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Thanga Meengal is a sincere, honest and a brave cinema, it is not an ordinary & routine Tamil film that comes every Friday. Thanga Meengal tells the story of a Father a school dropout who doesn’t have any regular job struggling to make ends meet, his daughter is his world and the two share great affection and care. Kalyani (Ram) is married to Vadivu (Shelly) and is working in a silver polish unit. His daughter Chellama (Sadhana) is studying in a Matriculation School, he is unable to pay the school fees since his salary is due for more than four months. He goes to work in Kochi and the rest of the story is how he gets back to his daughter is told in a heartwarming manner. Kalyani’s father played by ‘Poo’ Ram is a retired government teacher who takes care of the entire family. Chellama is unable to cope with the teaching style adopted in the school & she is ridiculed by the teachers and the students, she has learning disability similar to what we saw in ‘Taare Zameen ...

"Thalaiva" (Leader) had a worldwide release sans Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry on 9th August 2013. The reason for the film not getting released in its home state was for the reason that a lesser known student outfit had threatened to blow the theatres which would go ahead with the screenings. Good 11 days after its release looks like the student outfit has come to a compromise and they have allowed the film to release in its home state and its neighboring Pondicherry. The important thing is that the makers have been asked to remove the tagline from the title which read as "Time to Lead" indicating that there is something amiss than originally stated. The film begins in the year 1988 in Mumbai's Dharavi slum where its current leader Varadharaja Mudaliar meets a tragic end and in the ensuing violence Anna (Sathyaraj) is elected as the next leader. Wary of the position he holds and the loss he suffers, he sends his son Viswa along with Ratnam (Nasser). Years...

Ship of Theseus (SOT) is a whiff of fresh air; it’s one of the rarest of rare Indian films which stimulates our brain to think which our films rather seldom do. Directed my first time filmmaker Anand Gandhi, ship of theseus is the story of three people with various life styles, thought processes & values. The first story is that of the blind photographer played wonderfully by Egyptian actor Aida El-Kashef who captures images based on her senses. She trusts her instincts, sound and takes brilliant black & white pictures and lives along with her boyfriend. Life changes after she undergoes cornea transplantation and regains her vision, somehow she is not able to work with the same passion and excitement as she was before and she faces trouble adjusting to this new environment and her sense of sight. The second story which is the longest and the best one is about a monk named Maitreya played by Neeraj Kabi who fights for animal rights and files a petition to treat animals ...

Director bala’s Paradesi is brilliant; Based on an English novel Red Tea (Eriyum Panikadu in Tamil) by Paul Harris Daniel, the story is about the life and struggles of the exploited tea-plantation workers. Set in 1939 the film begins in salur a village in Madras presidency where we are introduced to Raasa (Athrava) who doesn’t have a job just roams around telling information regarding the happenings, incidents of the village. Angamma (Vedhika) is attracted to Raasa they fall in love and as usual her mother doesn’t like their romance and she calls for a panchayat. Raasa now searches for a job so that he can marry Angamma, at this juncture he meets Kankani (Jerry) a supervisor from tea estate who promises the villagers job, shelter, money and convinces them to sign bonds. The entire village goes along with him in search of greener pastures with lots of dreams & hopes about their prosperous lives. Little do these innocent people realize that they are going to be treated as ...

Haridas is cracker of a film, after two forgettable films director G.N.R. Kumaravelan strikes back in style with a heart wrenching simple story told beautifully capturing a wonderful relationship between a father and a son. Sivadas (Kishore) is an encounter specialist who is highly respected by his team members is in charge of a mission to capture the gangster Aadhi (Pradeep Rawat). There is another side to Sivadas who has an autistic child Hari played brilliantly by debutant Pithiviraj who is brought up by his grandmother. The story takes a completely different turn when kishore’s mother dies and now he has to take care of his child and he has no clue about how to bring up a special child.   He consults a doctor Ravi (Yugi Sethu) and admits Hari in a normal school where Amudhavalli (Sneha) is a trained teacher for special children. How Kishore manages to take care of his child and accomplishes his duty as a responsible police officer forms the rest of the story. Th...

Vishwaroopam is one of the finest technical films that have come in tamil. It’s not only about style; it has substance in it too. The film begins in New York where Nirupama (Pooja Kumar) a nuclear oncologist who is married to Vishwanath or Wiz (Kamalhassan) a kathak dancer who has feminist characteristics. It is a marriage of convenience because she married wiz so that she could complete her Ph.d. She has an affair with her boss Deepak and hires a private detective to find out about her husband’s past and doesn’t like his effeminate characteristics. She learns from the detective that Vishwanath is not a Hindu but a Muslim. Then we are told that Kamal is a RAW agent who goes to a terrorist camp in Afghanistan to train the terrorist group led by Omar (Rahul Bose). What follows after that is the cat & mouse game between Kamal and Omar (Rahul Bose) which is been narrated through various flashbacks and how Kamal destroys Omar's plan of bombing new york city forms the rest of the ...

Samar is a commercial entertainer but there is something little more than to it. Like all other movies, we are introduced to Shakthi (Vishal) a forest officer in Ooty bashing a group of men when they try to destroy the trees. Yes, immediately there is a mass introduction song and then you are correct we are introduced to Shakthi’s girlfriend Rupa (Sunaina). Thankfully the love making scenes are crisper and shorter, Rupa breakups with Shakthi since he spends most of the time with the trees & can’t even remember her birthday. Rupa leaves for Bangkok, Shakthi can’t forget Rupa and then a letter greets from her saying that she also cannot forget him and wants him to come over. Shakthi on the way to Bangkok meets Maya (Trisha) in the airport & they become good friends. The interactions between Vishal and Trisha are interesting. In Bangkok he meets a police officer (Sampath Raj) while searching for his lover, at this juncture the screenplay takes a V-turn where Shakthi is being shot...

Film watching must be a unique experience to the viewer. When you invest your time & money in watching a movie, then it means sense that it gives something back to you in terms of good pure unadulterated entertainment or raising a social issue or atleast making you forget all your stress & worries. Neerparavai is one of those movies which make you think about social, political issues around fisher- folk community. Their traditions, hopes, dreams are told beautifully in celluloid.   The film begins with some spectacular shots of sea captured wonderfully by N.Balasubramaniem, a young couple visits their ancestral village to meet Esther (Nandita Das) who lives alone in her home spending most of the time looking at the sea. Her son wants to sell their home so that he can build a new house in the city, but she refuses to sell her home because of her husband who went out to sea 25 years ago had not returned. The couple dig their backyard of their home and find their corps...

Life of Pi based on Yann Martel novel which won the man Booker prize for fiction in 2001 is a compelling tale of hope & survival. The film starts off where the adult Piscine Molitor Patel (Irfan Khan) narrates his story to the writer ( Rafe Spall). Piscine Molitor Patel named after a swimming pool in France lives with his family in puducherry. His father owns a zoo, the initial encounter with the bengal tiger Richard Parker is fascinating telling us deeply about the understanding of animal psychology.   Piscine Molitor Patel changes his name as Pi because people in his school call him as pissing patel. Pi is raised as a Hindu but he is also introduced to Islam & Christianity, the initial 30 minutes of the film meanders slowly where Pi tries to understand the different religious philosophies & also experiences his first love. Pi‘s father is forced to sell his zoo and he carries the animals to be sold in Canada, the ship in which they travel sinks in pacific ocea...

Barfi is magical; it’s like watching a fairytale unfold in front of you. Language isn’t a constraint, everyone in this world understands joy, hope, sorrow love. Barfi starts like every other film with a flashback with the heroine Shruti (Ileana D'cruz) who makes a dignified debut in Hindi cinema tells about Barfi played by Ranbir Kapoor.   Ileana goes to Darjeeling for a vacation and it his love at first sight with Ranbir Kapoor who can’t speak or hear. Ranbir named after Murphy radio is called as Barfi lives with his father is smitten by the beauty of Ileana and the romantic scenes between the lead pair is poetic. Shot beautifully by Ravi Varman, the first hour of the movie is terrific.   Ileana rejects Barfi (Ranbir) marries a person choosen by her parents. We are parallely introduced to Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra) an autistic who is a childhood friend of Barfi she doesn’t have understanding parents. Barfi is constantly in the hunt by a policeman (Saurabh Shukla) f...

Tamil Cinema fans are served a story which is an adaptation from real -life that serves as a breather from the ordinary run-of-the mill masala films that Kollywood throws at its viewers during regular intervals. This film is a dicey proposition for the fact that it does make the viewer think what it would have been in real life but at the same time it fails to create the sympathy factor towards the main protagonist in the film. Storyline: Premkumar (Vijay Sethupathi) on the day before his marriage, suffers a fall while playing cricket which results in a short term memory loss. This short term however has a huge impact that he forgets that his marriage is scheduled to happened the next day. What are the sequences that happens from the time he suffers the fall to the marriage function and thereafter is in this 150 minutes long film. Drawbacks: The overall length of the film and its screenplay which fails to create the sympathy aspect for the film. There are scenes which ...

A R Murugadoss and Vijay coming together for the first time in an all-out action entertainer somehow seems to be a disappointment considering the hype this "Thuppakki" carried on its shoulders. Disappointment for the reasons: it has no great story, screenplay needs to be fine-tuned a lot and overall the film is made keeping in mind the hard core Vijay fans as its target audience which does not augur well for the average movie viewer. Storyline: Jagadish (Vijay) an army officer comes home to Mumbai for his annual vacation to spend time with his family. He gets to meet Nisha (Kajal Agarwal) who happens to be his prospective fiancee. One fine day when he is around with his friend Sathyan, he accidentally runs into the bad guys and its action time from thereon until he takes his revenge on all of them including the big boss of the bad guys Vidyut Jamal. Drawbacks: The first half could almost be non-existent as there is nothing in it. Infact, except for few scenes, the entir...

What to expect : Beautiful locales and gorgeous looking Anushka and Amy Jackson Highlights of the movie: Nothing in particular Story: Shiva (Vikram) is a RAW agent who follows the trail of the bad guys to London from India. In London things change drastically that it changes Shiva’s world upside down. What he does to avenge the loss that he has suffered forms the crux of the story. Why Should you see it: There is nothing that attractive in the film that actually pulls you to the theatre. The beautiful locales of London is well shot by Nirav Shah. Drawbacks in the movie: An absolutely boring screenplay that even Vikram’s star power couldn’t help the film to be interesting. There are lots of scenes where logic has been defied and the ending looks very huffed up. The Team: Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Directon – A L Vijay, Music – G V Prakash Kumar, Cinematography – Nirav Shah, Editing – Anthony, Producers – Ronnie Screwala & Siddharth Roy Kapoor Cast: Vikram, Anu...

The makers of "Joker" have decided to make the audience as the real Jokers. What could be said of a film that lacks logic, sequence of events and more importantly a story. Over the years, Bollywood has thrown at its audience quite a good amount of nonsense films. However, this Joker beats all and no movie can get any worse than this. Director Shirish Kunder after Jaan-e-Mann has roped in Akshay Kumar as the lead of this supposedly comic film. Unfortunately for Akshay, this happens to be his landmark 100th film. Landmark films prove to be disasters for most actors and Akshay hasn't escaped that myth. The way in which the film unfolds over a period of 105 minutes, looks like the distributors will not even recover 1/10th of their investment. Akshay returns to his village Paglapur to visit his ailing father. Paglapur doesn't have any mention of its existence in India map. The village doesn't have power or water connection. And to make matters wors...

"Oru Kal Oru Kannadi" (One Stone, One Mirror) which was touted to be the perfect launch pad of Udayanithi Stalin as a hero falls flat on its face. The major contributor being the dull story and the screenplay. Director Rajesh seems to be obsessed with the boy meeting a girl and falling in love story. The same storyline has been followed in this film too as was his previous two films. The only difference being his previous two films had good performers to carry the film through but in his latest venture, Udayanithi Stalin fails miserably as an actor. Saravanan (Udayanithi Stalin) and Partha (Santhanam) are best buddies working together in Sathyam Cinemas. Saravanan comes across Meera (Hansika Motwani) an air hostess trainee with Kingfisher Airlines. Saravanan follows Meera who happens to be the daughter of Chennai DCP (Shiyaji Shinde). What happens thereafter and what are the confusions that take place between them is told in this 165 minutes long film. Santhanam happens to be...

In what promises to be an action packed thriller, this "Vettai" (Hunt) delivers very little in reality. The story line is nothing but old wine in a new bottle stuff, whilst its screenplay isn't that great which further dampens the spirit. Lingusamy though has done something different in this film by virtue of the scene composition in which Arya and Sameera Reddy lock horns which gives a feeling that these two are the budding lovers in the storyline which later turns out to be not. The movie begins when the brothers Thirumoorthy (Madhavan) and Gurumoorthy (Arya) are young kids who grow sans their mothers under the supervision of their father. Like all films, the young kids grow up within the wink of an eye and continue in the same vein they were during their younger days. Thirumoorthy due to family circumstances takes up the job of a Sub Inspector while Gurumoorthy just whiles away his time doing nothing. Vasanthi (Sameera Reddy) and Jayanthi (Amala Paul) on the other hand...