Unnai Pol Oruvan is... A wednesday Pol Oruvan

First set first game, Shah to serve – The police station complaint scene – No return from Haasan. Shah leads 1-0. Haasan to serve – The first few rounds of phone calls – Shah breaks serve and wins the next game, leads 3-0. Now, the first half of the soliloquy , about the common man… Its becoming a one man show – Shah leads Haasan 4-0.. Now the second half of the soliloquy, narrating the story, alternating between emotion, pain ,intensity and wit. Haasan serves 12 aces and breaks thrice in 10 minutes. Takes the set 6-4.

The above lines , however are not the complete representation of the show that Unnai Pol Oruvan has been. They just cover the lead. Unnai Pol Oruvan is the remake of a film that was good but not great. To expect greatness from it is madness but to see how much justice is being done to the original essence and to observe how much of it is actually better is the way to go.

Places where Unnai Pol Oruvan is better done than A Wednesday

1) LEAD(Casting+Charecterization+Performances) – It is almost a role reversal of sorts. In a Wednesday, Anupam Kher is stiff throughout and Naseer comes up with wit and sarcasm now and then. Here, Kamal is witty but intensity personified while Mohanlal has plenty of political satire to play with, especially in the scenes involving Lakshmi where they make light conversation of highly complex issues. Kamal is as classy as ever and some of Mohanlal’s reactions leave your jaw open. Both in typical elements rock the screen all the time.

2) The look – I am a layman, I don’t know what to call it. The film looked a lot better than A Wednesday, Maybe thanks to the Red Camera – The resolution and the whole picture was top notch giving it an ultra slick look.

3) The Dialogues – A lot more politics, A lot more satire, A new dimension. If there is one area where A Wednesday is better in dialogues, it’s the tautness and the intensity which seems to be lacking in Unnai Pol Oruvan

4) The Music – Whenever there is Guitar, there is MAGIC. Especially when kamal is first shown on screen working on a drill, with a paper near him flying due to the wind there is complete hysteria as his name appears on the screen. However, his Allah Jaane is an ear-sore.. Rest of it is fine.

Places where Unnai Pol Oruvan just doesn’t come close to A Wednesday

1) The soul – Well the essence is an old helpless common man playing with the entire police force. This is virtually messed up in this remake… One sometimes feels they have missed the point, man.

2) The generalizabilty – No the theme is not universal. Its more mumbaish. No resident of Tamilnadu will feel the emotions of what Kamal describes. There are a few dialogue to rectify this flaw but doesn’t work.

3) Suspense – Its sad but when one remakes a thriller with a twist in the ‘tail’, once cant hope a person who has seen the original will like it… Even otherwise, I did try to view it from the perspective of a newbie to the Wednesday story but some scenes reveal this guy is a common man wanting to kill the terrorists – Especially the scene where he mentions that the addresses belong to the people who died in the blast

A THING THAT I OBSERVED ABOUT THE MONOLOGUE

in in a wednesday naseeruddin shah chooses one really suppa story of some guy he knows from train who died in a blast and does an amazing job narrating it. But namba Kamal has one ultimate emotional story to say and does mega brilliant job at it. It pretty much represents their career doesn't it? Nasser choses really suppa roles and makes them special through his performance... while kamal has to do really special roles and make them even more special.

Overall, a film that tries to be as sincere to the original as possible. Hence doesn’t get better. And since the original is a good but not great film, so is this one. One thing to look out for is the last 10 mins of the Kamal monologue about the 4 month old pregnant girl raped till nudity – A complete master stroke. Also watch out for some super brisk Mohanlal moments

A 3/5 for the slick flick

yaavarum nalam ( 13/B) Movie Review

One Legendary lens man who has no award left to win and no greater laurel to achieve, Three super-hit musicians who have close to a 100% record in giving hit and soul searching hindi music, One Honest actor bugged by the formula system, a neat attempt at genre-specific screenplay and one hell of a spooky plot come together to give tamil and hindi cinema a clean horror/thriller film after a long long time.

Yaavarum Nalam doesn't have ghosts scaring you, But it is just the unnatural circumstances and a horrifying flashback that leave you clutching your neighbour's hands in the theatre. The stress on 13 and B and the LIFT (ala rgv ke bhoot) may seem cliched sometime but they do have an effect. The fact that this author had the lights on last night before going to sleep is ample proof of the fact that the movie has had an effect on the audience's psyche and that is what a horror is meant to do. In fact the major victory of the movie is that a bunch of uncouth mass lovers who were trying to make fun of the movie in the first half and hour, remained shut in silence and shock for the rest of the film. :)

There is an unnecessarily producer-driven duet which thankfully ends soon and then there are no set backs in narration. Minute detailing required for a good horror film are in plenty. The typical crazy characters who have now become an essential part of every 'i wanna scare u' movie are also present. In fact every body's face is some how made to look scary in this film.

PC SRIRAM simply plays with the camera. This is astounding experimental camera work completely new to tamil cinema. The legend has come into the film and made it his own. The camera crouches slowly and suddenly rushes in to peek at the thrill with screaming BGM from Shankar Ehsan and LOY. The camera also oscillates during unsteady situation and a beautiful piece of constantly tension building music flows in the back ground

Madhavan has done a very neat job. But he somehow doesn't seem to have come out of his evano oruvan character. Probably this character is similar in sketch. Neetu chandra is perfectly cast. So is the blind man and every member of the flash back family. Saranya too is just perfect.

In another move that ishallreview completely appreciates, the director brings in small doses of humour for a small time without missing the beat/flow of the thriller. Kudos.

Overall, Krish King Nishanth is not a great fan of horror/supernatural cinema but this film made him more than sit through its thrills. He appreciates it for sticking to its very well written plot and some never seen before technical wizardry. A very good film and a welcome break for the tamil industry.

ps:- PC Sriram speaks louder than language :)

On a saturday on a wednesday...

ishallreview(Krish king nishanth) has a major problem. Basically ishallreview resides in (at?) Trichy (at least for the next three months) and hence can't get its hands, eyes and ears on the latest hindi/english film released and the latest original tamil movie sound tracks released either. So the review of the film about which so much has already been written is coming this late - on a saturday, at least 20 Wednesdays after A Wednesday released. (and the review of iLayaraja's Naan Kadavul will come even later)

A Wednesday owes all its financial success and critical praise to the mediocrity that is surrounding Indian Cinema at the moment. A Wednesday is (even individually) an interesting and a good film no doubt but had it released in some other part of the world - Israel, Korea, LA , Germany, or where ever- this Wednesday would have been just another Wednesday.

The movie is just One hour and Thirty five minutes long and after the first fifteen minutes of basic introduction, it moves at break neck speed. It exploits cell phones, computers and hackers more than any other Indian film has ever done. But Vivek in Run would have rushed in to say "Naanga idhu ellam National Treasure laye Paarthutom". The movie is absolutely non-formulaic. It avoids songs, 'louse', duets, genre-mismatch etc. etc. But that doesn't exactly make it great cinema. In India, it does. :P

There is more than just reviewing in this post. Krish King Nishanth saw this movie (second time) because of rumours that Kamal Haasan may do the tamil remake of this movie and don the role that Naseeruddin shah played. These rumours also lead to debates on whether Kamal will in fact be able to do the film.(:O :O) Shocking to say.

First of all iReview doesn't consider this role as Naseeruddin Shah's best. Secondly iReview bursts out laughing at people who say kamal might not be able to do this and thirdly, iReview goes one step ahead to say "A Wednesday in general and Naseeruddin Shah's Role in particular are simply not worth Kamal Haasan"

Coming back to the film, Krish King feels the best thing in the film are its dialogues. I'll call them ' a class apart'. iReview is happy that the hindi dialogue writing has finally come off age and has thankfully moved away from the "me tumhare bache ki maaa ban ne wali hoon"s and the "mere paas maaa hai"s. Omkara, Johny Gaddar, Aamir, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and this film are ample proof.

Anupam kher is supposedly an amazing actor but often comes up on the screen to do irritatingly silly roles. He is the most wasted actor in Hindi Cinema. A Wednesday tries to restore some glory to his career but succeeds only partly. The man who played the desperate dad in Mahesh Bhatts saraansh(?) will be lost for ever. He has never come back since.

Finally the one last thing that iReview enjoyed in the film was the written character of Arif (played by Jimmy Shergil in a casting thats almost a blunder but is saved by the fact that the actor has more than 10 years of experience in doing abslutely worthess roles). That is the ideal cop. The best one to show in cinema.

So, I feel A Wednesday is a superb fast paced film no doubt but it surely doesn't make the list of Great cinema. And double surely, its not worth Kamal.

CHOO CHOO MAARI - review of the film "POO"

Without Wax- sans cere- sincere- Sincerity - That is the word. Sincerity- The quality which almost every tamil film maker including the legendary Kamal Haasan seems to be missing these days. And it has come out finally, now, from a totally unexpected corner. From a man named Sasi and a dumbster of an actor called Srikanth. Sasi - the director who made average flicks like Roja Kootam - an urban romance with super cool songs, Dishoom -dealing with the life and love of a stuntman, Sollamale - a half baked movie where the protagonist pretends to be dumb(oomai) to get the heroine's sympathy(... she falls in love...) and in the climax he is forced to cut his tongue to prove his love for her.

From the man who made all these movies which can best be described as average cinema, comes POO - a simple yet enthralling ''one-way romance'' saga with startling performances from the lead cast. There are cliche's a plenty, like the standard village setting, the fact that a girl is in love with her thaai maaman right from childhood, and last but not the least - the typical "village-childhood" song which we have been watching in every Thangar Bachan film and even got to see in Veyil and in Ameer's Parutheeveran.

But the essence of the movie however is the purity of love that 'Maari' (played by a stunningly different from how she looks in real life, Parvathy- The otherwise fair cute girl from Kerala, has totally tanned herself and made significant changes in mannerisms, language, dialect and body language to look the part) has for Thangaraasu (srikanth - underplaying beautifully) - the boy she was introduced to as her 'will be husband' when she was as young as four years old. After school Maari works in a factory in the village and Thangaraasu goes off to study engineering in the city but Maari continues dreaming about him. In a super-symbolic directing effort, what we see is that in all her dreams, Maari only gets to touch Thangaraasu's hand and no other part of his body, and vice versa - This is later explained to her by a friend that probably they are meant only to be friends and nothing more than that - for which Maari is more than upset and ends up injuring her friend.

The movie starts with Maari's marriage life (she is married to some one else) and so, we know that Thangaraasu is not gonna be her man, but how the events unfold is what matters and the narrative holds us through it perfectly.

There are stand out scenes and characterisations - The climax is definitely the best scene in the film - Maari who cares for thangaraasu's well being even after knowing that he is married to someone else, cries her heart out on finding that his wife ill treats him to the core. This one scene brings out the whole essense of this wonderful love story. Close behind is the scene where Thangarasu has to make a decision on whom to marry and decides against marrying Maari when he finds out that kids from an inter-family marriage may not be healthy. The character of Thangaraasu's father is super-clearly etched out- the manasthan father who has oodles of self respect and plenty of dreams about his son, which fall flat when he is informed that a course in mechanical engineering in an arbit college will not fetch heavy salaries.

The songs are not spead breakers and are wonderful to listen too. This is a rare genre-specific cinema and does not act like its commercial-crappy counterparts which boast of action, romance, sentiments (what the fuck is sentiments supposed to mean?). This film is pure romance, pure innocent, heart warming. - Poo is a semi-classic.

Kudos to Sasi, who made a 5 and a half page short story look this well planned on silver screen.


POO gets 4 stars out of 5. From Nishanth himself - which means the movie is really good.