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Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022)
A good movie - that could have been an epic (with right casting)
A typical SLB grand movie, with excellent production quality and good screen play which could have been an epic with right casting.
In every frame it is quite evident that Aalia Bhatt was mis-cast for the role and poor girl is working very hard to do live up to the role.
IMHO she does not have the screen presence to carry the role convincingly. No taking away from Alia, in fact in her Genre, she is the queen and I have watched several of her films are worthy of multiple viewing.
Madhuri would have been best choice as per the popular opinion. But I think Vidya Balan (Dirty Picture), Kangana (Thalaivi), or even Dipika (Ram Leela) would have done better justice to this character, and would have made the movie worthy or repeat watching (which is hallmark of an epic movie)
Atleast, Aalia could have been cast as the younger Ganga and some other senior actress could have played the mature Gangubhai.
An opportunity wasted. For that reason alone I have given 5 Stars otherwise it could have easily be an 8+ rating.
Thalaivi (2021)
Watch it for MJR
Went with anticipation of watching the legendary performance of Kangna in the role of one the Politician who I admired greatly.
As in all Female centric movies, the expectation from Arvind Swamy was a second fiddle role, with no much scope of performance.
But the movie surprised me by delivering the exactly opposite goods.
Scene after scene Arvind Swamy delivers delightful performance, not once did it look like a parody.
Even Jaya's character looked convincing in the earlier part of the movie where her character is being developed, but it fails to hold and build the intensity till the end to culminate into a dominant & larger than life persona that the Ex-CM of Tamilnadu was.
Its an irony that in a biopic of Dr. Jaya who rose to power breaking the shackles of Patriarchical dominance, the male protogonist effortlessly manages to do dominate the proceedings. The Title should have been Thalaivaa instead (on a lighter note).
The blame should only go to the writers for not giving any depth to the title role, where Kanagna could unleash her prowess.
Also, the dialogue delivery (in original Tamil version) seems superficial and lip sync is very unconvincing. When your eyes and other facial muscles doesn't speak the same language as your lips then you get something like this. Kudos to her for trying her best, she should stick to Hindi where she can deliver the punch in such roles.
Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017)
Half Hearted, but Full budgeted ...and a big Let Down!!!
I normally don't watch SRK movies in theaters Just because Imtiyaz Ali name was associated with it and it had the deceiving "Jab" & "Met" in the Title. I made in the fist week. What a waste of time and money. Such a good star cast, reputed director, fantastic locations, story with good potential of being romantic potboiler. But a big let down.!! Is this the same Imtiyaz who gave us "Jab we Met"?. The "Jab" and the "Met" used to fool the audiences. Nothing in this movie comes even a mile closer to the Kareena & Shahid's Masterpiece "Jab We Met" First of all story telling is very half hearted and screenplay is pretty bad, scenes look like they are randomly picked up and joined. No one (the actors or the director) seem be have been much serious about the movie. They seem just to rest on their laurels. (chalo SRK aur Anushka to cast kar diya, log to ayenge dekhne). There is also absolutely no chemistry between the two lead actors, IMHO this movie is not for SRK, it would have been apt on some young actor like Varun, Siddarth or such breed who would have had better chemistry with the heroine and there would have been some realistic oomph in some of the romantic scenes. (or you can say the director has not done his job to bring that out from his cast).
Neither the music for this movie is any relief, while every track of "Jab We Met" can captivate you even today, after 10 years of listening. A big let down.!!!
Thoongaavanam (2015)
Average Flick
It is not disputed that Kamal is arguably the best in the current generation of actors. He keeps increasing the bar for performances constantly with his every other movie, constantly experimenting and not falling to a stereotype. With Uttama Villain, he went on a indulgent self admiration spree, aided by the admiration of the director Ramesh, it went to funny levels of self appraisal and portrayal by Kamala Hassan. He was back to his elements in Papanasam, (even though I personally attributed the credit to Jeetu Joseph, may be partly). But with Thoongavanam, the Kamal is back with a Bang as we know him. The movie features no frills in terms of Songs, Comedy track, too much SFX or spell binding performances like Dashavataram etc.. The plot and screen play alone keeps the audience gripped, handled nicely by the new director and all round great performances by all the characters. There are movies which only Kamal can make for example Dashavataram, Anbe Sivam etc...this is not one of them, but a must watch for a true Kamal fan. Hope it makes much needed money for RK films and Waiting eagerly for the release of VR2.
Bãhubali: The Beginning (2015)
Good Watch, but could have been better
Having created so much of a hype and going through some early non sense reviews I was fearing that Baahubali will be a big let down, thank god I was wrong and the movie was good and I was happy while I walked out. Having said that, a movie of this magnitude should have been more perfect (to Rajamouli's own standards). Especially I felt the introduction of most of its characters was hurried and lacked the punch that it was supposed to be. Looks like spending too much time of pre-production and other preparations took its toll on the screen play. Introduction of the main hero was spectacular, but hurried and unconvincing. So was the introduction of both the heroines, they lacked the punch and goose bump moments that they were supposed to be. Finally the Villain character was also not so convincingly menacing (Ranadev bhilla's character gave me goose bumps when he was introduced in Magadheera, that was my benchmark here as well). Only Ramya's character had a good introduction, and even there her drowning was not so convincing to me. Even the romance between Avantika and Shivudu was hurried and looked like a one night stand to me. (compare this to the chemistry of the lovers in Magadheera) However, the brick bats end here. Having done with the intro's and after the first 30-40 minutes through tho movie as the main plot is introduced it get better and feels like a normal Rajamouli movie. Now coming to the bouquets, 9 out of 10 review are heaping praises, agree with them and don't want to repeat them again. The production quality and SFX were world class and extravagant and can only make Indian cinema proud and set a higher bench mark. The the director has done well to create and retain the enough suspense for the conclusion part.
My rating is 8/10.
I Only hope is that the director able to handle this success and able to deliver even better movies in years to come, and not fall into a over budget stereotype.
Though this story is a fiction and may be based on some folklore my belief that Indian cinema can take inspirations from our culture and literature and epics and produce world class movies like troy or fictions like avatar, and conquer more and newer audience and markets and in the language which they understand (read as English). We will get there some day.
Lingaa (2014)
Pretty ordinary Rajni Movie
Watched Lingaa!! Well, the first 20 minutes was really unbearable, after which some respite, came with the nicely done slow motion fight scene on top of moving train. Though the movie is watchable once...it doesn't have the energy of a Padaiyappa, nor it induce pathos like Muthu, and definitely not the style and masala like Shivaji or Robo if one wants to draw a comparison. Can call it an average Rajni movie. One thing very evident through out the movie was clearly the star has aged. I think after this he should accept roles which matches his age like Amithabh does, take for example Sarkar, Baghban or even some thing like Drishyam etc, where the roles demand a more dignified star power.
ARR's music is also nothing to write about. Nor the production quality. In fact I can say the production quality is below average, no single scene looks like it was set in pre-independence era. The Slow motion fight scene is brilliant, looks like cut and pasted from some other movie. May be they outsourced that bit..who knows.
Million Dollar Arm (2014)
Formula Works
Started watching Million Dollar Arm casually, had all the makings of a formula movie. they had cast one actor each from recently successful India based movies Slum Dog Millionaire & Life of Pi. AR Rahman had been promptly asked to do the music score, and was full of sports movie clichés.. Another attempt to cash in on the billion plus Indian audience! I thought.... Slowly the movie began drawing my attention (from whatsapp), sports genre being my favourite and when I was beginning to think "OK - not so bad ending"... was surprised when learnt at the end that all this was based on true story. But real aha momemt came when one of my favourite ARR composition "Thirakata Katukulle" started played as credit roll background score..I was converted from skeptic to a approver of this movie.. good watch. formula works..after all
Drishya (2014)
Drishya - Set to repeat the Apta Mitra success
Drishyam was truly a great movie. So was Mohanlal's Manachitratazham. Vishnu remade (a bad remake)it as Apta Mitra and had a big success.It was followed by Super Star Rajini who also had phenomenal success with his version named Chandramukhi. Chandramukhi turned the fortunes of Shivaji family, who were on the brink of bankruptcy. Then it was Khiladi Akshay's turn to totally rape the movie with his Bhoolbhulayya. (by the way none of the remake heroines, including the great Vidyabalan could come close to the fantastic performance of Shobana in the original). Wish Ravichandran all the best with this one too. Mohanlal Keep Going !!! we expect more such gems from you.
Singam 2 (2013)
Singham 2 is A-Singam
Singham 2 is ASingham, no! not the Tamil meaning of the Word asingam, but the Sanskrit meaning A-Singam i.e., it is not like its predecessor "Singham" The makers have tried hard to recreate the original flick, there a several messages to the public, 2 heroines and a lot of action scenes, but somehow they could not create the Wow! factor, unlike in its previous version. To me some of the Scenes (english dialogs with the Nigerian villain, the fast motion action shots) looked hilarious. But if thats what the mass wants to see..who am I. Some times the box office results are inversely proportional to the quality of the movie (as perceived by me).