muddam Reviews

Raavan (2010)

Nicely Crafted, but painful...

[4/10 · 22 June 2010]

To tell you the fact on whole film: Film is richly crafted and produced – sweeping shots, stunning locales, jungles, waterfalls, but where is the story? The Mani Ratnam directed movie "Raavan" has the impressive star cast of Aishwariya Bachchan and Abhisek Bachchan. The bilingual movie is shot in both Hindi and Tamil. It is the most hyped movie of 2010. The film got rave reviews in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. However, the box office opening was disappointing.

The movie is a modern day take on the Hindu epic Ramayana by the ace director Mani Ratnam. The three characters of the epic, Ram, Sita and Raavan are portrayed in the movie with a twist. Abhisek Bachchan plays the role of Raavan, Aishwarya is glamorous in portraying Sita and the role of Ram is carried out by Dev in the movie.

However, unlike the epic, all the three characters have grey shades in the movie. The music composed by A R Rahman and Gulzar are a delight to the ears.

The film opens with policemen killed at various places around Lal Maati, a small town in Northern India. This is followed by abduction of the local police chief Dev's wife Raagini.

Mani Ratnam takes you to virgin locations within India never exposed before on screen. Be it the thick dense forests in Kerala or the same state's dangerous Athirappally Waterfalls or the exotic Orcha in Madhya Pradesh and Malshej Ghat valley in Maharashtra, Santosh Sivan and Manikandan's camera captures it all with super finesse. The action finale on the hanging bridge, a never seen before feat in Indian cinema makes your heart skip a beat.

Oscar winner A.R. Rahman's music coupled with Gulzar's lyrics is mesmerizing but Mani hardly gives any time for any song to register any impact, as if in a quick hurry.

The battle is drawn into the jungle, converting the forest area into the battleground. Ragini, too, is not left out and becomes a part of the battle. While the jungle is dense, confusing and scary, the journey through the jungle tests each one's beliefs, convictions and emotions.

Finally we have to wait and see how this movie runs...

Rama Rama Krishna Krishna (2010)

Suffers from predictability and lack of freshness.

[5/10 · 12 May 2010]

Rama Krishna (Ram) is the son of a Gandhipuram village president (Nassar). His father is a strict disciplinarian and wants Rama Krishna to be perfect. Rama Krishna is a funny youngster who pretends to be good in the presence of his father but does a lot of mischief on his back. Ashok (Arjun) is a mafia don in Mumbai and he goes into a sabbatical after the death of his his wife. Ashok along with his two sisters settles in Gandhipuram. Rama Krishna unfortunately gets in to the bad books of Ashok. Meanwhile,. Ashok's past catches up. The rest of the story is all about how Rama Krishna uses his intelligence and muscle power to achieve the good will of both his father and Ashok.

Ram comes up with yet another energetic performance. His dialogue delivery in Godavari dialect is nice. NTR gave the voice-over to the introducing of hero character.Arjun suited the role well and he dubbed his own voice. Priya Anand is alright as female lead. Bindu Madhavi's role is pretty much limited. Naseer is extremely good. Brahmanandam's character doesn't offer required level of comedy. Pruthvi and Bharat are entertaining. Srinivas Reddy is one of the most promising comedians who can generate laughter with his dialogues like Ali and Krishna Bhagawan. He is good in this movie. Gracy Singh did a small role as Arjun's wife. Sekhar's (Chatrapati fame) performance is odd in the first half.

Story of the movie is little formulaic with inspirations from films like Basha (Arjun's character) and Bangaru Bullodu (villains searching for hero in villages). Unlike earlier movies, the director preferred straight narration where the mafia don's role is revealed in the first scene of the movie.

ANALYSIS: First half of the movie is alright. Interval episode is good. Second half becomes predictable. Climax should have been better. The plus points of this movie are Ram, Arjun and commercial elements. This movie suffers from predictability and lack of freshness in second half. On a whole, RRKK is a commercial film that is intended to cater to families and masses. We have to wait and see if this movie clicks with the target audiences or not.

Simha (2010)

Feast for Fans

[5/10 · 30 April 2010]

Bala Krishna is terrific as Simha in the flashback episode. His dialogue delivery is controlled and is extremely effective. His get-up as Simha is highly respectable and dignified. After a long gap, Bala Krishna fans are going to cherish the looks and performance of Bala Krishna as he plays it to the galleries. His other character of Srimannarayana is also good.

Nayana Tara is very good in the flashback episode with jewellery and traditional wear belonging to lineage of kings. The voice given by Sunitha helps in some key episodes of the movie. Sneha Ullal is improving from film to film and she is good too. Namitha should watch her weight. Kota comes up with another fine performance.

Story of the movie is not new, but follows a time-tested formula. Boyapati Seenu who mastered mass treatment to his movies like Bhadra and Tulasi made sure that there are ample commercial elements that satisfy the thrust of masses and fans. He projected Bala Krishna in the right way and extracted powerful mass performance. Screenplay of the movie is predictable. Direction is good in parts.

First half of the movie is adequate. The flashback episode is established well. The climax should have been more effective. The plus points of the movie are Bala Krishna performance (and dialogues) and mass elements. On the flip side, there is excessive violence/fights in the movie. Simha movie generated tremendous pre-release positive buzz and it resulted in humongous openings.

Magadheera (2009)

Worth Watching...!

[7/10 · 30 July 2009]

The story happens in the year 1609. Kala Bhairava (Ram Charan Teja) is the protector/chief guard of Udayghad kingdom. Mitra (Kajal Agarwal) – the heir princess is in love with him. But there is a bad relative of the king who wants to marry her. Sher Khan (Srihari) plans to invade Udayghad. In the process ensued, all of them die. These four people take rebirth after 400 years in the contemporary era.

Ram Charan's performance in his debut film Chiruta is like a show reel of what he is capable of doing. In this movie, he gets an opportunity to do some real good performance and he performs them convincingly with effortless ease. And he had gone through tremendous physical toil in this film as it involves horse riding, sword fighting, dances and many more. His dance in Bangaru Kodipetta after the completion of Chiranjeevi's appearance is stunning. He is gifted with a good voice and he should fine tune it further to come up with pristine Telugu diction.

Story of the movie is about rebirths. Rajamouli opened the movie by revealing the story right in the first episode. The challenge lies in Rajamouli's handling of telling the story interestingly to the audiences though audiences know what he is going to narrate. Screenplay of the movie is good and the Rajamouli trade mark commercial paybacks are nicely inserted at regular intervals.

Rajamouli should be appreciated for giving due credit to all his technicians by dedicating a full-song to them during the end titles of the movie. Watching that was fun. Background music (a combined effort of Keeravani and Kalyani Malik) is excellent. Cinematography by Senthil Kumar is very good. It is extremely difficult to recreate the era of 400 years old and art direction by Ravinder is splendid. Fights composed by Peter Hynes are excellent.

ANALYSIS: Opening episode of the movie is superb. First half of the movie is nice and second half is decent. The tempo goes down right after the flashback episode as it's everybody's guess that what follows is a predictable climax. The plus points of the movie are Ram Charan Teja, novel subject of rebirth, flashback episode, grandeur and commercial pay offs.

TAILPIECE: There is uncanny resemblance to Arundhati and Magadheera stories. Both these films are about incarnations. Both these movies have aghora episodes. And villain lusts heroine and that forms the central conflict point in both these movies.

Oy! (2009)

Tragic 'love story'

[3 July 2009]

Siddharth is excellent as Uday. His costumes and goggles are very nice. He made sure that he wore goggles for 80% of his screen appearance (including songs). His dances in songs are energetic. Shamili is pretty good with acting, though her looks are strictly average. They should have managed the dark circles around eyes with good make-up. It may be a sheer coincidence for Shamili to again act as a patient in her debut film as a heroine.

This film is inspired by Erich Segal's novel 'Love Story' which was made into a classic 'Love Story'. Johnny by Pawan Kalyan is also inspired by the same movie.

The first half of the movie is dedicated for introducing the characteristics of the two main leads and the way they fall in love. The illness of heroine is revealed to hero much before the interval. The entire second half is dedicated to the boy fulfilling the wishes of the girl.

Analysis: First half of the movie is decent. Second half is lengthy and is dragging at times. The climax is predictable and is not heart-touching. The plus points of the movie are Siddharth, music and cinematography. One should have guts to make such a film in Telugu where heroine dies at the end.

Delhi-6 (2009)

Metaphorical and Boring film

[4/10 · 6 March 2009]

Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) – an NRI from the USA – visits India to accompany his ailing granny (Waheeda Rehman) to fulfill her wish to live her last leg of life in Delhi 6, the neighborhood she grew up. Being a guy brought up in the USA, Roshan finds the locality of Delhi 6 intimidating at first. Slowly he draws himself into various people around him. Bittu (Sonam Kapoor) is his neighbor girl and Roshan helps her to fend off the marriage proposals so that she could concentrate on her dream of becoming an Indian Idol. Meanwhile, there are rumors about a black monkey creating havoc in city. The rest of the story is all about what the black monkey is all about and what happens to the relationship between Roshan and Bittu.

Abhishek Bachchan is adequate as the male lead. Sonam Kapoor is pretty good. Rishi Kapoor is excellent. Atul Kulakarni steals the show as an innocent man. It's a different role for Divya Dutta and she is good. Vijay Raaz goes overboard at times. Om Puri and Pawan Malhotra are superb. It's a cake walk for Waheeda Rehman. Aditi Rao is supremely good in a sympathy-oriented role. Amitab Bachchan did a cameo.

The basic idea of this film is to show there that is God as well as devil in every one of us and we should kill the devil (black monkey) inside us in order to have a good conscience. This message is delivered in the climax and if you rewind the entire story and the happenings in the film, you would realize that black monkey concept and Ram Leela episodes are metaphorically inserted in the screenplay.

Music by AR Rehman is the highlight of the film. All songs are excellently picturized. Dilgira song is the only song with vibrant colors in this film as rest of the film has tint to the color. The way all characters of Delhi 6 appear in the dreamy song of Abhishek shot in colorful USA streets is refreshing. Cinematography is very good. Art direction is excellent as the ambiance of old Delhi and Chandni Chowk come alive in this film. Rerecording of the film is also good.

ANALYSIS: First half of the film is alright. Second half is boring. Interval point of the film is abrupt. The major strength of the film is music by AR Rehman. It's extraordinary. The main drawbacks of the film are innumerable characterizations, too many metaphors and lack of focus on narrating the main point as multiple subplots dilute the interest. Looks like naming films on Delhi (Chandni Chowk to China and Delhi 6) is a box-office jinx for this year. On a whole, Delhi 6 lacks soul and is a preachy and boring film.

13B: Fear Has a New Address (2009)

Not a bad film...can watch it.

[6/10 · 6 March 2009]

Manohar (Madhavan) is a civil engineer and he lives in a joint family. They buy an expensive apartment 13B in a plush locality and start living in it. Spooky things start happening to Manohar. The lift doesn't work whenever he gets into it. He is unable to fix the portraits of Gods in pooja room. His family members are obsessed with viewing TV serials. He finds out that there is one TV serial called 'Sab Khairiyat' that is played at 1 am/pm everyday. And whatever happens in that TV serial comes true in the lives of his family members. Spooked by it, he starts investigating and realizes that some spirits are trying to a make a contact with him through TV.

Story of the film is interesting and this kind of horror flick was never made in India so far. The spirits communicate with the protagonist through electronic appliances about their presence and in turn they make him do the job for them. It is a pretty good story with an interesting premise.

Screenplay of the film is bad in the first half and interesting in the second half. Direction is adequate in parts. The director could not convert an interesting story into a gripping movie because of lack of emotional impact in the film. The movie is marred by repetitive scenes and uninteresting narration. The runtime of the film appears lengthy for a story like this.

Cinematography by PC Sreeram is exceptionally good. He experimented a lot with the photography in the film and it's superb. There is color grading to the film and they maintained sepia tone for most of the film. Background music is also good. But at times, it appears over the board. The two songs in this film are completely unwarranted for. Editing is adequate. Dialogues are natural.

ANALYSIS: First half of the film is little boring. The way story unfolds in the second half is good. But the flashback episode and the climax is not shot in a gripping manner. The plus points of the film are story, cinematography and Madhavan. The negative points are inconsistent screenplay and runtime. Though it has an interesting plot point, 13B fails due to lack of gripping narration.

21 (2008)

Entertaining & Wonderful Concept

[8/10 · 2 March 2009]

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a student at MIT. He needs 300,000 dollars to fund his higher education at Harvard Medical School. Prof. Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) is a maths professor at MIT. He is amazed with mathematical skill and the ability to think rationally without any emotional attachment of Ben. Micky assembles a tiny group of his best students and train them to beat the game of Black Jack. After initial resistance, Ben joins that team. They go to Los Vegas in every weekend to win loads of money at casinos by playing Black Jack game. The rest of the story is all about whether Ben could achieve his goal of raising 300,000 dollars for his med school or not.

The fascinating story of this film is about a bunch of students robbing the casinos by beating the black jack game. It also has the ingredients of love and revenge.

VARIABLE CHANGE: The professor explains the concept of variable change in the beginning of the film. And the same concept is used against the professor towards the climax.

TAILPIECE: 21 is based on a real story that happened in MIT. There is a saying that 'always the house wins' in any Casino. But a group of brilliant students robbing the Casino is a wonderful concept.

Iron Man (2008)

Roller-coaster Ride...Must watch it...

[8/10 · 2 March 2009]

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a billionaire engineering prodigy who expertise designing and selling weapons all over the world. When he goes to Afghanistan to demonstrate the capabilities of his latest missile, a local militant kidnaps him, puts him in a cave under surveillance and asks him to prepare the missile for him. He takes the avatar of iron man to escape from the cave. The rest of the story is all about how he reforms himself and comes out with a sophisticated design of iron man.

Iron Man is an adaptation of a Marvel comic which will be liked by both adults and kids. This film is engrossing, entertaining and convincing. The action sequences are pretty impressive (except for the climax fight). The graphics in the film are well done without dominating the scenes. The climax fight is a disappointment.

TAILPIECE: The difference between other comic heroes and Iron Man is that Iron Man is a playboy.

Valkyrie (2008)

Good Psychological Thriller

[8/10 · 2 March 2009]

This story is based on real incidents happened in Germany in 1944 during the Hitler regime of World War II. German Colonel Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) gets injured in a war at South Africa. He loses one eye, one palm and two fingers on the other hand. Stauffenberg feels that Hitler is doing more harm to Germany than any help. There is a group of officers who feel the same. He joins them and conspires and executes a plot to assassinate Hitler using Operation Valkyrie which holds key to the usage of reserved army in crisis.

WE KNOW THE CLIMAX: All of us knew that Hitler final end came through the act of suicide. Hence we knew in advance that he was not assassinated. And the entire movie runs on an attempt to assassinate Hitler. It requires tremendous narrative from the director if the audiences already knew the climax. Bryan Singer who directed the most fascinating 'The Usual Suspects' comes up with another riveting thriller drama in the form of 'Valkyrie'.

It is more fascinating because a part of German Army believes that Germany's reputation is going down because of Hitler. This film shows the humanistic soldiers who are under director command of Hitler. I loved the way Hitler is shown. The entire film is shot from the point of view of Stauffenberg. Hence Hitler is shown for a few seconds in the entire movie – that's too in flashes without revealing the entire body.

TAILPIECE: Valkyrie is a tautly made psychological thriller with interesting background and is based on real incidents involving Hitler's final months. This film has linear narration with no confusion.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Must Watch...Brilliant Screenplay and Editing...

[9/10 · 2 March 2009]

Jamal (Dev Patel) is an orphan from the slums of Mumbai. He gets to attend the game show 'who wants to be a millionaire' when he is 18. Surprisingly he starts giving the right answers till he gets into the final round. And all these questions have relevance to certain incidents happened in his life. The game show host and cops suspect that Jamal cheated in the show. The rest of the story is all about how he proves his innocence and wins his lady love that's been playing hide and seek with him since his childhood.

The kids who did the roles of Salim, Jamal and Latika are adorable. They are the best in the film than the main leads. Among the notable Indian actors, Saurabh Shukla is the best. Ankur Vikal is excellent. Anil Kapoor is pretty natural as a wicked and biased host of the game show. After some point of time, we start hating him. Dev Patel is adequate. Irfan Khan played similar kind of roles earlier. Hence it is a cake walk for him.

When somebody is doing a film on a slum boy, it is bound to show the hard reality in slum areas. That does not mean that India has been projected in the wrong way. When somebody watched 'City of God' which shows the bad side of Brazil country, one expects it to be a poor country with little scope for improvement. But actually Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies in the world along with Russia, India and China (BRIC countries). India is not for the people who judge it by watching fictional movies. Hence, let's not bother about it.

Slumdog Millionaire is an Indian film at heart with Indian emotions catering to Indian sensibilities. This film balances arts with commerce. It is also the best example of presenting a story in a realistic way without missing the formula. The best part in this film is the screenplay and most of the credit for this screenplay should go to the Indian writer Vikas Swaroop who wrote 'Q & A' book. Direction of the film is world class and narration balances the sensible humor and subtle tragedy.

Background score by AR Rehman is peppy and energetic (especially the beat scored by kids chasing scenes in the initial part of the movie). Cinematography is excellent. Editing is superb with no dull moment. This film shows Mumbai slums in a magnificent way. On a whole Slumdog Millionaire is a must see film and will put India on the world cinema map like Gandhi (1982) film.

King (2008)

Can watch it at leisure time...

[6/10 · 6 January 2009]

Seenu Vytla is an expert in screenplay. But the screenplay of this film is both good as well as bad. Good because the screenplay is extremely complicated. Bad because the finesse is missing. The director could not evenly distribute the twists in the film. He has one twist coming in interval. And he let all other twists come in the last 15 minutes of the film. The best thing I liked in the screenplay of the film is the thread of hero stealing the identity of Sunil. It is beautifully written, but was not used to the maximum extent. The concept of fetish for painting horror images was already done in Seenu Vytla's 'Anandamanandamaye' film. It is more effectively used in this film (especially the three drops scene).Direction of the film is adequate. The director could have made Srihari character little serious as he is shown as a completely innocent man. The film needs a lot of trimming in second half from the moment the gang enters King's palace.

First half of the film is alright. Second half should have been better. The climax of the film looks contrived. The plus points of the film are Nagarjuna and a few 'Seenu Vytla' kind of comic moments. The weakness is unevenly distributed content in the film. We definitely expect a better film from Seenu Vytla for the kind of talent he possesses. We have to wait and see how audiences embrace it.

Chintakayala Ravi (2008)

Watch it at your own risk...

[3/10 · 6 January 2009]

Story of the film is simple and predictable. But the backdrop of USA offers some variety. Direction by Yogesh is partly OK. He could able to introduce and establish all primary characters well. But he could not run the story with interesting narration in the middle of the film. But he manages the climax decently. He handles some of the humor scenes well. However there are a few inspired comedy scenes like exam scene (Mr. Bean series), kitikilu 2008 (windows 2008 Telugu version forward mail) etc. There is some toilet humor too. Narration of the film is slow.

The first half an hour of the film is pretty good. It slows down after that and the film picks up again from the last song (bagunde bagunde). The plus points of the film are Venkatesh and mother sentiment. On the flip side, the latter part of the first half and the former part of the second half should have been made in an interesting way. The mother sentiment and the marriage ambiance towards the climax could attract the Venky's strong base of family crowds. On a whole, Chintakayala Ravi is an OK film if you can excuse bit of screenplay glitches in the middle of the film.