In the opening scene,we are introduced to Ripper Ravi narrating the mindset of a serial it’s not the story of Ripper Ravi,but the story of a killer who follow similar type of an ideology.
One line plot is nothing different from psychological murder mystery.Police men are killed in similar pattern.Neither the place nor the killed police men have any thing common.How could a criminologist Anwar and special Investigation team solve the puzzle.
Midhun Manuel makes ample use of almost all characters introduced.(from Chackochan’s Anwar to Nikhila vimal’s cameo appearance,every characters have their intentions).
1st half moves fast and builds the tension . Once the way of killing gets revealed, the thrill is on.Though the practical possibility of CCTV footage tampering and all is an issue, addressing concepts like da Vinci code is fresh to an industry like Malayalam.
Chackochan is the captain of the ship and his performance truely drives the story forward.Look out for his encounter with the villain towards the climax (not a usually seen one).
Other performers include unnimaya prasad, Jaffer Idukki, Matthew Thomas etc.. Special mention to Jaffer Idukki for the portrayal of a painful father.Sreenath bhasi offer slight bit of laughter (especially his intro scene) to the otherwise tense film.
Shyju Khalid’s frames evoke tension especially in night scenes.Special mention to sound design and background score(credits for not being too loud and using silence also).Saiju sreedharan’s edit make sure that the smooth flow is maintained and viewer isn’t getting diverted.
Besides logical hiccups or ‘how on earth can it occur’ type of moments at times, Anjaam pathira is something we haven’t seen before much and that’s why this should be watched.
Category: Uncategorized
Sillu karuppatti
Halitha shameem tries to reveal love blossoming in Children in her first story Pink bag.The love is mostly silent and boy shyly hides when Mithi(Sara Arjun) tries to find him.A pink bag connects both of them:one from a slum and one from a wealthy family (I personally don’t agree with the ways director use to highlight that Mithi is rich especially English dialogues).
In 2nd story ,Halitha chooses an interesting plot .Mukil, a meme creator faces a critical issue(Let the issue be hidden).He meet a fashion designer Madhu on his ola journey and that journey changes his attitude towards life.
Halitha makes up her statement towards the issue related to the problem, our central character faces.Its nice that director blend characters from the previous story.(Though it’s a single scene). Director succeed in conveying unconditional love, love beyond humans and within a man and woman from unexpected Manikandan scores better than Nivedha as the struggling Mukil.The only thing odd in the script is that Mukil and Madhu joins an ola ride regularly and with the same driver.(once or twice makes sense,but more than twice could be out of logic). But the ride is light hearted and fills you will positivity.
Third story Turtle (title is justified well) follows Navaneethan and Yashoda(Leela Samson) . They both meet following a hospital test in a turtle collection scene (dialogues introducting both characters were so exciting). Dialogues after a. Certain incident felt a bit dramatic.Leela Samson’s performance wasn’t that exciting initially,but as the character history is revealed,the performance carried that emotions well.Bgm maintained the stability of emotions sell enough throughout the story.Halitha convincingly delivers this ‘sweet ‘ love story in the bag too.
What could be ‘Alexa’ to a husband with OCD who cares least about his wife and a wife who complains him about the same and quarrels with him(dialogs in quarreling scene felt a bit unnatural).Halitha traverses through the daily life of a couple and rediscover love between the couple.Halitha shows ‘fabricated’ love in tiktok as well.Samudrikani and sunaina share a good chemistry and performances.bgm felt a bit similar to Western style at times.
Silly karupatti is a precious gem of anthology romantic film with 4 different stories related to love and after watching t what left will be a charming feel than complaints.
Best Malayalam movies 2019
It’s almost the end of 2019 and time to take a look at the top quality films released this year.
2019 has been an exquisite year for Malayalam cinema where a bunch of new comer directors made their mark through their subtle and realistic film making.
Here is the list.
Kumbalangi Nights: With Syam pushkaran’s interesting characters (Saji,Bobby,Shammi ) and simple narration, Kumbalangi nights deserve to be in the list of poignant family drama.
Unda: Unda is nothing short of a realistic ode to the restless service of cops. Barring the mass fight, the black humour in unda will tell you more about Bastar and the officers in Bastar in charge of election duty.
Thamasha: A remake of Ondu motteya kathe makes you question body shaming comedy and comments in social media. The Cool and composed Chinnu makes you think,”ente thadiyil enikkilatha vishamam ningalkenthina” and asks you not to judge any one by their appearance.
Virus: After watching Virus, you wouldn’t have any actor to pick out, but a collective effort to win over Nipah virus and that’s the real success of Virus. A well-researched script, a touching narration (without making it a documentary) and team work in performance really worked in favour of this film.
Finals: Sports drama usually shows the growth of a character after facing hurdles and negativity from the society. But finals give more importance to the problems faced by the players and the illegal activities of sports authority, Starting as Alice’s (Rajisha) growth as cyclist, Finals ends up as the re-invention of Varghese mash (Suraj Venjaramoodu),
Vikruthi: underlines the importance of right way of using social media platforms. It’s Suraj venjaramoodu who surprises with pitch-perfect performance. Hats off to writer Ajesh for showing Sameer’s(Soubin) regret (without just criticizing him)and giving justification to climax.
Android Kunjappan Version 5.25: A Stubborn Bhaskara poduval’s lonely life and the incidents after the so called Kunjappan join him sums up Android kunjappan. Ratheesh balakrishnan effectively transforms a fresh idea to a feel-good sci-fi drama and uses kunjappan to convey a relevant message without being preachy.
Uyare: Manu ashokan converts Pallavi ravindran, an acid-attack survivor’s fight for justice to a fabulous inspirational drama by establishing characters around her and slowly showing her transformation after the incidents.
Ishq: deals with moral policing and toxic masculinity.Anuraj manohar boldly make his statement with the much talked climax.
Jallikattu: How can one expect a tried and tested formula from Lijo jose pelisery.LJP proves why he is currently the most innovative director. Jallikattu tells you that difference between Beast and humans is negligible and the experience for me stands just next to Ee ma yau.
Helen: produced by Vineeth srinivasan is another gem of an intense survival thriller directed by Mathukutty Xavier and neatly performed by Anna ben,Lal and Aju vargheese.Helen convincingly shows the way Helen gets trapped, her efforts to overcome and the ways Police, her boy friend and her father collectively finds her.
Moothon: shows you a newNivin pauly and Roshan Mathew and narrates a story in dark shores of Lakshadeep.Directed by Geethu Mohandas,moothon engages with good enough technical crew and performances.
Thanneer mathan dinangal: Showing school life has now become cliché. But, Gireesh AD removes unwanted commercial appealing scenes and shows simple comedy scenes and nostalgic school life with realistic characters and situations. Vineeth srinivasan plays a different character from his goodness filled character.
Ambili :Ambili is about Ambili’s love towards Teena and Bobby. Though the character Ambili’s mannerism resemble Dileep’s Chakkaramuthu and the plot moves along a predictable path , an endearing Soubin, Vishnu’s touching bgm and Sharan’s frames elevate Ambili to the next level.
Prathi poovankozhi: may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Prathi poovan kozhi rises above the level of a message-driven emotional drama and makes a statement about the theme.
Prathi Poovankozhi
Right from Poster to the colour grading in certain scenes,there is red that denotes the fierce and rage of Madhuri towards people like Antappan(as She says Antappan um Sathish okke onnanu).Prathi poovankozhi is more about breaking woman’s silence towards the patriarchal society.
Madhuri(Manju) lives with her mother and works in a textile shop. She tries to clear debts and waits for an alliance.Once she faces harsh experience from Antappan(Rosshan andrews), a renowned gunda in Kottayam.She decides to hit him, but this went wrong. Did she succeed in it? Watch the movie to know.
After knowing the plot,I thought how this thin plot could be converted to a full length movie. Surprisingly,Unni R’s script adds satire and a subplot to make proceedings smooth(though subplot isn’t that necessary, it wasn’t tiring too). Dialogues were spot on with nice Kottayam slang . Madhuri says,”If he dies ,how can i hit him “and it is enough to describe the vengeance of Madhuri. I really loved the way Rosshan placed the interval block and the scene where Madhuri meets Antappan towards the climax.
Scenes including Rose(Anusree) and Suraj pops(Kumbalangi fame) provided good humour to make narration live enough. Manju puts up a fabulous show as the bold Madhuri. My surprise is Rosshan as menacing Antappan. I think the Actor in Rosshan overshadowed the director.Grace Antony’s character could have been developed.Saiju kurup and Alencier performed optimally to their characters.
First song was enjoyable.I though it wasn’t necessary to give loud bgm as buildup whenever Antappan appears on screen. Sreekar prasad’s cuts were good enough (100 minutes) whenever mood of the scene shifts. I thought climax was little bit over board and could have been cut short.
Though minor flaws exist, Prathi poovankozhi is much more than a gripping cat and mouse revenge drama .
Rating:3.5/5
Chichchore
‘The most important thing in life is life itself’ .This is our hero’s advice to his son and the message that the overall film conveys. Director Nitesh tiwary succeeds in conveying it without being a preachy lecture.
Chichchore is about Raghav’s attempt to clear JEE exam and how an incident reveals his rank holder father’s loser story.
Chichchore’s biggest success is that it can be related to us in 1 or the other way.Starting from Raghav to the friends gang in H4 ,we have seen them or we are of course one of them.
Nitesh’s narrative pattern is mostly combining present and past incidents and dialogues in non-linear pattern and it too works aptly though felt deliberately at times.Few shots reminded me of Classmates movie.
Nitesh too handles emotional scenes nicely especially in a scene where our hero says to his lover why he isn’t interested in hostel change.
Script gifts humour in a delicate manner ( I felt 1 or 2 instances were not believable enough) and Director too takes cinematic liberty at times.
It’s good not to have a villain here. Every character reacts from their own space.
Starting from Sushant,all performed with elegance and ease.Editor is the next hero as there wasn’t much lag throughout.
Songs were good enough and bgm just up to the mark.
I felt odd that there isn’t any scenes inside class room or positive reference about professors.
To sum it up, Chichchore is a nostalgic enjoyable ride to Hostel days.I felt i missed enjoying Chichchore in big screen after watching.
Rating:3.5/5
Magamuni
Script in a movie where hero does double role will be dealing with confusion factor.Twins with heavy enmity fight against each other and finally become friends and face the common enemies. Films like Annan thampi,Mersal ,Thadam follows this same pattern and that’s where Santhakumar’s Magamuni differs.
Magamuni is basically,a character study of Magadevan,more a right hand of a political leader than a taxi driver and Muniraj , a naive ‘Vadiyar’ who teaches students and unexpectedly jumps into dilemma.
Director establishes the grey shaded Magadevan first.He tells why Maga opts for such a job and why some people are behind him.Director visually conveys the time period in which the story occurs and conveys the political rivalry issue without being preachy at any point. On the other hand,Muniraj is much established in the 2nd half.Director conveys his views about god and the caste system in the society.Director suitably uses charm bgm and naturally beautiful visuals to convey the goodness in Muniraj.Even songs involving Muniraj are beautifully captured.
In a hospital scene,Rohini’s character conveys an emotionally touching fact and director conveys the emotion aptly through the reactions of Arya’s Muniraj.
Arya puts up his career-best performance as 2 totally different characters .He gives a unique touch to both them in terms of dialect and appearance. Induja as Maga’s loud and eccentric wife and Mahima nambiar as journalism student fits their roles.
I though that a few scenes in the 1st half could have been avoided enough to keep the audience completely invested in the story.
In total, Magamuni ends up as a satisfactory watch with Santhakumar’s craft and an unexpected climax.
Rating:3.5/5
Finals
Finals narrate the story of cyclist Alice(Rajisha) and her father Vargheese (Suraj).Alice sets her goal to win Olympic medal in 2020 Olympics and starts her practice day and night.But fate and sports authority changed everything.
Finals begins with title card paying tribute to Olympic medal winners and starts similar to the story of rise of a cyclist from a village in Kattapana to Olympic medal.But Director Arun wants to convey more than and he succeeds in it too.
First half establishes the issues of Vargheese Maash and the relation of Alice with his childhood friend Manuel. Script gives equal priority to the politics inside Sports department ,difficulties that the players face and the dreams of Alice and Vargheese. Barring few flaws in execution initially,The best part is that Director Arun is not trying to be loud and explain every aspect. Let the visuals speak for themselves.(That’s good).It’s also good that Director handles emotional scenes (especially climax) subtly. Rajisha performs quite well as a professional Cyclist and apts her body language too. Suraaj puts up a magnificent show(probably the best in the list) as a doting father and helpless coach.Other notable perfromers are Niranj,Maniyan Pilla Raju,Nisthar Sait ,Sona Nair and TiniTom.
Pradeep Elamon elevates the beauty of the movie with his landscape and aerial shots of Vagamon and Kattappana.(Cycling championship scenes) .Songs suits the mood and so does the background score. Finals stand apart from the Star-budded festival season potboiler entertainers .It is disheartening to say that i watched this film in a theatre with almost 80 % of the seats empty.
Give a chance to Finals.It won’t disappoint .
Rating:3.5/5
Agent Sai Sreenivasa Athreya
‘A belief is not an idea that mind posseses. It is an idea that posseses the mind’. This is the idea that the latest telugu thriller released via Amazon Prime talks about.
Athreya,a cunning fast thinking investigator gets a simple railway track case and while moving forward with his investigation agency FBI, he got to witness various difficulties .Who and why will be the final answer audience will be searching.But Director serves his content beyond answering these questions.
Without being complex or making it a complete whodunit, Director and Writer Swaroop weaves an interesting and brilliant tale with humour when required. Starting off as slow note,Swaroop builds up the situations intriguingly and absolutely no way of predicting the culprit.Facts felt unnecessarily stuffed earlier were later cleverly incorporated in the script. Director leaves not many logical issues and gifts the audience , a not before seen kind of type thriller.It’s good not to make the hero,another Sherlock Holmes and just, a normal Detective Athreya .
Naveen though had the starting trouble in emotional sequences puts up a great show as Agent.Others too played the supporting role well.This isn’t completely a performance depended movie. Bgm created thriller mode and succeeded in making the audience root for the characters and understand the pain in emotional sequences.Songs were bearable enough.
Edits were crisp enough (except 1 or 2 scenes) and it helped the film in maintaining the flow of a thriller film.A particular Scene intended for showing the intelligence of our Hero wasn’t neccessary except for the commercial appeal.
The film ends on the message note and gives the audience a truly unique investigative thriller in telugu . Try not to miss this one.
Raing:4.0/5
Kalyanam conditions Apply Season 2
We have seen soap-operas trying to establish various incidents in the life of a couple and make optimal use of humour to get connected to audience.2nd season of Tamil web series Kalyanam conditions Apply premiered last week is a new addition to the list.
We have a couple Sreeja from Kerala and Mirchi Senthil from talks Chennai living in Chennai.1st episode talks about Honeymoon(after 2 years of marriage). Director brings humour in Sreeja’s preparation to go to Kulu and Manali.2nd episode is based on a colony cultural festival.3rd episode, my pick of the 6 engagingly follows a car travel.4th episode , a fresh take on online shopping.The scenes following the thieves and Senthil offers good enough laugh and kudos script writer. 5th episode narrates the entry of boss.In that episode, I found the director was more focused to body shaming comedy and that isn’t optimal.The final episode is a remainder to the increasing use of smart phones.
The writer hasn’t tried to give more depth to the characters . Situations are developed well enough and characters react just optimal to the situations.Also,there is no unneccessary stuffing of dialog comedies .Just when we think the story gets to usual mode, Director shifts from preachy message to a satisfying satirical finish.(Especially the way they say to like, subscribe and share).
Bgm isn’t too much used in satire and drama parts .Credits to precise cuts for keeping the flow of each episode in tact and frames for giving lively ambiance.
Performance credits should be given to both the leads.They have really nailed it .It’s. Sreeja’s and Senthil’s show all the way.Credits to the usage of Sreeja’s Malayalam as well.
To sum it up,Though few episode climax were fairly predictable,this web series will be an enjoyable ride. It’s available in the official page of MX player and YouTube.
House Owner
House owner opens with a marriage song and then moves to the present scenario about the unconditional love of Radha(SreeRanjini) towards Vasu(Kishore) who is an Alzheimer patient .This film is set in the backdrop of 2015 Chennai Floods.
Lakshmi Ramakrishnan brilliantly use properties to narrate instances connecting past and present. The way in which scene where Vasu roars facing the mirror, “Who are you? Get out of my house .This is my house” is an example of her craft of intervening past and present within a scene.”Close Tap” is written in Bathroom so that Vasu won’t forget it.Thus Vasu’s reactions and his house show who he is.
Mostly,Vasu lives in a dreamy world with his past and not even knowing what he should do and what he should not. Fate turns from Vasu teaching a naive young Radha to a Caring Radha teaching her arrogant Husband.The.most important fact here is that Radha receives all humiliation and responds minimally to it.
Slowly rain establishes dominance (through news,water level increase, power cut, creatures entering the house etc..) and ends with a predictable note.Rain in flashback scenes offer breezy feel to the narrative and in present day,Rain locks them inside their house.
Kishore performs superbly as Vasu .Young Kishore’s character sort of break all stereotypes in Brahmin culture and he was also fine .Lovelyn as his partner too fit the bill .Sreeranjini as the caring wife puts up a marvellous performance especially towards the end where she need to build the panic mode and makes the tense factor high. Special mention to Art direction for beautiful house,Tapas Nayak’s sound and Ghibran’s awesome bgm (sweet and riveting whenever required).It’s good to see Brahmin wedding rituals completely.
Few characters and their dubbing sound don’t match enough especially in beginning portions.And maybe most of the film is inside the House,it may feel a bit lagging for a few people. The film could have been even better if the editing department performed even more accurately in the audience’s point of view.
Hats off to Lakshmi Ramakrishnan & team to produce a love story with a disaster build up story and your brilliant efforts without compromising any where.Continue doing quality films.
Rating:3.5/5
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