Shikkar -- Revenge drama

Shikkar -- Revenge drama --

Directed by Padmakumar Shikar tells the story of Balaraman(Mohanlal) - a (protective) father and his daughter (Ananya)both whose lives are under threat by the naxals.In an effort to flee from the attacks of a haunting past, Balaraman(now a lorry driver) finds shelter in a a terrain of bamboos. The past that haunts balaraaman soon takes upon him and he has to resort to herioc methods to save himselves and his daughter.The details on the past cannot be revealed as that suspense element would be the only surprise for the viewer in this padmakumar venture.

Scripted by Suresh babu,shikkar fails to maintain proper punch/thrills in most part of the movie(especially during 1st half).Except for the later half of the second half and for the climax suspense, most part of the movie is predictable and lacks good dialogs to trigger the expected thrill.Padmakumar occasionally tries to rise above these weak points in the script but still could not help pace up proceedings.Manoj Pillai needs to be applauded for his exemplary camera works of a location that hasn't been exposed much on the screens.Mohanlal's portrayal of Balaraman as the action hero with fear within, is a fitting role for the great actor which he executes with ease.Samdurakni as Dr Abdullah plays a brilliant cameo role that shouldn't have been cut short.Sneha,mythili etc has nothing much to do.Ananyas climax sequences deserves credit though.Suraaj - jagathy comedy track did not work out. Lekshmy gopaala swaamy,Laalu alex etc performs well enough. Songs are well picturized and present a good hear.

On the whole - Shikkar is better than Mohanlal's all recent flicks in the sense that the character is tailor made for him but one would feel it was let down by the screenplay.

Elsamma Enna Aankutty --- Aimed at the families

Elsamma enna Aankutty

Laal Jose ,the most talented of the new era directors of malayalam cinema is here with the story of Elsamma a bold village girl from Balan pilla city.Elsamma plsayed from debutant Ann Augustine has the support of the whole village except for some the corrupted minds of her village.Elsamma is the sole bread winner for her family after her fathers demise.In the process she restrains herself from committing her love to paalunni (Kunchakko).Paalunni too loves Elsamma and seeks help of Paappan(nedumudi) to convey his wish to marry her.Paalunni's Plang's go haywire with the arrival of Paappan's grandson Aby (Indrajith).

Ann performs credibly as the central character without any fuzziness of a beginner.Kunchako's character is well executed and steals the love of the audience.Indrajith performs well as the flirty youngster.Nedumudi,KPAC,Vijayaraaghavan etc as usual ensured the integrity of their characters.Jagathy was able to bring some laughter among the viewrs.Suraaj wasnt over used.The duet songs looked forced into and could have been avoided.
Plotted against the beatiful backdrops of thodupuzha Elsamma too shows glimpses of the midas touch of Lal Jose (thanks to the cameraman too) in several scenes.

Though not as absorbing as his previous bench marked super hits,Elsamma is a simple movie with a neat narration from Lal Jose,which might be more preferred by the families this ramzan.

Pranchiyettan and the Saint -- Fresh thoughts......

Pranchiyettan and the Saint

With Ranjth Mammootty combo coming together after the critically acclaimed paalerymaanikyam,cine freaks would have kept their fingers crossed on what praanchiyettan and the saint would be all about.Well,they don't disappoint you... yet again they deliver a silver screen experience far from the routine cine products which at the same time is both entertaining and thought provoking.Ranjith has come up with a satire that throws light into relevant social and religious concepts.

Parnchiyettan(Mammootty) is a rich rice dealer based in trichur who is quite desparate to make a name for himself and in the process escape from the nick name that he is often associated with -- "Aripraanchi".In an effort to help his friend, Vasu menon (innocent)misleds praanchi to commit blunders that often makes him end up as a laughing stock. With more characters entering into his life, praanchi is exposed to some bitter realities that demotivates him and decides to seek relief from St.Francis.

Coming to the performances,its a Mammootty show all the way,proving his critics wrong yet again,as he easliy handles the natural humour with subtle expressions and rocking trichur slang based dialogue delivery without resorting to any slapstick comics.He is the soul of the movie, which otherwise could have gone very dry handling an unconventional subject.Innocent too rocks (after a long time)as praanchis sincere friend.Praanchis servant,priyamani,siddique,kushboo,The Saint, etc. fits in perfectly to their roles.Ganapathy could have done better in some scenes or he was badly directed.
One song in the movie is hummable with its feel good music and lyrics.

Ranjith deserves credit for having come up with something that shows up to be fresh and different from the other movies.He has shown that there can be cinemas like praanchi too,rather than sticking to formula movies.His dubbing for the saint was flawless too.His dialogs (especially the one liners of praanchi) are excellent and steals most of the appreciation.

The screenplay however could have been better in the second half.The episodes that brings the realizations in praanchiyettan should have been more interesting.(Especially the pauli episode).Siddique and Kushboo could have been given more importance in the plot.Jagathy's character/plot had some shades of slapstick humour which almost went overboard.

In an industry which finds itself safe to resort to masala movies ,Praanchiyettan is another bold attempt from Ranjith and Mammooty that needs to be appreciated.Needs to be seen if it would cater to all type of audiences.I would anyday recommended Praanchiyettan to serious movie buffs as well as to those who love satiric comedies.

Apoorvaraagam - Pen pattanam-- Combo Review

Apoorvaraagam -- Veteran director Sibi Malayil striving for a comeback tries it out with a bunch of fresh faces in his latest flick apoorvaraagam.
Asif Ali and Nishant the duo from Rithu was casted in an attempt to provide a relief from the routine faces that appears on the silver screen.

The movie tells the story of three guys who are in a spree to make big bucks and live life king size.The action begins from a college where nithyas character falls in love with Roopesh(Nishaan).Asif's character plays a perfect friend to the couple providing them all the support and protection for their relation.Just when you think the proceeding move ahead to a routine love drama,surprises unfold on the screen.Twists begins to take toll revealing the real faces and motives of each character in the plot.Not spoiling the suspense factor with rest of the story.

Sibys direction deserves credit in having put up a good effort to come up with a movie like apoorvaraagam but then there are aspects that finally leaves the viewer devoid of the expected impact.Casting relatively new faces to bring in freshness has done equal harm as their performances doesn't match up to the scenarios.Nishant puts in a poor show as roopesh unable to portray the changing mannerisms of the character.Asif ali and the 3rd friend(not sure of his name) has put in an o.k. sort of performance.Asifs character fails in areas where some dialogue modulation is required.Nithya excels in her role and looks promising.Music side too doesnt stimulate much of a response.The positive side of it has the veteran director and the script that is laced with twists and surprises which is enough to engage you for the time it demands.

Apoorvaraagam -- Watch it for a change...

Pen Pattanam ---

Story by Ranjith, PenPattanam tells the story of 4 women(KPAC,Revathi,Swetha Menon and Vishnu Priya) employed as Kudumbasree workers.Though burdened with their lives shortcomings,they are proud of maintaining social hygiene by collecting and disposing wastes and garbages.Once they happen to find a bag of hawala money in one of their collection bins that sends their life for a toss.

Razzaq has scripted this movie well enough compared to his recent duds like paruthu,maayabazar etc.His inability to create good humour, projects out yet again in Penpattanam.A light humour treatment (like the one in Yes Your Honour)could have worked out well for this sort of a story.This to an extend is compensated by VM Vinu who narrates in his typical safe style.
Revathi,KPAC,Nedumudi and Swetha performs well as usual.kailash is wasted and looks terribly wanting in the duet sequence.

PenPattanam is nothing to ga ga about but, VM Vinu has still churned out a watchable flick.

INCEPTION ---- DREAMS AWAKENED -----

Dreams have alaways fantasized humans,be it inspirational/nonsense/demotivating.Many of us might have had the childhood fantasy of being able to peep into others dreams or portraying someone/situations into your dreamz or, being too wild you might have even thought if your life and the world around is a part of someone else's dream.Having grown up you would have dared to laugh at those silly thoughts.Well ...think again .Inception the movie might confuse you if your idea was actually silly!!!! Christopher Nolan depicts this entire plot almost proving that this is not far from reality.

Nolan introduces to you the complex world of dreams through Cob (Leonardo DiCaprio) ,who is basically a dream stealer.He sneaks into others dreams ,trying to read out ideas from their mind.Cobb,accused of having murdered his wife is forced to flee his country leaving behind his children.Cob and Mal(wife)together had spent long years in dreams that she lost her sense of reality that even after awakening ,she believed that they were still in hallucination.Cob's dreams are haunted by the image of his wife who tries to destroy each and every mission of his in an attempt to kill him and hence awaken him from the world of dreams.
A business man Satio promises to free him of charges and return to his children if Cob could help him inject an idea into Satio's business rivalry's(Robert Fischer) mind.Cob takes up this mission desparate to meet his children.Cob together with his team plans to incept Fischer during one of his flights.To their surprise they find that fischer was trianed for blocking inception using his projections. The rest of the movie simply mindblowing with Nolan depicting the complex idea of dreams and dreams within dreams.

Coming to the performances All of the cast have performed credibly enough that certainly plays a part in having the whole plot conveyed to the viewer.The technical side as usual is never compormised in hollywood movies.All credit to Christopher Nolan in poratraying/defining the complex subject- 'The art of Inception'.Having made it a habit to portray complex subject,it couldnt get any more messer than this.The idea of having an architect to create the world for a dream and someone else to create the projections(images),someone left behind in each stage to provide the kick for atimely a wakening from the dream would all have baffled the viewers had it not been narrated by this man.The background Music for the dream sequences too helped.

On the whole,Inception is all about giving life into the world of fantasies.

Inception Mesmerises.

ORU NAAL VARUM --- 'STRICLTY ORDINARY '----

'Oru naal varum' despite the optimistic name struggled to make it to the screens on all its previous proposed release dates,and the sad part is that after all those struggles the movie fails to leave any thing impressive on the silver screen.The movie projects it selves as a degraded product from one of the finest professionals in the industry.Be it the acting department,the script,the technical side oru naal varum scarcely manages to provide any sort of respect for your patience and money.

The weakest link of Oru naal varum is the story-script which seems to be inspired from the recent movie 'ividam swargamaanu' which again starred mohanlal and sreeni.The difference here is that Ividam swargamaanu had such a well worked out tight script that would engage the viewers.Here sreeni desperately tries to workout the screenplay but only to acheive very minimal success.Be it the characters like a fair daughter and wife for a dull looking sreeni and then the dialogues based on the skin colour, most of the situations and characters resemble those from his previous works.The plot is based on a corrupt town planning officer and a vigilance officer who is trying to trap him down.Their cat n mouse game is interlaced with some fragile family sentiments which too doesn't find much of an acceptance.

Mohanlal through some of his expressions gave a glimpse of the fine comedy actor he once was while he couldn't help bring much of a response in other "so called comedy situations " .Lal in the first few scenes tries to lift the level of the movie but fails once the loop holes in the script starts taking its toll.Sreeni looked even worse in his acting area as his expressionless acting has reduced effects these days.Sameera reddy doesnt look convincing in her role and has been wasted.Devayaani,the child artists,nedumudi etc performs well enough.Suraj though was welcomed by a huge cheer by the audience had nothing to tickle the funny bone.

Music by M.G sreekumar sounded good.T.K rajeevkumar with his direction doesnt rise above the script and lets the movie lose its way.

Oru Naal Varum --- Not the one we look out for from a veteran script writer ,a veteran actor combo.

RAAVAN --- For its technical brilliance

Raavan has arrived.With the enviable legacy of the one and only Mani ratnam,the tamil superstar Vikram ,the aging beauty aiswarya rai and the emerging star of malayalam cinema prithviraj,raavan promised to go beyond all expectations....well does it...??Could have said yes if cinema making was all about its technical side alone.Unfortunately its not and is much beyond.

Raavan as the name suggests is basically plotted out from ramayana,with the difference that the raavan has a justification for his deeds.With a Veeriah(Vikram)snarfs pushpa,the wife of the police Superintendent Dev(Prithvi).With the most frail of a storyline mani ratnam tries to pulp out a movie spanning 2 hours.Well you should say he almost achieves this thanks to the appealing locations,the art of exploitation of camera angles (has captured the most possible from the locations including athirapally)by the master santhosh shivan and to an extend the bgm and songs by the maestro AR Rahman.

Vikram as Veeriah,sizzles though some mannerisms might give shades of some of his previous characters including the dud kanthasaamy.Aiswarya rai looks a bit aged ,but that doesnt stop her from giving her best for a role that should have demanded lot of physical strain.Prithviraj looks stylish in one of the final shots and thats all he go to do.Prabhu,Karthik puts in credible performances.Priyamani has made her cameo role flawless.

Despite all these efforts it is the feeble story line that doesnt raise Raavan above your expectaions or may be even not upto it? Though emotions pour out in plenty from the lead characters, there is very minimal that could move you.The unsounding sequences are made less felt due to wet glitsening frames that distracts to keep you glued to your seats.Most of the dialogues too doesnt sound striking as some of Mani ratnams earlier ventures.Directionwise the movie is a great effort ,well filmed one and had he concentrated more on the substance side of the story raavan could have really been mesmerising indeed!

Watch it for its technical brilliance.