Kaappaan review: "K.V Anand needed to have a kaappaan for his mediocre script!!!"

Even as terrorism continues to rear up its ugly head across the globe, the significance of the security forces has increased manifold. They are those brave unnamed individuals who put their life on the line without an iota of reluctance so that the person whom they had entrusted to protect continue to breathe easy. In our nation, the concept of a Special Protection Group was created in response to the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Presently they are in charge of the proximate security of the PM, former PMs & their immediate family members. Incidentally, K V Anand's "Kaappaan" is about such a SPG officer & since Lalettan was also roped in as the PM, it didnt have to tempt me more to check it out.

Kathiravan (Suriya) is an organic farmer as well as an esteemed member of the secret forces who manages to foil as assassination attempt on PM Chandrakanth Verma (Mohanlal) in London. His daredevilry & mastery over his skills impresses the PM, who elevates him as his SPG. In due time, they share a close bond with each other. But despite the presence of Kathiravan, the terrorists manage to eliminate the PM & it's upto him to find out the masterminds behind the assassination. 

Without mincing words, I have to state that Anand has come up with a rather mediocre creation which to me was rather unexpected. I have seen quite a few of his previous ventures like "KO", "Ayan" etc., which I had enjoyed & hence I did have huge expectations about "Kaappaan" when he roped in Lalettan with Suriya. With a lack lustered script that he himself penned, I dont see the point of bringing in a brilliant actor like Lalettan or even Samuthirakani. To be frank, I believe he was casted merely for his star power rather than anything else. As is the norm in Tamil film industry in recent times, the plight of the farmers is touched upon before it gets transformed into an action thriller where the plans of the antagonist can be guessed even without a magic crystal ball. None of the technical aspects deserves special mention apart from Harris Jayaraj's music being pretty damn pathetic. 

Was it the money or a favour for a friend? I seriously dont understand why Lalettan opted to do a role that neither offered him much screen-time nor challenged his acting skills. Anywaz as usual, he performed admirably with what he was offered. Suriya has given an earnest effort yet again & has done utmost justice to the tole, but it's high time that he choose his scripts smartly rather than merely signing in every popular director. Arya was far from the right choice for the character as he required someone more younger, Samuthirakani was wasted, Sayyeshha was mediocre while Boman Irani did his part well.

Verdict: Well the box office collection reveals a different story as it became the highest opening weekend grosser of all time in the Tamil film industry. Seems like K V Anand & Lyca Productions would be laughing their way to the bank. However from a personal point of view, it might have the expectations of what we know Lalettan & K V Anand is capable of; but I was far from impressed!!!

Rating: 2/5

Regards...Ben

Section 375 review: "Is Justice always served?"

Section 375...hmm, sounds familiar. I'm pretty sure this is the response that almost all of you would be saying since this particular section of the Indian Penal Code has unfortunately featured prominently in the news. So what exactly is it? A man is said to commit 'rape' who, except in the case hereinafter expected, has sexual intercourse with a woman consent, by coercion, misrepresentation or fraud at a time when she has been intoxicated or duped or is of unsound mental health and in any case if she is under 18. As per the UN Crime Trend statistics of 2013, India is among the nations with the maximum amount of rape & it's high time that strict action is taken against such perpetrators.This is the subject around which Ajay Bahl's "Section 375" is based upon & it seemed like an compelling court room drama.

Anjali Dangle (Meera Chopra), an assistant costume designer goes over to the residence of the director Rohan Khurana (Rahul Bhat) to get approval for a couple of costumes for the next day's shoot. After her visit, she files a sexual assault complaint against him & her medical examination corroborated her version. With incriminating evidence against Rohan, the sessions court sentences him to ten years of imprisonment. However, Rohan still maintained that he was innocent & his wife approaches popular advocate Tarun Saluja (Akshaye Khanna) to take up the case. Despite the case seemingly appeared not to have an loose ends, Tarun decides to take up the challenge. But was it really worth it with the public & media strongly against the accused rapist???

With the MeToo movement gathering momentum in the past few years, this is an interesting choice of movie that Ajay Bahl has come up with. This is his second directorial venture & it has been scripted by Manish Gupta who does have quite a few movies of his own like "Darna Zaroori Hai", "Hostel" etc. There is no doubt that the manner in which the court room is presented makes it interesting especially the segments where Akshaye provides his version as to how the events might have panned out. All the outrages, debates that are associated with such an incident are well showcased along with the pressures that the judicial system also faces. As a director, he has the right to exercise his creativity & show both sides of an incident, however one cant be faulted if it is misunderstood as a subtle belittling of the plight of the victim. Personally, I felt the scene where the judge seemed like a bit worried when he witnesses the outrage in the public was rather uncalled for. None of the other technical aspects deserves special mention.

In terms of performance, Akshaye portrays a character with shades of grey & feasts on it with glee. He gets to mouth the catchy lines & as always his expressions were spot on. Richa Chaddha has done her part reasonably well along with Meera Chopra. As for the rest of the cast, they did their parts aptly.

Verdict: It’s not the type of movie that will have a lot of takers but there is no doubt that it has been made well. Many might not like the manner in which Akshaye’s character presents the case as by nature we tend to put our support behind the victim. Anywaz do give it a try & come to your conclusion!!!

Rating: 3/5

Regards…Ben

Chhichhore review: "Celebration of the lows!!!"

Another Onam comes to an end as Mahabali makes his way back to the netherworld after his annual visit to meet his subjects. All of us look forward to this festive season for various reasons with one of them being the release of big banner movies.  Incidentally, I haven’t been able to watch them yet though I did check out Nitesh Tiwari’s “Chhichhore”. Millennials has faced the brunt of the blame from the Finance Minister for the economic slowdown in the automotive sector. Well are they really responsible for it? Hmm…it’s something that needs to be analysed & I will give my view on that in FB. However, the question that is equally important is whether elders have equipped millennials to deal with failures. It doesn’t seem so considering the rise in number of suicides & that’s the subject that is tackled here by Tiwari which kinda interested me.

Anirudh Pathak/Anni (Sushant Singh) was a successful man & father to a teenage son, Raghav (Mohammad Samad) who was eagerly awaiting the results of the engineering entrance exams. Though Anirudh tries to instill confidence in his son, the latter always felt the pressure to perform as his parents were elite students in their days. Eventually when the result doesn’t pan out in the manner that Raghav had expected, he commits suicide. To the relief of his parents, he does escape but the prognosis of his medical condition was poor. In order to ingrain into Raghav that it was fine to falter in life, Anirudh tells him about his experiences in college & calls on his buddies to help him out in this difficult time.

With a movie like “Dangal” in his resume, Nitesh Tiwari is someone who doesn’t need an introduction. It’s been almost 3 years since the Aamir Khan starrer had released & I have to say that both the flicks had a certain degree of similarity in what they wanted to convey. If Mahavir Phogat forced his daughters to realize his dream, Anirudh wanted his son to pursue his dream without getting bogged by the pressure of expectations. It also has shades of “Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar” where we saw Model & rajput colleges lock horns. Nitesh had penned the script in the company of Piyush Gupta & Nikhil Mehrotra and it does work fine for most parts. I am pretty sure many of us would relate to the events that unfold in hostels & it does give a sense of nostalgia. However, everything isn’t as endearing as the makeup department has done a pathetic job with the actors looking as if they were participating in some mediocre fancy dress competition.

All of the actors without exception struggled to portray their older self convincingly which was aggravated to a certain extent by the woeful makeover. However, in their normal avatar Sushant Singh along with Tahir Raj (as Derek) were my personal favourites. As for the rest of the cast, Varun Sharma rocked as Sexa while Naveen Polishetty, Tushar Pandey & Shraddha Kapoor did their parts aptly. Saharsh Kumar as Bevda felt miscasted while Prateik Babbar was reduced to a stereotypical role.

Verdict: As per the latest box-office reports, it is headed for 100C which more than amply proves that the audience had connected with the movie. Apart from keeping us in good spirits, it also talks about the need to applaud our failures, so that it gives us the impetus to rise from the doldrums. In short, do check it out!!!

Rating: 3/5

Regards…Ben

Saaho review: "Hooo...everything feels like a blur!!!"

The Men in Blue decimated the Windies & clean swept the series while our shooters did the same in the World Cup in Rio. However, back home our economy was far from encouraging as many of the sectors especially automobile have faltered in the past few months. It is at this juncture that we had a movie made at a cost of 350 C that hit the screens last weekend. It happened to be "Saaho" which marked Prabhas's return to celluloid after the "Baahubali" series which skyrocketed his popularity across the nation. To be frank, I was far from impressed from the look of the trailer as it seemed like an over dosage of action sequences. So did my opinion change after I had viewed it for close to 3 hours???

Roy (Jackie Shroff) is the leader of the crime syndicate in the fictional land of Waaji & makes arrangements to move the assets to India. However, he gets killed in an accident & there is a tussle for the throne with Devraj (Chunky Pandey) announcing himself as the next leader. But before he could savour the taste of power, Roy's son Vishwank (Arun Vijay) turns up & takes charge much to the displeasure of the former. Around this time, the Indian police were in pursuit of a brilliant thief known as Shadow who had masterminded a 2000 C theft. The task is entrusted upon undercover agent Ashok Chakravarthy (Prabhas) & his team who try to untangle the mystery behind Shadow (Neil Nitin Mukesh) & soon realizes that he was linked to Roy's crime syndicate as well.

This is the second directorial venture of Sujeeth who made his debut a few years back with "Run Raja Run". However, with an opportunity to shoot on an elaborate canvas I would have to say that he has gone absolute bonkers. There are surely a couple of twists & turns in the script that he had penned & I am not a stickler for logic in these kind of movies but there has to be a method to the madness. The action sequences at times reminded me of the video-game 'NFS' & the henchmen looked like they were from "Mad Max". In addition, there are quite a few plagiarism accusations  be it the poster from "Ready Player One", the movie from the French flick "Largo Winch" or the song poster from artist Shilo Shiv Suleman's work. With hardly any engrossing factors, the length of the movie does take a toll on our patience. R Madhi deserves praise for the visuals while the music done by a host of individuals was just about average. The action choreographers deserves praise as quite of them were impressively staged. 

What was a guy like Prabhas doing in this movie? He was like a gentle giant who just didnt seem interested in the happenings around him . With the immense popularity that he garnered from Baahubali, he could have been more proactive in choosing his role. Shraddha Kapoor has done a decent job while the rest of the cast were ok. 

Verdict: From a personal point of view, the movie didnt impress me at all & did induce yawns from me. Anywaz the makers will be more than happy as they have cashed in on Prabhas's popularity & have more or less recovered their investment. So that invariably mean majority of the people liked it isnt it? Hmm...I guess so. Anywaz I wont recommend it!!!

Rating: 1.75/5

Regards...Ben