VK
The festival release from Amazon Prime Video is here and it made everyone go crazy for the last 24 hours. So let's get into that review...
A sparrow is neither too big nor flies too high
After a long time, Suriya got a role with more substance to play. Maaran is not a typical one-dimensional character, he is a complex one. Maaran is a guy who is always angry, who has very big dreams, who is anguish and at the same time cool with the proceedings. That is Maara. Suriya made it look like he might be the only one that could portray Maara to perfection.
Aparna Balamurali as Boomi or Sundari is no less compared to Maara. For me personally, I liked her character more than that of Suriya's. Maara is just a character in a long line of 'mass' heroes but Boomi is special. She has her own personal goals from which she never deviates. She is the perfect foil for a Maara. The scenes where the couples fight just after the interval block, the proposing scene, and both the scenes where she says that I can handle (I can catch an auto-rickshaw and I can handle the birth of their child) were superb and the lead Aparna did well in those scenes.
That said the highlights for this pair are the scenes when Maara asks Boomi for a 15k and the one where Boomi says that she would have poisoned him if he would have taken money from Balaiya.
By watching the trailer one can assume the main plot of the movie and the force of the dialogues. Fine-tuning the plot and making a "kind of" bio-pic which has to be different from others is not an easy task. But director Sudha Kongara was up to the task. The dialogues by Vijayakumar are one of the biggest strengths of the movie along with its music by GV Prakash. The director of Uriyadi doesn't hold any punches and that perfectly suits the characters like Maara and Boomi.
Coming to the strong supporting actors section, I think everyone needs a pat on the back for providing a realistic performance. Except for the scenes where the whole village calls Suriya and the start of the "Kaatu Paayale" song (watch those for relating to what I try to say, especially the extras). Especially Urvasi, Vinodhini, Kali, and Karunas are great at every scene they are in. Karunas tries to make the very dark first half a little less dark. And it helps in places to move the film forward. Vinodhini once again proves that she might go down the list of one of the most under-utilized actors in the Tamil film industry.
Though the film is one of the best movies of 2020 so far, it doesn't mean it has no flaws. It certainly does have some and some logical mistakes as well. The main antagonist's motive was wafer-thin, so they had to make him look devious by using hand sanitizer more than he should have. He turned into a one-dimensional character as immediately as he was introduced, which was a significant problem. We are at the point where we have watched so many Tamil movies where there is a black sheep. So when they finally revealed the twist during the interval block it didn't quite land well. The other biggest question that they felt obligated to answer was why would anyone want to fly when they are so poor. For this particular reason, they have added the father's character. Don't get me wrong the acting in the death scene was so top class but it felt forced. The relationship between the lead and his father is not quite well established so a simple narration of that particular episode would have sufficed. These might be the scenes that make the movie look longer than its original runtime.
It is no brainer that people would watch the movie the first day even though it was released at a un time. The main question is whether Prime Video got benefitted from this. One would not go spend their bucks on a movie which would tank. But for a streaming giant like Prime, the success of this movie can't be measured only with the reviews. They are trying to expand their reach all over India, a very big market. A movie of this caliber might generate a few new subscriptions. I got to see some hashtags like #saynotopiracy by the fans. Does this mean a whole lot of folks have / would subscribe to a streaming service just to see Suriya on their home screen the very first day? Only time can tell...
Movie Rating: B+
Little Things:
The gentle nod reminding us of the Nadha scene(poisoning the food) was very good
Even though some find the villagers helping Maara scene a bit cringy, I quite liked it. I thought it was this emotional moment that was utterly missed in the actor's previous venture NGK
Mohan Babu's character was good but his character's presence doesn't help the narrative in any way so it could have been reduced (not entirely removed)
I felt that the movie could've had more high points compared to what was provided, especially in the first half.
Though not at all similar I felt like I was watching Ka Pae Ranasingam once more while I watched this movie
Comentarios