (other than its director and the actors played the lead role).
          There was a terrible mistake within the movie. The assistant commissioner says that Dr. Tharakan’s cell phone was found from the accident site and its last call was to a taxi driver. But in a later scene, it is shown that Dr. Tharakan calls for taxi from his home, using his landline.
          Bobby & Sanjay have proved through Ayalum Njanum Thammil that they are good in handling highly emotional instances in their script.

Sunday, 23 September 2012

TRIVANDRUM LODGE




          The team of ‘Beautiful’ has repeated their success through ‘Trivandrum Lodge’. Anoop Menon, Jayasurya and VKP (plus certain others who had been part of ‘Beautiful’) have done well in ‘Trivandrum Lodge’.
          Anoop Menon’s script is the backbone and the main feature of the movie. His works resemble those of the classic writer in Malayalam, i.e., Padmarajan (resemblance in the way that they both handle the subject ‘sex’ in a class of their own, without making it appear vulgar). Even Anoop had brought the character ‘Thangal’ (Played by Babu Namboothiri) of Padmarajan’s ‘Thoovana Thumpikal’ to ‘Trivandrum Lodge’. It seems like Anoop is trying to imitate Padmarajan.
          The story evolves through the life of different people living and related to ‘Trivandrum lodge’ in Kochi. The residents, its owner and certain other people coming in touch with the lodge form the characters of the story. The one thing the movie tries to discuss is the views of all these characters regarding sex. The concept of ‘male – female relationship’ (sex) is discussed through different perceptions in ‘Trivandrum Lodge’. Different levels, layers, types and views of male – female relationship have been expressed well in the movie.
          The dialogues were absolutely and perfectly framed to match the realistic situations. But at certain situations they seem to cross the limit of polity. Some dialogues were strictly adults only (though they can’t be avoided from the script).
          Though it was Anoop Menon who had written the movie, ‘Trivandrum Lodge’, being directed by V.K. Prakash (VKP, the director of ‘Gulumal’, ‘Three Kings’ etc) was foreseen with a hesitation to accept. But Anoop’s script and the team of ‘Beautiful’ have done ‘Trivandrum Lodge’ very well blowing away all the hesitations.
          All the characters seem to be interested only in sex. An exception is ‘Ravisankar’ (played by Anoop Menon) who says he is a one–woman man. Abdu (played by Jayasurya) is an insensitive character who is deprived of all his confidence. Jayasurya has done the role really well. Honey rose and famous playback singer P. Jayachandran have also played in lead roles in the movie very well.
          Dealing with the subject ‘sex’ within a movie need to be very carefully done, else, it will look like nothing short of an adults-only movie. But the script explains the subject really well without any vulgarity.
          The music department of the movie has done well. The result was good songs (composed by M. Jayachandran) and excellent background score (composed by Bijibal).
          ‘Trivandrum Lodge’ is thus, a good movie Malayalam film industry had given, with more to expect from Anoop Menon.

Monday, 27 August 2012

FRIDAY



                                          FRIDAY MALAYALAM MOVIE REVIEW
     
          Friday is a movie that came out to form a link in the chain of new generation movies in Malayalam. It represented a great theme and idea. But this theme and idea couldn’t be well supported by its script.
          Since ‘Friday’ being only the first movie from its director ‘Lijin Jose’, its failure in living up to the expectations could only be seen as a first timer’s starting trouble. Lijin Jose has done well in his short film ‘Conditions Apply’, but ‘Friday’, as a feature film couldn’t be a fully satisfying venture.
          The movie came out as a new generation venture. But it couldn’t be fully called so. There were instances that made it feel like one, but the screenplay was very weak in establishing the new generation trend.
          The initial phase of building up of the story was too lagging and dragging, as was the end. ‘Najeem Koya’, couldn’t make his screenplay strong enough to make the audience feel the story and the intensity of the situations. There was a kind of dryness in the whole script and the character sketches. It even included unwanted characters. Like a pregnant beggar roaming around and giving birth to her second child and then again walking around with her two children. Apparently, this character never forms a link in any part of the story.
The story was moving forward with great drag and so even the songs couldn’t generate much interest in the movie. The movie represented the great theme of the incidents occurring during a single day around a few people in a town. So, there were a great lot of dramas expected from it. The main failure of the movie was in not realizing the expectation of huge drama from the theme it represented.
Like in all his ventures, ‘Fahad Fazil’ has done absolutely well in ‘Friday’. Only the scenes with him showed the only traces of the new trend. Well, it seems that the moviemakers now think that including Fahad, pregnancy and delivery scenes, and making the whole story roll around within a day would make a new generation hit. But they fail to realize that it needs to be supported with a strong screenplay.
With the first movie from Lijin Jose being an above average venture, the hopes for better movies from him are still on.

Sunday, 19 August 2012

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN




          Christopher Nolan is one of the most brilliant and successful filmmakers in the world. Every movie from him is always eagerly awaited. They are a class apart due to their excellent scripting. First among his feature films is ‘Following (1997)’ and the latest being ‘The dark knight rises (2012)’.

Although ‘Following’ was the first movie from Nolan, he gained a notable position among the brilliant filmmakers through his second movie Memento (2000). Chris Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan co-wrote the movie based on the short story ’Memento mori’ (written by Jonathan). Since then, every Nolan movie came with great expectations and apparently none of them break it.

Insomnia’ (2002) was the next in the Nolan movie list. It did reflect all aspects of a typical Nolan movie, but couldn’t make much commercial success or public attention. A break to this fate was brought about by the first Nolan movie in ‘Batman series’ (i.e., Batman Begins (2005)). Since then Nolan movies were inevitable from commercial successes lists.

The prestige’ featured Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Hugh Jackman in the lead roles. All Nolan movies succeeding ‘The prestige’ casted Michael Caine and Christian Bale (Bale was not casted in Inception though). Nolan has a peculiarity of casting actors from a Nolan movie to the next. Michael Caine and Christian Bale serve the best example while Marion Cotillard, Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Tom Hardy had been casted in ‘Inception’ as well as ‘The dark knight rises’. Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman were repeatedly casted in all Batman movies by Nolan.

Another sound peculiarity of Nolan scripts is that they move forward with scenes representing the main characters in different instances of time or levels in their life. Different situations encountered by the characters are represented through these scenes and are played in parallel with the total flow of the story. Nolan thus, represents a highly intellectual and psychological way of story telling.
All Nolan movies have highly metered and emotionally touching dialogues. They have a high-end effect in the story as well as the audience. In other words, Nolan writes highly influential dialogues for his characters.
Nolan movies feature characters not interested in materialistic earnings like money. They are visualized as least bothered about it or with an interest to play hard mind games on others with it. Apparently, even the anti-heroes of Nolan movies are least bothered about money.
Now, it’s a big wait for ‘The man of steel’ from Nolan with Superman as its central character. The expectations are up high from the man who made the ‘Batman series’ great and success for the first time.

Saturday, 28 July 2012

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES


The dark knight rises’ is a movie absolutely beyond words. It is another typical Nolan movie. He has given the world a movie above all its expectations. All the people related to the movie seem to have done very well.
          Although the movie follows its prequel ‘The Dark Knight’, the story line and its characters are on a great extend related to ‘The Batman Begins’ (the first in the series). The excellence in the scripting has done absolute justice to the story and to the people’s expectations from the ‘Nolans’ (including 'Jonathan Nolan' who has also been in scripting the movie).
The three movies in the series (namely ‘The Batman Begins’, ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’) seem to be like climbing up steps, in all aspects i.e., the story, its quality etc. the story is absolutely starting in the ‘The Batman Begins’, forms a shape in ‘The dark knight’ and reaches its ultimatum in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. Screenplay is wisely framed with apt situations and drawing in characters and using them elegantly. A character like ‘Catwoman’ (played by Anne Hathaway) being part of the story and used to form a piece of its backbone was brilliantly done by ‘Nolan’. This character, which has never been heard related with any ‘Batman story’, forming an important role in the story is a typical ‘Nolan idea’.
The Batman Begins’ centralizes on thoughts of ‘Bruce Wayne’ (played by Christian Bale) about suppressing the crime in ‘Gotham city’. Whereas in ‘The Dark Knight’ all the cops in the city are also drawn to think about it by ‘Harvey Dents’ influence. And now, in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ the whole city is brought to the front.
Perfect framing of dialogues is another peculiarity of the movie (as is all Nolan movies). The highly punching dialogues are so beautifully written that the viewers feel emotionally elated. Each important character is given at least a very important dialogue, that has a very hard effect on the character to whom the dialogue is said to.
Nolan’ hasn’t lost his habit of including the actors of a Nolan movie in his next. He had brought ‘Tom Hardy’, ‘Marion Cotillard’ and ‘Joseph Gordon Levitt’ (from ‘The Inception’) into the movie. Well the usual presence of ‘Michael Caine’ in ‘Nolan movies’ (since ‘The Prestige’) is another notable peculiarity.
Apparently, no ‘Nolan Movie’ have an end i.e., they do end into the beginning of another stage or phase.’ The Dark Knight Rises’ end with ‘Blake’ (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) entering the ‘Batcave’, showing that he is to rise as ‘Gotham City’s’ next hero.
Christian Bale’ had already proved the point that he is a highly dedicated actor. The initial part of the movie shows his character under high emotional stress. Bale has done a great effort to make his body appear so. His dedication to work might be the reason why he’s a favorite of Nolan.
When Nolan do elate people emotionally through the dialogues he has written, it is supported by the music of ‘Hans Zimmers’. He’s absolutely a maestro in creating background scores of high emotional feel. Thus the movie makes the viewers feel the intensity through all its aspects.
Though every field related to the movie has been well executed, there were some notable mistakes. The label on police vehicles changes from ‘GPD’ (representing Gotham Patrol Dept.) to ‘GCPD’ (representing Gotham City Patrol Dept.) over scenes. The word ‘heist’ was spelled wrongly i.e., it was spelled ‘hiest’ in the crime records of ‘Catwoman’.
Overall, the movie was an excellent experience. This increases our expectations from the next Nolan movie ‘Man of Steel’.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

THATTATHIN MARAYATHU



                    Simple, but beautiful and super, that’s what ‘Thattathin Marayathu’ is. Vineeth Sreenvasan has improved himself as writer and director when he comes from ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’. The story is beautifully built up and visualized.
          The script moves mainly revolving around the hero (Vinod – played by Nivin Pauly) and his deeds to capture and secure his love. Every characters involved in the story are used to bring about one or another twist in it. No characters seem to be included for the sake of including an actor. Most of the scenes are focused on the hero, whatever he do, his thoughts and emotions. Although the heroine is focused in only very few scenes, it doesn’t fail to include the feelings and thoughts of the heroine (Ayisha – played by Isha Talwar). But Isha Talwar is given only very few dialogues. The dialogues match to that of real situations and are perfectly written, without any exaggeration.
Songs and music do a great favor to the story by creating a romantic mood in the audience. They are absolutely beautiful and romantic. All the songs became hit before the release of the movie. So, they did not only enhance the movie’s beauty but also attracted a lot of people to it.
Since ‘Thattathin Marayathu’ being the second film from Vineeth Sreenivasan as a director and writer, there was a doubt in people that whether the movie would also go with a vague visualization and build up. But Vineeth seems to be matured as a director and a writer in this attempt. Actually, he has done it exceptionally well that the audience could actually feel the story very much close to themselves.
Like in ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’, Sreenivasan’s character breaks his silence at the most crucial moment of the story. Nowhere else in both movies we could see his character being significantly involved in the story.
          Though the story tells the love of ‘Vinod’ and ‘Ayisha’, it also discusses the social issues like ‘moral police’ and ‘political dramas’ by using these issues to create necessary turns in the story.
          Vineeth and his friends have gifted malayalees with a beautiful romantic film to celebrate. Thanks to Vineeth and friends for this beautiful venture.

Saturday, 7 July 2012

ANWAR RASHEED


            Anwar Rasheed is one of the most promising directors of Malayalam film industry. He has proved this point beyond any doubt through his four films namely Rajamanikyam, Chotta Mumbai, Annan thampi and Ustad hotel.
          There have been certain similarities in Anwar Rasheed films. His movies start with the childhood of the hero. This part necessarily gives an idea about what the hero will become in future. The history of naming of the hero also forms part of this childhood episode.
          In Rajamanikyam, the hero gets the name ‘Rajamanikyam’ from his stepfather. While, in Chotta Mumbai, the hero’s father call him ‘Vasco da Gama’, so that he be becoming a legend. Now, in Ustad hotel, the hero is named ‘Feyze’ (Faizal) even before his birth.
          Anwar Rasheed films focuses on the relations of members of a family. This relation, which is being focused, is disturbed or altered by the influence of an external agent, who usually turns out to be the villain.
          Rajamanikyam explains the story of three step siblings which gets disturbed by the external villain, who appears as the friend of one of the step siblings. Whereas in Chotta Mumbai, it comes to a father and a son, the sentiments between them get altered by the villain. When it comes to Annan thampi, twin brothers are in a clash due to the villain who happened to be the friend of the elder brother. While in Ustad hotel, the relation between a son, father and grandfather gets altered by the influence of people around them.
          Actors Siddique, Sai Kumar and Maniyanpilla Raju usually form s part of Anwar Rasheed films.

          Anwar Rasheed films are undoubtedly big entertainers. He uses the correct mixture of humor, fast paces and dramatization which contributes to the success of the movie. The Malayalam film industry can expect loads of good entertaining movies from Anwar Rasheed in the future.