Avan Ivan - Not a Bala's cup of tea

Bala is a specialist in showing gray areas of our society. He showed such characters in such a realistic way and that is why is considered as one of the greatest film maker of Thamizh cinema. He is also good in having some short humor sequences in movie.

But when it comes to full-time comedy, Bala is way behind state of the art. Whatever he has projected as laugh buster was looking just normal. In that process, there were lot of un-realsitic scenes, especially the scenes were all policemen where shown as buffoons. Endha oorla irukkeenga Bala?

Bala had good scope to show more about stealing and selling cows for slaughtering. But he stopped at a very abstract level. Overall, this movie is a major let down by Bala. 

Vishal has put in lot of efforts. It was a different role and also had good amount of scope for action.  I won't wonder if he is awarded national award for this role. Aarya's role was his 'as usual' one. It was a decent job!

The boy who accompanies Arya throughout the movie did a promising work. I have observed that in good amount of recent movies, al these 'small boy' characters are adding lot of valueto movie.

So called heroines Janani Iyer and Madhu Shalini had nothing much to do. Janani's role was made something similar to Laila's role in Pithamagan. Good thing is Janani didn't shout like Laila ;)

Yuvan's songs were good though it was a disappointment that 'Oru Malaiyoram' was not part of the movie. BGMs were also decent.

G.M. Kumar is the real hero of movie. Bala has decided to have some softness in this movie and it is 'Highness' role of G.M. Kumar and his interaction with Aarya and Vishal which made Bala achieve the desired softness. Such a soft character's hard-to-accept end is where there was Bala's touch. I almost cried in his final scenes.

It is only some 20 mins of movie which met bala's standard. Rest all were below average compared to his other movies. Bala should either concetrate more on his humor presentation or leave the idea of taking full-time comedy movies. Let him take his usual 3 years and give us just classic movies!

Aaranya Kaandam - Ulladhu Ullapadi

Pudupettai show-cased the story of an ordinary slum youngster who becomes No.1 rowdy by suppressing all his opponents. This movie is about how circumstances makes a Tier-2 rowdy becomes No.1 rowdy in 1 day. Mysskin has already attempted to show Chennai gangster groups as real as possible and this movie has shown it in a even more detailed and realistic manner. All these comparisons were drawn just for the sake of it. Otherwise, this movie has loads of novelty.

Yes, the movie is slow but that's how it has to be to show as many minute details as possible of different characters. Be it the dialogue delivery or the dialogue themselves, it doesn't seem to have been written for a cinema. It is as if real people have spoken whatever they thought in their mind in their own way. So realistic! Director Thiagarajan Kumararaja has lot of fire in him and I am sure that he will give lot more wonderful movies to Thamizh audience.

I don't know why director has chosen Jackie Shroff for the so called lead role. Of course, he has done a wonderful job and gave a different flavor, but a Thamizh face would have been even more effective is what I feel. Another perfect work by Sampath Raj. Ravikrishna's face and voice restricts him from becoming a full fledged hero. But the same face and voice has placed him perfectly in this movie.

Yasmin Ponnappa is looking good and also has good amount of importance in this movie. I think she has given her own voice; if that is so, her Thamizh diction is very poor. The director should have either had some one else dubbing for her or he should have at least indicated somewhere in the movie that her character was imported from some other state.

Somasundaram's performance was class! It is very clear from his expressive acting that he comes from theatre. Roles of Gajendran and Gajapathy were scary. Who is the best among all the actors? Of course it is Master Vasanth. He steals the show! All the actors have forgotten that they are facing camera. Wonderful casting!

Cinematography by P.S.Vinod is amazing. I was not very much impressed by those slow motion shots since there are many people like him who have mastered it. Those Chennai streets and subways were brought out exactly on screen and it was that which impressed me a lot.

Yuvan Shankar Raja is proving his caliber in all varieties of music. Good that there are no songs but they should have released the BGMs. Man, there are at least 5 brilliant musical clips which go into list of great BGMs of Thamizh cinema. The background score is unconventional too. Mild guitar and piano for animated climax fight was tested very few times (again by Yuvan only) and he has done that more in this movie. Great work Yuvan!

This movie is strictly for adults. I was surprised that the movie is in current form after 52 cuts by censor.  I couldn't imagine how the original version would have been. Free flow of profanity. I had a revision of all foul words ;)

Finally I appreciate producer SP Charan for taking this movie but I am afraid if this movie will not become a commercial hit though it deserves. I will tell you what. If the same movie was taken in Bollywood, they would have promoted it like anything and cinemas will be running house-full shows. Unfortunately, I was seated in a 10% full theatre :(