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Balram vs. Tharadas (2006)
Review of Balram Vs Taradas
he movie is set into motion when a large cache of arms is discovered in the land belonging to the local businessman Hussein Sahib (Risabava). On investigation, Inspector Varma (Mukesh) finds that Hussein Sahib has no idea about this, but the land was used by someone called Anali Bhaskaran. The Inspector, along with his colleagues Sudhakaran (Jagadeesh) go to arrest Bhaskaran, but they are given a good fight. As the police are being beaten, the screen alternates between a police jeep appearing on the scene and Anali Bhaskaran trying to knife people. Suddenly a hand appears in the scene and beats Bhaskaran. The camera, in a ritual symbolic of us doing pradakshniam around the deity goes around the body to which the hand is attached and reveals the face of Inspector Balram.
He is still the same no-nonsense, arrogant person who follows his heterodox ways of investigation. The only difference is that he does not use much four letter words, or in the case of Malayalam, two letter words much. Anali Bhaskaran reveals under interrogation that Hussein Sahib's son Salim is involved in this. Hussein Sahib says that his son left the house sometime back and he has no idea where he is. Then at this point it starts raining characters as if it is the start of monsoon season.
In a span of few minutes we get three villains, MLA Rani (Vani Vishwanath), a DGP, Balram's boss (Devan), DYSP George (Siddique), Policewoman Dakshayani (Kalpana), a Chief Minister, a minister called Mustafa, Srini (Srinivasan), the editor of a yellow journal, and a policeman called Ummar (Augustine). While were were figuring out who was who in this, Balram concludes that Tharadas was behind all this and the scene switches to Dubai.
If Balram got a Rajnikanth style introduction, then according to the Newton's third law, Tharadas too has to get one. So we see one of his associates insulting a person, bad mouthing Tharadas and walking away. Then in the corridor he sees a faint human figure far away. The camera jerks and jerks and reveals Tharadas, dressed so well that we would think he was on his way to a photo shoot when he decided abruptly to beat a few people. As if this visual was not suffice, there was an electric guitar playing loudly in the background as if someone old the guitar player that he would get paid based on the number of random sounds he could make from the instrument.
After beating his associate, Tharadas meets the minister Mustafa (who seems like a Kunjalikutti clone) and does some business. He also wants a favor from the minister. He wants a ring to be passed to his girlfriend Supriya (Katrina Khaif) who is an actress. Once the people and linkages are established, the game is set in motion in an even faster pace. Balram concludes that the only way to trap Tharadas is to arrest Supriya. As expected Tharadas lands in Kerala and takes on Balram and it drives rest of the story.
Please read the rest of the review at: http://varnachitram.com/2006/10/26/review-balram-vs-taradas/
Notebook (2006)
Review of the movie Notebook
Even though Udayananu Thaaram was a hit , we were not very impressed by Roshan Andrews first movie. For starters, it had the original script by Steve Martin's Bowfinger to build upon. Then our brilliant scriptwriter, Srinivasan, who has many original scripts to his credit chose to add the usual Dasan-Vijayan routine to adapt it. The movie had a critical look at the happenings behind the camera and the personal jabs at the eccentricities of the superstars had us laughing since the last time we heard it was in Harikrishnans.
Burdened with the success of Udayananu Tharam, expectations were high from director Rosshan Andrews. This time the script by Bobby and Sanjay was an original one and not "inspired" in Priyadarshan style. There have been movies which have dealt with the teenage adventures of boys, like Sethumadhavan's Venal Kinavukal based on M T Vasudevan Nair's script, but so far we have not seen movies told from the point of view of teenage girls. Roshan has to be commended for picking up a topic which has not been dealt with the seriousness it deserves.
Notebook turns out to be an interesting movie, mainly from the interval to about the point Suresh Gopi makes a guest appearance which is about 45 minutes later. It takes the whole of the first half to reach the first plot point, which is that one of the girls, Sridevi, gets pregnant during a romantic rendezvous during a school picnic. Till then the script writers entertain us with the happenings in a school whose locale looks like one of those 7 Mega Pixel photos on Flickr.
The line in the story would have read "Boy and Girl fall in love", but stretching it to the entire first half was, lets say a stretch. To fill the time, we get to see the kids running around singing couple of songs, which we guess is mandatory in such schools. Such transgressions can be forgiven for these techniques are used by veterans like Sathyan Anthikkad too when the story line is as thin as angel hair pasta.
There is an a lengthy episode involving a student, Feroze, who is interested in music and is expelled from the school for suddenly scoring good grades. Feroze, played by Mejo Joseph who is also Roshan's brother-in-law, disappears somewhere in the middle of the first half never to be seen again and makes a five second appearance in the end as a successful musician. If the incident was to tell us that the school gives importance to academics, then it was redundant as it is obvious in various conversations among students.
To read the full review please visit: http://varnachitram.com/2007/04/25/review-notebook/
Naran (2005)
Review of Naran
The lone hotel owner in Mullankolli village decides to put a board for his hotel with the name in both Malayalam and Tamil. No, says Velayudhan (Mohanlal), a local thug. A man comes to sell fish which is kind of rotten. The buyers have no problems with it, but the man cannot sell fish, says Velayudhan. When someone challenges him, he beats him to pulp. As his symbol, he puts a stick on the ground, like a totem and challenges anyone to touch it. Apparently Mullamkolli exists in a place where no one has heard of Indian Penal Code and personal freedom.
How can you have heard of it when the place itself is isolated and to get there one has to cross a river by boat. Occasionally there is flooding in the river and trees comes floating down it. Velayudhan's main job is to jump into the river, collect those trees and sell it for a good income. Though he dictates others on how to run their business, he runs a toddy shop, but it is alright, since there are some rules for the shop, like the Ten Commandments.
Due to Velayudhan's thuggery, there is law and order in the village and outsiders and insiders seldom do mischief and women are not harassed. He also sleeps in the veranda of a prostitute Kunnil Shanta (Sona Nair), so that she is not troubled. Where else can you find such a lovable thug with a heart of gold other than in such movies. Due to this Velayudhan is loved by a lot of people, including Kelappan's (Innocent) daughter Leela (Bhavana). He also has an ex-flame, Janaki (Devayani), who got married to ration shop owner Krishnan (Maniyanpillai Raju).
Velayudhan's mother had come floating in the floods and had given birth to him and floated away. He was taken by Valiya Nambiar (Madhu), the only person whom he respects. Due to Velayudhan's moral policing, he is hated by the Panchayat Member Kurup (Jagathi Sreekumar) and Nambiar's son-in-law Gopinathan (Siddique). Both of them try to attack and discredit him many times and many people die, but ultimately the predictable happens.
Read rest of the review at:http://varnachitram.com/2006/09/22/review-naran/
Thommanum Makkalum (2005)
Review of Thommanum Makkalum
When the movie starts Thomman (Rajan P Dev) and his sons Shivan (Mammotty) and Sathyan (Lal) announce that they have decided to turn new leafs. They were thieves and now they want to work hard and live. So they buy a lorry, sing a song and before they could finish it, they end up in Tamil Nadu and the lorry breaks down.
They decide to spend the night on the road side. When Thomman says that he is hungry, Sathyan goes to look for food in a nearby house and comes back with a plate. Thomman has the food and soon he finds that the food was poisoned. Luckily he escapes. The food was poisoned by the owner of the house played by Janardhanan so that he could kill his children and die.
Since the movie is set in Tamil Nadu, as per Kerala State Law Section B Item 47, the movie must have a Thevar and the thevar must have a daughter and bunch of henchmen. We have seen this design pattern in movies like Mayilattam and Paandi Pada and this movie does not go out of the way to upset this pattern. Janardhanan owed the thevar lot of money and it was this frustration that led him to think of suicide. Janardhanan also has a beautiful daughter (Sindhu Menon). At this point we were about 30 minutes into the movie and could predict what was going to happen.
So Thomman and his sons fight with Thevar (Kalasala Babu), Thevar's daughter (Laya) and henchmen, sometimes all at the same time. They go through a sine and cosine curve of relationship and after 2 hours of song, dance, fight and colorful costumes, they resolve all issues. They even sing a group song to mark the occasion. At this point your brain is thinking, something is not right. If Thevar is not the villain, then who is? Then the villain appears for about 15 mins at the end and more predictable stuff happens.
read rest of the review at: http://varnachitram.com/2006/11/27/review-thommanum-makkalum/
Classmates (2006)
review - classmates
In the teaser scene of the movie you see Sukumaran (Prithviraj) chasing Sateeshan (Jayasurya) along the campus. Finally Sukumaran catches him and beats him to pulp. Someone throws him a hockey stick and as he is about to kill Sateeshan, someone shouts that their friend Murali (Sunil) is found dead in the generator room. Suku wakes up from his dream and gets ready to go back to Kerala from Mumbai for a reunion among those classmates. The reunion of the 1991 Chemistry batch was organized by Prof. Iyer (Balachandra Menon) and his wife (Sobha Mohan) in memory of their son Murali. The plan was to have a get together in the evening, recollect memories, stay in the hostel for the night and leave in the morning. Besides Sukumaran who is now a diamond merchant the other people who arrive are Sateeshan, who is an MLA, Pius (Indrajith), who is now in Gulf, Thara Kurup (Kavya Madhavan) who is a professional dancer and Raziya (Radhika). As they arrive one by one, both Thara and Sateeshan give a hostile looks to Sukumaran and you know something is not right. His only friend is Pius, but since his daughter was sick, Pius leaves to see a doctor at night at the insistence of Thara. As Suku is drunk and lying in the hostel room at night, Prof. Iyer comes to meet him and talk about Murali and his guitar which Iyer kept in another room. That night when Pius returns he finds Suku is strangled by the guitar string and police comes to investigate. Suku was not dead and he is moved to the ICU. The police meanwhile find his diary in which he had written that he wanted to end his life, but before that he wanted to go back to his past one last time. Iyer does not believe that it is suicide. He walks along with Pius and tells that to understand the present, we have to go back into the past. The movie then flash backs to 1991.
Nerariyan CBI (2005)
review of Nerariyan CBI
The template of CBI series of movies is constant. There is a murder. There is the local police. There is the CBI. There are dummies. There is Sethurama Iyer, Chacko, and Vikram. There are many red herrings and finally Sethurama Iyer catches the culprit. In the previous three installments, the crime was just regular murder. For this new version, script writer S.N.Swamy has added a supernatural element as well.
Four years back, Anitha (Gopika) came home to Animangalam Tharavadu with her friends. That night her friends Mythili (Samvritha Sunil) is found dead below the stair case. The house had a locked pooja room, similar to the one seen in Manichitrathazhu and the girls had tried to open it. Police came to investigate and concluded that some ghost was at work. A priest, Kappra (Thilakan) was called to investigate who asks the family to sell the house as soon as possible.
All these were told to Sethurama Iyer when Anitha's fiancée Sai (Jishnu) meets him in the airport. Iyer gets interested in the case and decides to investigate with the help of Chacko (Mukesh) and Vikram (Jagathi). As the investigation proceeds, they find that Mythili had a lover, Pradip, whom none of her family members had seen. He did not even turn up on her death. Also when Mythili's parents asked CBI to investigate, they were threatened by goondas to withdraw the case.
read rest of the review at: The template of CBI series of movies is constant. There is a murder. There is the local police. There is the CBI. There are dummies. There is Sethurama Iyer, Chacko, and Vikram. There are many red herrings and finally Sethurama Iyer catches the culprit. In the previous three installments, the crime was just regular murder. For this new version, script writer S.N.Swamy has added a supernatural element as well.
Four years back, Anitha (Gopika) came home to Animangalam Tharavadu with her friends. That night her friends Mythili (Samvritha Sunil) is found dead below the stair case. The house had a locked pooja room, similar to the one seen in Manichitrathazhu and the girls had tried to open it. Police came to investigate and concluded that some ghost was at work. A priest, Kappra (Thilakan) was called to investigate who asks the family to sell the house as soon as possible.
All these were told to Sethurama Iyer when Anitha's fiancée Sai (Jishnu) meets him in the airport. Iyer gets interested in the case and decides to investigate with the help of Chacko (Mukesh) and Vikram (Jagathi). As the investigation proceeds, they find that Mythili had a lover, Pradip, whom none of her family members had seen. He did not even turn up on her death. Also when Mythili's parents asked CBI to investigate, they were threatened by goondas to withdraw the case.
Read rest of the review at: http://varnachitram.com/2006/09/26/review-nerariyan-cbi/