Maanagaram Movie Review

What if a complex film like Aaranya Kaandam narrated in the most accessible manner, especially for our Tamil audiences, who prefer entertainment over artistic beauty? The end result would have been fruitful at the box office. 

Though a film’s quality can’t be judged with how much money it made for producers, satisfying your target audiences should be the main motto for filmmakers but to be honest, 90% of newcomers doesn’t mind much about the investors. Fortunately, director Lokesh Kanagaraj belongs to the remaining 90%, he exactly knows where to showcase his exemplary filmmaking skills and also smartly incorporated necessary elements for the mainstream audiences in Maanagaram. 

Maanagaram as the title suggests, the film deals with the perspectives of people on the fast moving urban life. A youngster (Shri) with a lot of dreams comes Chennai for an interview, then there is a care-free city dude (Sundeep Kishan), who goes to any extreme for the safety of his crush (Regina Cassandra). We also have a soft-spoken taxi driver starts his first-day job in the city and a dismayed underworld don(Madhusudhan), whose son gets wrongly abducted by three small time gangsters. How the lives of these four people hyperlinked and lead to the rest of the proceedings have been flawlessly written and executed by Lokesh Kanagaraj.

As said earlier hyperlink cinema is a complex theme, narrating it in the most entertaining fashion needs a lot of work and research. Any good cinema would have realism and fantasy in equal proportions, for example, you may or may not agree with the fact that all these four stories and characters get connected in a single day but at the same time, they are very real and the situations unwind in front of us are relatable. Yes, you get to see a lot of rouge cops (don’t restrict your vision to the last day scenes of Jallikattu protest ) but we also witness quite a few kind-hearted policemen in our daily life— the way Lokesh introduced such realistic characters is the biggest strength of Maanagaram, it's the movie's heart-line.

Discussing the brilliance of Lokesh’s writing, he connected each and every dots in the screenplay— The first scene opens with the interview session between Regina and Shri, the latter gets a call (we don’t know who) and the former gets a call (screen blinks Divya, who is that? We don’t have answer). In the climax, Shri speaks to his dad and Regina tells us much before that she is a close friend of Shri’s girlfriend Divya. Thus we get to know why Regina feels getting a job for Shri is very important! This is just one example of  Lokesh's detailed, there are plenty of things to discuss and decode. 

Among all the characters sketched by Lokesh, Munishkanth is a master stroke. After Mundasupatti, the actor makes us laugh throughout the film, his unfeigned innocence is a major attraction and it has been well utilized in the climax, where he moves away from the money bag!

All the actors have given their best. Sundeep Kishan’s swag mannerisms fit the bill for the bold and daring character while Shri’s subtle expressions rightly complement his righteous role and Regina has also carried her role with great ease.

Special mention to the young technical crew of Maanagaram, music composer Javed Riaz used background score whenever necessary and rightly understood the importance of silence. Cinematographer Selvakumar showcased the nightlife of Chennai in a different color and Philomin’s cuts have contributed for the crystal clear narration.

Our final word is Maanagaram can be watched without any second  thought, book your tickets and enjoy this quality thriller with your family!

Verdict: Must Watch

Rating : ****

Thani Oruvan Movie Review

Mohan Raja’s Thani Oruvan is an interesting and intriguing tale between an upright police officer and implacable miscreant, who spearheads most of the organized crimes in the country.

Battle between the good and evil is a tried and tested formula in Indian cinema but what makes Thani Oruvan, an enjoyable watch is the arresting screenplay and comprehensible characterization.

As a fifteen year old teen, Pazhani aka Siddharth Abhimanyu (Arvind Swamy) accepts committing a murder so that his innocent dad, Sengalvarayan(Thambi Ramaiah ) could become an MLA, which would pave way for the life he intended whereas  our protagonist, Mithran IPS (Jayam Ravi) is meticulously following all the crimes to choose his suitable opponents and even sketches a plan to arrest all of them.

At one point of time, Mithran finds that Siddharth Abhimanyu is not an eminent scientist as celebrated by the government ; he is a perspicacious criminal who can’t be clobbered easily. Mithran gets defeated in each and every move because Siddharth is always one step ahead of him. Does our protagonist get a chance to win? Watch out on the big screen…

Easily, Thani Oruvan is one of the best films from ‘Jayam’ brothers. The script is highly original and the packaging is absolutely perfect with zero nonsense in the name of unwanted commercial elements like ‘Kuthu’ songs and crass comedies.  The director excellently sketched the characterizations of his protagonist and antagonist, both are equally powerful and hence the film arrests all our attention.

Subha’s dialogues are razor sharp, especially the lines like “Your choice of friend will show your character, your choice of enemy will show your capacity” and the scene where Arvind Swamy says “Love at first sight… Kill at first betrayal” are clap worthy moments. 

Another interesting aspect of Thani Oruvan is that Nayanthara, the female lead is not merely used as a glam doll, she is having a great scope in the movie and the actress too has portrayed it sensibly.

To point out, the textual romantic conversation between Ravi and Nayan as Arvind Swamy has bugged the former is absolutely endearing. Also, the conversations between Arvind Swamy and Thambi Ramiah are hilarious, there are many such winsome moments in the film and it shows the effort the director has put in penning the script, kudos!

Performance wise, Jayam Ravi is sincere that his tall masculine physique has suited the honest IPS officer role. The actor has improved a lot with his dialogue delivery that whatever he says in the film is convincing, way to go!

But Arvind Swamy is the show stealer, with his chilled out attitude and swag mannerisms, the actor takes the film to a different level, easily one of the well sketched and portrayed baddie role in Tamil cinema. The rest of the actors including Thambi Ramaiah, Nassar and Ganesh Venkatraman have also done commendable job.

Technically, Ramji’s cinematography is picture perfect while Aadhi’s background score is top notch. Overall, Thani Oruvan is a fairly engaging commercial cinema which should not be missed.

Rating : ***1/2

Uttama Villain – the battle between ‘fantasy’ and harsh ‘reality’….

The title Uttama Villain (Uttaman- Good Samaritan, Villain – Baddie) itself is an amusing choice, rarely do we come across such contrasting words coined into a title and to those who don’t know—Kamal initially started the film with a working title—Bitter  Chocolate which is again a coin of words with two contrasting qualities.

Not just the title, the entire film and its screenplay have been written in such a way that the transitions between the present portions of the Superstar Manoranjan who is battling with his death and the make-believe ‘Mrithyunjayan’ Uttaman who cleverly or luckily escapes from all forms of deaths –Snake bite, stick blow, king’s sword and the poisonous nail from the disguised Narasiman in the climax are cleverly fabricated in a screenplay that has minute detailing with emotional transitions between these two worlds!

One such example – Arpana (Andrea) who plays as the dignified woman who falls for the married Manoranjan says she cares for his wife Varalaskshmi (Urvashi)who is her patient but she too wants a respectful life—Arpana asks the other two men, a doctor friend and the driver to keep the secret and then both Mano and Arpana hug each other—may be they moved to a ‘love’ state , cut to the next shot—we are shown ‘Kadhalam’ song with Pooja Kumar which sums up what has happened in the previous scene. These kinds of transitions were present throughout the movie.

In another scene Uttaman is kicked into the river with his hands and legs  folded, there is no way he could escape but a fisherman pulls him out with a net and there he is alive, now the film’s director K Balchander appears and ask the crane to pull over, here comes the Manoranjan Kamal who  is bleeding from his nose which indicates that he is slowly dying and the camera moves to a freshly caught fish which is about to die—such symbolic representations prove that this film is not your regular commercial cinema with eye candy songs and racy fight sequences—it demands all your attention!

Another wonderful shot in the film is when Manoranjan asks his biological daughter Manonmani (Parvathy Menon) to read the original letter which he had written to her mother Yamini. As Parvathy reads the letter, she slowly gets to know the truth that his father actually loved her mom so much and he is not the cruel person as she  thinks—in a symbolic representation Kamal removes his Theeyam make-up and now his clear innocent face appears in front of her daughter

(Wow, this particular scene was so much endearing that it will inspire many future filmmakers to conceive such poignant shots)

In the next shot, Kamal’s son Manohar asks whether Manonmani wants a hug as she is emotionally moved and she nods with her moist eyes—there comes Manohar’s girl friend Parvathy who does not believe that both Manohar and Manonmani are actual siblings. When Manohar asks his father to reveal the truth, he mischievously moves out of the room and When Jayaram (step dad of Manonmani) asks him what’s this all about—Kamal says ‘go inside and watch it for himself’.

Apparently Kamal sees the whole site of Jayaram, Manonmani and Manohar through a glass window with a satisfying smile – there goes the dialogue “En Uthirathin Vithai… En Uyir Vithaitha Sathai… Veroruvanai Pagavan enna Poruthudivena” which conveys the meaning “ She is my daughter, she came from me, how on earth I would allow to call someone like you as her father” (Earlier in a scene, Parvathy tells Jayaram is her real father and not Kamal, as she always thought him as an opportunist who ran away from her mother).

The same phrase ‘En Uthirathin Vithai’ also comes as the opening line in the Iraniyan song which is about the demon Iraniyan who doesn’t want his son Prahalnathan to call Vishnu as lord.

Even the characterizations in the present and fantasy portions have some common factors, for example – in reality Kamal’s manager Chokku(MS Baskar) betrays him by not sending his letter to Yamini and also hides Yamini’s letter from him but in fantasy Uttaman or Cheran Senguttavan’s spy is very loyal to him that he keeps the secret until the climax where he says – “Engal Raja dhaan Uttaman aga nadithu ungal Mannaney kondrar”.

The screenplay writer Kamal Haasan maintained the logic in the fantasy portions as well—In a scene when the minister Gnanasampantham yells at the spy that whether his king is actually helping them and Uttaman immediately interferes ‘Rajavidam Amachair ippadi kettal enna solvathu enna ketu vanthrika vendama?’ and the spy humbly look down and tells him ‘Mannaridam naan ivalavu pesiyathey athigam’ –this is a lead for us to understand that Uttaman is the actual king.

The climax of Uttama Villain also ends up with the battle between the fantasy and harsh reality—in real life Kamal(Manoranjan) undergoes an operation to escape from brain tumor but he ends up dying. In fantasy, Nassar (Mutharasan) wants Narasiman’s role which was actually planned for Uttaman and he even placed the poisonous nails for the character, later they (Uttaman and Princess Pooja Kumar) throw honey bees at the king and when he starts scratching his own skin, he dies thus Uttaman’s ‘silly yet clever operation’ actually works out  in the fantasy world.

But in the last shot, both Uttaman and Villain ( Manoranjan)—in fact they have amalgamated into one as the dream film is released now and as an artist both have truly become ‘Mrithyunjayan(s)’, they are immortals through the applause of the audiences .

-Rajasekar S

You can find the edited version of the article here --->  http://www.sify.com/movies/uttama-villain-the-battle-between-fantasy-and-harsh-reality-news-tamil-pffsFGidcjdjg.html