Balan

Balan is the journey of a mother and her son who tries to run away from their past.

Chidambaram starts the movie with a voice over of the mother narrating a story to her son. That scene sets the tone of the movie. Soon, we travel with the characters to various places where we get to know the truth regarding their real identity and problems. We get to see mother trying for survival and the way she faces every hiccups. Also, we see the son struggling to live like a usual child. When his teacher asks him to introduce, he don’t utter a word. He wants to pursue his schooling but his mother denies it. Jithu succeeded in moulding the 2 pivotal characters and Chidambaram managed to add subtlety in making. There is no spoon-feeding regarding the timeline of certain incidents. Audience need to grasp it from the characters and situation visually. For instance: the reason why mother decided to stay with grandma.

Special mention to Sushin shyam’s background score for elevating the high moments and helping viewers to get invested in the emotional moments. Songs suited the mood but weren’t that memorable.

That transition sequence of a specific cameo character is a fine example of seamless editing work. Technical team deserve credit for maintaining the mystery throughout the movie.

Farhana Palathingal literally carries the movie in her shoulder. The way she expresses rage, fear and fight for survival is just simply sensational. Adisheshan conveyed lot really well without much dialogues. The fear during interrogation and reactionless silence is enough to prove his prowess. Special mention to Ganapathy to cast them both, especially the boy with deceiving innocence. Though initially struggled to emote, actress who did grandma role was decent too. Jean paul got meaty role and he was memorable too.

When you backtrack after the second major twist, writing may feel like convincing with few questions unanswered. That’s the major minus of the movie. Apart from that, Balan is a gripping mystery drama that can be rewarded a watch.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Mohiniyattam

Synopsis: Post the death of Bharath, family shifts to new place Sreekantapuram where a different challenge awaited them. How can they overcome this time?

Review

Movie starts after recap of Bharathanatyam. Director Krishnadas murali shifts the genre to dark satire this time. We aren’t introduced much to their present. We get overview of the struggle Swati Das’ character to confirm his job.

Initially, Krishnadas clicks the dark thriler mode on and places ample light humour with twist in between. Post interval, movie turns into laugh riot with major characters scoring with their counters. Writers made sure to keep the Vinay Fort’s cop character out of his usual comic zone and maintain the meter of his behaviour. That added freshness to the humour. In the drishyam reference scene itself, we get to understand that writers have interesting ideas. Kudos to director to convert ideas to joyful ride during execution. Though songs weren’t that memorable, Electronic Kili’s energetic score added quirkness to the narration.

The surprise package in the movie should be Baby Jean. Guy was just swashbuckling with his Kalipp avatar and sneaky expressions. Kala Ranjini puts up another seasonal performance like prequel. For instance: her reactions before and after knowing truth in a scene was just hillarious. Saiju Kurup also excelled in similar scenarios. Suraj was brilliant as fraud antagonist with humour touch. Vinay fort puts up balanced performance as cop. Jagadish was another notable performer.

Apart from a slight lag in reaching interval point, this dark comedy satire is a fun watch.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

MASTHISHKA MARANAM

Synopsis: A grieving father had to depend on VR game to overcome the pain of his loss. soon, that lands him to more trouble. Can he get out of it?

The biggest positive of this movie is the smart and genuine world building. This movie is set around 2050 where AI rules the roost. We get to see protagonist talking to AI housekeeper. Police jeep and drones fly over the city. AI actors are more than human actors. We even hear of case of a robot getting mistreated. The list goes on after a second watch. This doesn’t stop with just creative ideas. Krishand takes us to a crazy trip to this dystopian era and makes sure to connect upcoming incidents cleverly to weave a unique and witty tale. That’s what Gaganachari failed to do. Apart from dark humour, Krishand takes satirical approach to criticize media sensationalism, how actress remain just as mere objects for consumption, and much more. Krishand used extreme close up shots to capture the intensity of the experience of the characters using VR device.

Technical fineness is what mad the movie turn out to a difference experience. Kudos to the complete team (Sound design, costume design, make up etc..) for making this movie a visual spectacle. Usage of Trivandrum slang was nice too. Songs were decent too, especially the ones created by housekeeper AI was really funny.

Rajisha Vijayan puts up one of her career best performance as the mysterious Frida soman. Her unpredictable behaviour, ability to decieve people around her and the final showdown were brilliant. Suresh krishna was really hillarious as Charlie. Divya prabha had to switch between genuine emotions and over-the-top expressions. She did it nicely. Jagadish was convincing as GDP officer, especially during interrogation scenes. Niranj was decent as Bimal.

Coming to the drawbacks, there are repeated sequences where pivotal characters experience the VR memory game. We know what they are gonna experience. So, that could have been trimmed. As Krishand packs the movie with humour throughout, movie lacks the emotional quotient. When Bimal talks about his loss, we don’t feel the pain of the character.

Masthishka maranam is one of its kind of experience if you are ready to accept the weirdness of the narration and jump into something unique. Watch it just for Krishand’s craft.

Watch link: https://www.netflix.com/in/title/82774428

Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil

Jeeva, a politician had to deal with funeral and a wedding at the same date and time. How did he manage the situation and the incidents leading?. Watch this light-hearted entertainer to know.

Nitish Sahadev starts the movie with the protagonist dealing with mad man firing a building and solving his problem. That scene is not just place to show his communication and problem solving skills. We get to know it towards the end. Nitish then takes the viewers to the village and the different type of villagers. Initially, we are introduced to Ilavarasu, who is keen to see her daughter married. Also, there is this stubborn neighbor Mani, who has been searching for reasons to create problems with Ilavarasu. There is Jenson’s character of opposing politician who is looking for opportunity to dethrone Jeeva. In addition, we get to several others as well with pessimistic, gossipers, jealous and egoistic nature. Few people involve in both Funeral and wedding preparations. In a scene, few women switch their attire quickly to go from the wedding look to funeral one.

Writers tried to maintain mild humor (mainly situational) through out the movie. Though the premise is similar to Malayalam movie Janeman, this movie could achieve what Janeman couldn’t, mainly because of the strongly backed emotional backstory that drives the rivalry between 2 pivotal characters. Just like the protagonist, Nitish never takes the stand in the rivalry and just leaves it to the viewers. Writers know that they had enough characters to add fuel to the fire. So, they added subplot of the groom side gang from Kanyakumari. Their local slang was refreshing and added mild laugh moments as well. Just when we think like there isn’t much action happening, last 20 odd minutes open the door of chaos and and ends the movie satisfyingly with a relevant message.

Background score complemented the narrative style of maintaining the light-hearted ambience and staying away from dramatic zone. For instance: the scene towards the end when bride meets groom could have been an intensely emotional scene if the director added the drama element. In the absence of laugh riot moments, cuts helped the viewers in keeping the viewers engrossed in how the rivalry gets solved.

Jeeva puts up seasonal performance in portraying the dilemma, confusions and control anger of a politician. Jenson too was really authentic as the cunning opposition politician. Be it when he tricks the others for his ego or conveying the pain he suffers throughout his life, Thambi Ramaiyah is in his usual drama zone but here he makes the transition of the character really organic. Ilavaraasu was superb as the egoistic bride’s father.

Coming to the drawbacks, Surjith’s character intro was so massy that he could turn thins around. But je barely made much impact before the chaos. Writers could have used him better. Though it added relevance towards the end, one thing that Bride seemed like convenient writing and added just to extend the conflict. That could have been handled better.

No wonder this movie became Pongal blockbuster surpassing Parasakthi. Don’t expect laugh riot or LOL moments. This social satire is breezy, effective and enjoyable mainly because of the solid writing and subtle genuine emotions.

Watch link: Watch here

5 MOST UNDERRATED MOVIES BEFORE MOVING TO 2026

It’s that time to rewind 2025 before moving to 2026. I haven’t been that active in this space in the previous 11 months as my life took a pivotal deviation in this year. Still, regional movies continued to impress with its grounded and nuanced storytelling. Though I felt it a bit overrated, ‘Su from so’ dubbed version playing in a fully packed crowd is surely a welcome change. But it’s quite concerning that the trend of some of the big screen hit movies getting trolled after OTT release continues in 2025. The list contains Saiyaara, Dude (I enjoyed watching Dude) and even the blockbuster Lokah !. I really hope this situation changes and the genuine opinion sustains irrespective of the platform of the release.

In 2025, there were lot many movies that gave satisfactory feeling after watching. Few of them include Dragon, Ponman, Bison, Feminichi Fathima, Ronth etc…Apart from the ones I have written detailed review, here is the list of 5 quality movies that went unnoticed this year:

NB: Click the movie name to get the watch link, if it’s released on OTT. I haven’t got chance to watch few films (For example: Thadavu, Angammal, Sirai, Interrogation, Sabar Bonda, Jarann etc..) due to various reasons.

COURT STATE Vs A NOBODY: (TELUGU-NETFLIX):

Despite its predictable nature, this courtroom drama demands a watch to make us aware that law should be educated and updated to restrict the misuse of law by the people in power. What makes the movie compelling is the way the movie portrays the conflicts of the pivotal characters and the routes protagonist choose to crack the case.

STHAL: (MARATHI-ZEE5):

Sthal is a honest portrayal of the age-old arranged marriage customs from girl’s point of view. Starting from the role reversal of a usual matchmaking, this movie takes a dig at the hypocrisy of the female protagonist Savita’s male teacher and subtly takes the viewers through the hardships of Savita’s family and her realizations.

OUSEPPINTE OSIYATHU(MALAYALAM-PRIME VIDEO):

Though not 100% visually immersive experience, Ouseppinte osiyath is worth a watch for its meaty character detailing and a superb Dileesh pothen magic. I loved the gradual narrative tone shifts from character drama exploring the family dynamics to a gripping crime thriller. Apart from the minor lag before reaching the conclusion part, there aren’t major drawbacks such as to deny a big screen watch or getting praise after OTT release.

AANPAVAM POLLATHATHU (TAMIL -HOTSTAR):

AP got into my underrated list mainly because it earned more ‘shorts’ viewership (especially the courtroom monologue) than a full movie watch. Unlike some of the recent mostly discussed gender dramas, AP is a balanced take exploring the flaws and challenges faced by both partners in a relationship without bashing any specific category of people.

STOLEN (HINDI – PRIME VIDEO )

Stolen gets into the act with 2 men getting involved in an incident and slowly shifts the gear to thriller mode after they got trapped in a trouble. Though the treatment is unlike familiar edge-of-the-seat mode, the team succeeded in making the viewers invested on how the duo overcomes the dreadful situation.

Signing off expecting a better 2026 with regional cinema (Especially Kannada, Marathi) providing more fruitful watch experience.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026, FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Homebound

Chandan Kumar and Shoaib Ali are 2 friends who struggle to make their living better. In the process, covid hit them and turns their lives down. Homebound is all about how they tackle the testing times.

Neeraj Ghyawan takes the viewers to the rural world of the 2 pivotal characters and slowly makes the viewers understand them. He uses dialogues really well to highlight the intensity of various situations. For instance: ‘Reaching the exam hall itself is a task’ highlights the concern of unemployment. In another scene, Chandan’s sister says to him something like, ‘We never had a choice what to do. But you atleast have’. These create the required strong impact on the viewers. As the movie progresses, we get to see the light banter, rift and tight hugs between them. One of the them literally carries the other and gives the required support to the families. A long shot of them standing, cut to a different context is just brilliant subtle filmmaking.

What’s even more evident is the less vocal portrayal of caste discrimination. Be it Chandan getting humilated by an officer, Shoaib’s colleagues mocking him or chandan’s mother shouting in agony. There are various takeaway moments that stay with the viewers.

Neeraj made sure to eliminate overdrama, especially in scenes related to death. Special mention to the minimal usage of score. Cuts were pretty decent to make sure narration never skips more to romantic angle and stays within the limit.

It’s really tough to believe that the villian of Mardani 2 played the role of Chandan. Vishal jatwa carried the internal turmoil of Chandan really well. Ishan khatter excellently portrayed the building frustration in Shoaib. The way he desperately tried to be with Chandan towards the end will surely emote you for sure. Also, he managed to share a cool camaraderie with Chandan. Jhanvi kapoor gets limited scope and she puts up notable performance, especially when she conveys her values to Chandan. The moment Chandan’s mother burst out her supressed emotions over the years, shows the impact of the performance of Shalini Vatsa.

Homebound is a deeply moving friendship drama uplifted by raw and intense narration of casteism woven in a tale of survival.

Watch it on Netflix

Housemates

Karthik (Darshan) puts all his hard earned money to buy a house only to get trapped into a totally unexpected mystery which is pretty much impossible to solve.

The movie starts with the protagonist Karthik trying to impress the father of his love interest with the newly bought house. Writer gives an idea regarding how much hard work he had to put in to make the dream a reality. Slowly, movie shifts to horror genre. Though there isn’t much usage of highly supernatural elements, there is enough to maintain fear factor for the viewers and protagonist to try to solve the mystery in the most generic way. Kudos to the chilling background score and sound design for perfectly utilizing the limited space to successfully build an eerie atmosphere. After around 40 minutes, movie slips to humor zone and the involvement of the second family has been written and executed hilariously. What’s even exiting is the addition of a kind-of sci-fi element and the unique concept of Tesseract. Just like every horror movies, there is a melodramatic flashback and an incomplete wish on the movie as well. But those portions are so heartwarming.

Writer Rajavel made sure that the movie gave equal importance to the second family as well. Just like Karthik, Ramesh (Kaali Venkat) also had to suffer a lot to achieve the dream of own house. He also had to prove his worth to the world. Rajavel managed to highlight the similarities between the male characters in the 2 families. It was a was a smart idea to use match cuts in conveying the sci-fi portions to the 2 families. Power cut scene was just exceptional.

There was confusion regarding the way they communicate with each other: Someone taking directly and sometimes writing on the wall. Director and editor could have addressed such minor concerns.

Darshan wasn’t that effective in portraying the emotional side of Karthik, especially when he expresses the pain of his loss. Apart from that, he was fine with the act. Arsha baiju was nice as Anu. For instance: the way she expresses her panic in loneliness, try to convince Karthik for house change or creates bond with a child in the other family. Kaali Venkat was fantastic in both versions of Ramesh who carried trauma of past. Vinothini was really good as the emotionally charged and the vulnerable versions of Viji.

Verdict: Housemates is a unique and appreciable attempt of tweaking the usual horror comedy template with the backing of strong emotional layer and high level sci-fi. Kudos to Siva karthikeyan for backing the project.

Watch here: https://www.zee5.com/movies/details/house-mates/0-0-1z5822124

Ata Thambaycha Naay!

A group of Class IV corporation workers were forced to pursue night school to successfully complete class X that taught them to dream, too.

Synopsis may be too basic and lacking freshness. But this movie makes the viewers keep those thoughts aside. Generally in inspirational underdog movies, protagonist narrates uplifting punchlines, backed by energizing background score to create a miracle. In this movie too, there are few standout punchlines. But not everything happens that easily. The key characters go through lot many struggles throughout the movie. Just like the workers say ‘Don’t teach us about hard work.’, they are well equipped to toil but they just never started to dream for better life. It’s not easy to make a change in their daily life, just through conversation. That journey makes this movie more relatable and authentic.

Writers succeeded in conveying the individual struggles of the workers and weaving their conflicts with the importance of education. Be the helplessness of Maruti Kadam or the veteran ‘Manchekar’ who opposes the idea of night school, the most. Though the writer placed financial stability issue as the central conflict, writing traverse through multiple important points i.e.. adapting to changes, earning self-respect and most importantly, apply what they learned to make lives better.

Though the narration takes bit preachy and melodramatic tone, the intensity of raw emotions within the characters and the team effort where one cares for the others, will just make you speechless.

Sidharth Jadhav puts up restrained performance as Maruti, who grows in confidence when he shifts from his struggle of mundane life .Ashutosh Gowariker was notable as the determined Uday.

We may predict the climax and few dialogues in this movie. The way of handling of some of the family conversation in hard-hitting manner can be mentioned as one of the flaw. But this underdog marathi saga deserve to be raved for placing the heart in its right place and doing justice to the people who really contributed for this substantial achievement. Zee5 could have dubbed it to major south Indian languages for better reach.

Watch movie

Tourist Family

Synopsis: Srilankan family Dharmadas and family had to travel to India for a specific reason. Initially, they opt to hide the truth from neighbors.

First of all, happy to watch this movie in a decently packed theater despite not having a super hero or humongous promotion. Word of mouth can still help this movie reach more people.

Director Abhishan never reveals the exact reason why the family shifted to India. The opening portion where Dharmadas’ younger son explains about their past to a cop was hilarious and that scene was enough to show the smartness of the kid. Abishan’s smartness in writing is evident in portions where an intense emotional scene is followed by a spontaneous humor line told by the Kid. For instance: scene where Bhagavathi perumal asks question to Das or one-liner after emotional church speech. Abishan invested enough time in building memorable characters around the family (Ilango Kumaravel or the drunken guy story) and placed the subplots beautifully to the main narrative. Initially, we get intimation there is something wrong between Das and his elder son. We get to know his son when he opens up about it. Similar to the previous scenes, the scene also ends up in a lighter note. Background score played a pivotal role in making the shift more organic.

At times, cuts also helps the narration in creating humour out of nowhere. For instance: In a scene, Das says like he won’t cry and the scene following begins with him crying. Abishan managed to create memorable heartwarming moments in the movie. (For instance: Ilango Kumaravel-Sasikumar combo scene)

Though it’s a cakewalk for him, Sasikumar puts up restrained performance as Dharmadas who carries the family together. Kamalesh Jagan is the star of the show. From the beginning, this boy handles comedy at ease and that makes the ride more enjoyable in various occasions.

Simran and Yogi babu’s reactions to his reply evoked laughter mostly. Mithun was convincing as the elder son who mostly questions his father. Other prominent names include MS Bhaskar, Sreeja Ravi, Ramesh Thilak and Bhagavathi perumal.

Practical possibility of few incidents towards the end may be question raised by few of the viewers. Predictability may be concern. In a scene where Ramesh Tilak’s character tries to identify the SriLankan family, we know how he will respond though director tries to add tension to the narration. But we will forget that concern when the following scene makes up for it. Staging of a pivotal death scene should have been made in refined way.

Verdict: Just 1 word to express my feelings after watching: ‘Heartwarming’. If you are fan of feel-good family drama, Please do experience the movie with your family, on big screen without waiting for the OTT release. Make sure you will understand srilankan Tamil without subtitles

Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal

As the name suggests, movie is all about the reunion of Sethu, Bhaskar & Viswanathan: 3 sons of Narayani and their conversations about past.

The most impressive factor in this movie is the depth of characters and clarity in characterization of the key individual characters. Vishwanathan is the valyettan in the family and he claims to look after his parents when family was in crisis. Sethu is the silent character among the 3. We get to know why he isn’t married and why he wanted the reunion more than the others. Similarly, we get to know more about Bhaskar as well. Sharan Venugopal never intended to add any twist or turn, instead just make viewers travel through the contrasting lives of the characters. While Viswanathan and Bhaskar are mostly opposite to their views, their children (Athira and Nikhil) aren’t. We get to see them opening up about their past. Father-Son conversation was beautiful. I would have appreciated at least 1 more memorable scene like that. We get to know about Athira’s equation with her mother. Though predictable, Sharan made sure to add subtlety to the way the movie ended.

Though minimally used, background score really added the relevant intensity of emotions when key characters start to emote, particularly in the second half. Cuts made sure to give the viewers, different perspectives of a specific incident. Dialogues related to breakup and relationship stay memorable too.

As the senior most brother Viswanathan, Alencier was superb, especially in the scenes where he suddenly reacts while taking about the past incidents and later apologizes to Bhaskar. Joju puts up subtle performance as Sethu. He made sure to maintain the apt meter for the character without making it feel like some of his previous characters. Suraj venjaramood got gelled well with the characters as the situations changed. The conversation scenes between Nikhil and Athira were build nicely and that got reflected in their performances as well.

The only I drawback was the occasional slowness in narration because of the predictable nature of the story. But that’s not a problem when you are well engaged with the world of the characters.

This dysfunctional family drama is worth a watch and arguably one of the best Malayalam movies of 2025 so far, considering the quality of Malayalam movies released so far.

Watch link: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0L2M7ZGLEO9S06C7NH7E9O334A

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐