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Reviews
Charlie (2015)
Nice Happy Movie , too much happiness at times.
Zahir - someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This is what Tessa(Parvathy) goes through, who while running away from her family and their expectations, finds anonymity in a secluded small town/village somewhere in Kerala.
She moves into a small unkempt apartment which is full of things belonging to a previous mysterious owner who goes by the name "Charlie" (Dulquer) the plot of the movie is Tessa falling in love with Charlie - a person whom she has seen only 1 small photograph with a bunch of children and what from she learns about him from the people whose life he has touched and changed.
Tessa finds an incomplete comic illustration in the apartment and her initial quest is to simply find out how does the comic end, she meets various characters sketched by Charlie and they in paint an image of Charlie which she slowly starts falling in love with. She eventually does find out how the comic ends, but by that time she is crazy in love with Charlie and meeting him is the only thing that matters in her life.
Charlie however is very elusive, and they both don't meet until the climax before which there are a bunch of near misses.
Good Things - Parvathy Menon as Tessa , Dulquer as Charlie are good, although all that 24x7 effervescent bubbling portrayal of the ever optimist Charlie does get on your nerves at times. There is a lot of thought into characterization, even the side characters are memorable and give credible performances.
Not so good things - The movie is too much sweet at times, which is alright if you are a 17 year old. but mature audiences might end up wanting more emotions from the movie than just feeling awesome all the time. All characters are shown as very positive people in their life - as in there's nothing negative about them - which kinds of makes you feel like you are watching some Utopian movie, and might end up with you mumbling to yourself - this doesn't happen like this in real life at all. I am not a fan Dulquer, but this is his best performance in my opinion, and is a welcome change from the brat,speaking in accent rich man's son with issues portrayal he usually does in his other movie. All in all if you are young and/or are in love - do watch this movie. Otherwise also its a one time watch.
Titli (2014)
Dark, Depressing, Violent, Brutal and Gore
For a lot of cine viewers Cinema is a form of Escapism, watching Titli one does wonder at times that what is it that the viewer is escaping into.
The story revolves around a boy named Titli - who is struggling to escape from a life of crime and violence which his family is a part of. He has a dream and has enough conviction to make an attempt to realize his dream.
The depiction of the seedy underbelly of Delhi's Crime Scene is spot on, there isn't any glorification of such a life style which is actually welcome and makes movie and the director stand apart from RGV and Anurag Kashyap flicks of the same genre.
Crime isn't glamorized here, here it is shown for what it is both the action as well as consequences- at times a bit too realistically for my taste.
Ranvir Shorey as Vikram towers over the rest of the cast with his performance. There's vulnerability and innocence in Shivani Raghuvanshi's portrayal as Neelu which is very refreshing and captured beautifully in the movie.
Shashank Arora as the protagonist Titli does justice to his role - and portrays nuances of his character very well. There are some scenes when you look at him and you are reminded the intensity of a certain Shahrukh Khan in his baazigar, darr, anjam days.
Now the things that don't work - Story is lacking and the dialogues aren't clear , specially for the main Character Titli - at times its more like mumbling the lines , also not all sub plots are played out to the conclusion - e.g the Dream Sequence Titli has, and his relationship with Daddy - Lalit Behl. Also the Prince and Neelu story line ends haphazardly The whole triangle between Neelu Titli and Prince gets too complicated and at times it is kind of difficult to comprehend who is taking advantage of whom.
Not your average Bollywood commercial cinema, in fact not your average Hindi parallel cinema as well. If violence and gore isn't an issue then you can give it a shot.
Rani Padmini (2015)
Good... Could have been better
Saw it yesterday on DVD, movie is so so - maybe a one time watch if you are sucker for chick flicks, Good Things - Rima and Manju are excellent in their characters. That villain guy "Raja" is also good. Bad - Too many useless characters and parallel story lines which don't contribute to central theme. The story kind of seems like rambling on at times... At times the movie looked like an advertisement of Himachal Pradesh Tourism. Songs are o.k, the first song is good. Rima Kallingal's portrayal of Rani is very good and realistic. It is quite easy to go over the board while portraying such a character, But Rima balances it very well. Manju Warrier's character is more like familiar territory - she's portraying the married/single mother damsel in distress ever since her comeback - so nothing new there. Also this is more of a bilingual film than an out an out Malayalam film. So if you are not comfortable with speaking Hindi then you might struggle with the story. The DVD has subtitles but still just a warning.