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Archive for February 2012

Written by Hariharan Anbazhagan in


Ambuli (Moon) – Glitters as the Dark Horse



Ambuli 3D which claims to be the first stereoscopic 3D feature film in Tamil, kick-started and went ahead with a unique marketing campaign months before its release. Being one of the beneficiaries of the campaign, I happen to win an Ambuli T-shirt for being among the top 100 who registered with their website. From then on, whether I wanted it or not I have been made to keep a tab on their promotions and happenings on my social networking pages with constant updates. What went in the movie’s favour was the curiosity factor which they managed to generate among the audiences through intelligent and out-of-the-box promotions and website design.

The story is set in 1978 in the village of Poomaadanthipuram which happens to be haunted by the folklore of Ambuli. People are warned from trespassing the nearby corn fields, especially during the nights, as there is Ambuli which roams around and hunts humans for food and is considered to be a deadly man eater. Two friends, Vendhan and Amudhan, while nurturing their respective love interests, happen to encounter their worst nightmares with Ambuli, decide to venture out to decode the myth and also to find out the real reason behind it with the help of the people who have had similar experiences and were as curious as they were to find out about the strange happenings. The things which get revealed as a result are certainly interesting and scary at the same time and the resultant climax was equally riveting. The gripping plot and the premise in which the story was set were the tour de force of the movie.

Glittery welcome and hearty congratulations for the debuting directorial duo of Hari Shankar and Harish Narayanan. They have managed to beautifully blend science fiction and horror with the suspense element intact. No character in the movie appears to be wasted and everybody was given ample opportunity to perform.

The male leads – Ajai and Srijith were there to do all the heavy lifting in terms of moving the story ahead with their decent act, buffooneries, romance and above all, their ability to emote fright and anxiety, which is key for a horror flick. Their female counterparts – Sanam and Jothisha were there to join them in ‘retro styled’ duets and also during the climax to bustle around when chased by Ambuli.

There were way too many characters in the supporting cast who were brilliant enough and are definitely worth a mention:

1. Parthipan – has got an extended cameo. The character of ‘Sengotan’, the villager who dwells near the corn field, managed to create enough suspicion and kept the audiences hooked till the climax.

2. Thambi Ramaiah – as Srijith’s father, thoroughly performed his role with his quaint and old world attitude which was natural enough to add to the flavour of the script.

3. Jagan – as the village’s contemporary lad, was one of the hidden pillars of the movie; be it the way he rubbishes the old sentiments or the quick realization of his fear towards Ambuli once he visualizes the threat and consequently turns the frightened villagers against it towards the climax– he accomplished his task well and brought in life to the proceedings at much needed times.

4. Kalairani as the village nanny, also helped in keeping the suspense element to go on by sprinkling some hard and fast facts on Ambuli sporadically during the proceedings

5. Uma Riyaz, also in a cameo had an important role, though there was not much to perform.

6. Gokul – last but not the least, the small screen mime artist, who portrayed the role of Ambuli, made our hearts to get into our mouth with his body language and slap stick act.

Music was composed by 4 new music directors - K. Venkat Prabu Shankar, C. S. Sam, Sathish and Mervin Solomon. The songs were pale enough to remember and nothing stood out. The background score was excellent and indeed adds to the strength of the script.

Cinematography by Sathish was another huge asset for the movie. The aerial shots and the thoughtful close-up shots which were made to showcase the 3D prowess were well taken and sometimes made the crowd to spill their popcorn on their laps.

Editing by Hari Shankar was crispy enough to keep the movie at 2:20 hours, though one would have been much happier if he had butchered an unwanted duet in the first half.

The 3D technicality has come in for praise and the same has been proved again with the family audiences flocking towards the movie along with their children.

On the downside, the movie delves too much into the 70’s show, especially with the song sequences. Also lack of comic elements made the movie watching experience a bit dried out. The second half was a bit slow paced and the proceedings towards the climax had some minor flaws.

Overall, it was an engaging 3D horror flick with a hint of science fiction. With the notion towards the climax that there is a certain sequel on the cards, this flick might even establish a cult status on its own.


Verdict: Above Average (Worth a Watch in 3D)


Rating: 3/5

Written by Hariharan Anbazhagan in


Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal (All Day It’s Your Imagination) – Damp Squib!




Debutante Elrad Kumar produced and directed MUK had its fair share of pre-release buzz and controversies in the form of change of hands from one director to another and the delay in its post-production work as well. What was poised to be a romantic thriller, ended up as a tedious and long winded affair with hardly anything solid to offer.

The story revolves around the lead cast of Atharva and Amala Paul. Both are software engineers, Atharva working in Chennai, while Amala Paul lives in Bangalore. Atharva travels to Bangalore every weekend to be with his girlfriend and at nights he avenges her foes. Meanwhile Amala Paul (with another name) arrives in India from the US and claims that she knows Atharva, while Atharva treats her as an unknown person. Why Atharva does this form the rest of the story and thus bringing in the lame twist in the tale.

The biggest weakness for the movie was its screenplay. To justify the fact that it was meant to be a core love story, way too many songs were thrust into the narration, thus hampering the pace of the movie. Though the director tried his best to hook the audiences with an element of suspense, immediately after the interval the steam is lost and all that happens after that hardly makes any sense.

For Atharva this was considered to be the big ticket for becoming the heartthrob among the youth, but sadly he was not up to the mark and he hardly made any sensible emotions on screen. Though he had a ‘photo shopped’ physique, his acting let him down. Better luck next time!

Amala Paul had a plum role and looked gorgeous on screen, but the screenplay became so weak at a certain point in time that she was made to look like a wasted piece of glossy white paper.

Santhanam’s weakest role by far was in this movie. Though he tried his best to resurrect the movie at times, he was hardly given any screen space and thus his efforts went down the drain.

Jayaprakash, was cast in his favorite supporting role as the psychiatrist, tried his best to do a decent job, but was caricaturised many a times by the below par screenplay.

All others including Nasser and Anupama Kumar had done their roles with finesse. A special mention for Anupama Kumar, who has donned a bold woman’s role and her flash back episode, though a bit long, added some much needed fuel for the weak screenplay.

Music by G.V.Prakash was good, though it cannot be rated in his top league of albums. The placement of songs literally scared the audiences and some were even lazy to go out for a fag as too many of them were thrust within a very short span of time. The BGM was a bit nosiy too.

Editing was a huge disappointment as the movie dragged towards the end and added to the boredom.

Cinematography by Shakthi was eye-catchy, especially the grand foreign locales and the first song on the American highway was amazing.

The movie had good production values in the form of grand foreign locales and costumes, but because of the poor treatment of the script, this certainly goes down as just another failed attempt of a debut director who wanted to make an engaging romantic thriller, but misses the trick with a rehashed and amateurish screenplay which doesn’t cater to any of our senses.

Verdict: Big Bore!

Rating: 1.5/5

Written by Hariharan Anbazhagan in


Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi (How to Mess up in Love?) – Almost Messed Up!



The short film with the same title, directed by amateur film maker Balaji Mohan, made rounds in famous social networking sites and YouTube, creating enough buzz to make its entry into the big screen. But the obvious problem in expanding a short film into a full length feature film can be analogous with that of setting a tiny thumbnail sized image as our laptop’s desktop wallpaper. The wallpaper would lose its charm irrespective of how beautiful the thumbnail was.

The director had a crispy and engaging screenplay for the short film, but the problem was that he tried to use the same for its full length counterpart too, which had let him down big time.

The story was more of a monologue by Sidharth, explaining the intricacies of love and relationship, breakups and stuff like that. The story moved back and forth in time and was confusing at times. What was targeted to be a feel-good romantic story, ended up being a half-baked affair without any fizz.

Sidharth was in almost every frame. His chemistry with Amala Paul was good enough, but the problem was that neither of them delivered a knock-out performance. Every scene was either a romantic interlude or the usual cat and mouse affair, which became sick after a while. Sidharth explaining the audiences on the strange and hackneyed qualities of male and female every now and then was boring to say the least.

Even though there were no solid performances from anyone, the ‘chubby’ guy who portrayed Sidharth’s friend added the much needed comic elements for the movie – be it the way he carried his failures and getting slapped from girls in almost all the scenes that he appeared or the way in which he provoked people for a break-up were rib-tickling moments.

The couples who portrayed the lead actors’ parents were well cast. Suresh especially had delivered a matured performance and it was nice to see a yester year romantic hero in such a role.

Music by Thaman was damp squib and audiences were almost running out of patience when 2 or 3 songs came within 15 minutes in the first half.

Editing for this movie could have been tricky as the screenplay had its own share of time oscillations – a decent job by T.S.Suresh, though one would wish that he could have avoided the drag in the first half.

Cinematography by Nirav Shah, who also happens to be one of the producers of the movie, was nothing exceptional, but was neat.

Though, KSY had its fair share of funny scenes and dialogs, overall it was an average fair without anything special to offer in any of the departments, be it acting, music or other technical details.


Verdict: Average

Rating: 2/5

Written by Hariharan Anbazhagan in


Marina – Memoirs on the Beach



Marina beach, having the second largest coastline in the world, has its own facets and one can watch a humpty number of characters loitering in and around the beach; be it the chirpy love birds, small time business men, rich and affluent who want to spend time with their family and many more. Also, this place is an abode for the poor and downtrodden, who toil hard to make a living out there.

Director Pandiraj has delved into the lives and times of the kids who land up in Chennai from various rural hubs in Tamil Nadu and try to survive the test of times at the Marina beach by doing odd jobs like selling snacks, shells and other stuffs. For Pandiraj, this is the second movie on kids and has done a fairly decent job at it, with some minor hiccups.

The strength and weakness (to some extent) of the movie were the numerous characters in it and the way they were portrayed.

Strength is that the director had managed well to cast and extract work from each character – be it the way the chirpy lovers Sivakarthikeyan and Oviya visiting the beach and parting ways more often than not; the madman who often catches our attention with his anger towards the lovers; the old beggar (Sundararajan) and his sentimental past; the father and daughter combo of musicians and last but not the least, the gang of Lilliputians, each one having their own identity and a sad story.

The weakness is that after a certain point of time, it gets tedious to get hooked with the gimmicks of those kids and the movie turns a bit melodramatic. Also, some unnecessary songs and a race competition towards the climax add to the woes in the second half. Also there were some unnecessary scenes like the 2 police men landing in Chennai, only to chase down a kid to make him apologise to their superior’s son.

When it comes to performance, numerous faces standout tall:

1. ‘Pakoda’ Pandi, did a brilliant job as the small town boy. Very well essayed the emotions through his eyes and his dialog delivery were good. Has got a promising future as a child artiste.
2. The guy who portrayed Pandi’s friend also grabbed attention with his quick wit and repartee.
3. The beggar Sundararajan, though making his debut, seems to be an experienced campaigner and does a neat job.
4. The pair of Sivakarthikeyan and Oviya managed to strike a crackling chemistry and tickle our nerves at much needed times.
5. The guy who was portrayed as Sivakarthikeyan’s friend, had a character of his own and also a good sense of timing
6. The young girl who danced to her father’s tunes literally, had all her emotions stacked up on her face while she moved – impressed.
7. ‘Chithan’ Mohan as the postman, had lived his role with conviction.

Cinematography by Vijay was fantastic; especially the shots in the title song sequence with the sepia toned skyline of the beach were a touch of class. The night shots of the beach and the traffic were exquisite and a pleasure to watch.

Editing could have been better and one would wish that the movie could have been crisper, especially during the second half.

Music by debutante Girish was average on the whole, while ‘Vanakkam Vazhavaikum Chennai’, the title song was catchy and might turn out to be a hit number.

On the whole, director Pandiraj had taken our hands and asked us to come along with him on a stroll at the ‘Marina’ beach. While getting rejuvenated with the hint of fresh air, I would have wished him to move a bit faster with some focus.

Verdict: Above Average

Rating: 2.5/5

Written by Hariharan Anbazhagan in


Dhoni – Takes a dig at the system with a ‘helicopter’ shot!




Prakash Raj's directorial debut Dhoni, with a huge title value has certainly raised the bar of storytelling yet again. The movie takes a dig at the age-old Indian educational system and the society at large for victimizing the people in it for generations together.

 Subramanian (Prakash Raj) represents the typical lower middle class widower with 2 kids Karthik (Akash) and Kaveri (Sriteja), who finds it hard to make ends meet for his day-to-day living and survives the rat race as a government servant in addition to doing some odd jobs like pickle business and so on. He nurtures his fantasies of making his son an MBA degree holder, while his son dreams to become a cricketer like Dhoni (and hence the title). The clash of the thoughts between the father and son leads to a showdown, wherein the father understands the flaws in the system in which we live and exposes the same and faces the consequences with audacity.

Prakash Raj might have had some other reason for the title, but I can find one more analogy - the title shares a metaphor with our very own Indian captain in a sense that Captain Dhoni made his initial mark with his ability to score runs with his unorthodox yet productive shots like the helicopter shot which was out of the books, and so does the movie by taking an unorthodox stand on our orthodox and regimentary societal norms, especially the ones in the educational system. The movie was neat and tidy, with some simple yet powerful dialogs and a meaningful message.

Prakash Raj has always had an eye for good cinema, which was proved time and again with the sort of movies that got released from his stable. This time with the directors hat, he had delivered an ace. As far as his performance goes, it was fantastic as always to say the least; especially when he conveys the inability of a lower middle class man with some subtle yet powerful emotions and also in the scenes where he fights hard to stay positive amidst all miseries. Waiting for more in the coming days.... as a director too!!

Akash, who donned the role of Prakash's son had sparks in his eyes, but was not up to the mark while portraying the emotional outbursts, though manages to pass muster.

Radhika Apte, with a delicate role had delivered a subtle performance, though she had got little scope to showcase her acting skills.

The supporting cast including Prakash Raj's 'kacheri' neighbours, rowdy Gunny, womanizer Shaam and Bramhanandam, have all been well chosen and gelled naturally with the story.

Music by Ilayaraja was average and no song could be remembered after leaving the theatre, though the background score blended well with the proceedings.

Camera by K.V.Guhan had nothing special to offer, though a special thanks for keeping the angles easy on the eyes without much shake or twist. Editing by Kishore was crispy enough and made the proceedings zip through, especially in the first half.

On the downside, the movie got a bit melodramatic towards the end, where it became a sort of preachy. 

Also, Prakash Raj had judiciously utilized some cinematic liberties, wherein he takes up the society's problem with the chief minister himself for major reforms.

Also, suddenly everyone appear out of the blue to help him out.

Since the movie was a bilingual, some of the character's lip sync was not synced to the Tamil dialogs, which was a minor irritant.

Even with all these shortcomings, Dhoni can be watched for its positive message packed with punch.

Though the real Dhoni might have a tough time in the coming weeks in Australia, I don't see a reason for that to happen with its reel counterpart, which might make a successful run at the South Indian box office, at least for the next few weeks.

Verdict: Good

Rating: 3/5