Kalavani – Movie review

Kalavani – Show stealer!

Kalavani opens Director A.Sargunam‘s Kodambakkam account with Pasanga fame Vimal as the lead and the Poo fame SSKumaran as the composer. As per the title, Kalavani is an awesome Romantic rural comedy with quite a number of interesting and laudable moments. More than anything else, Kalavani launches Sargunam as one of the best writers in India whose mellifluously interwoven screenplay wins the audience’s heart right from the first scene. With a no-wonder story line which almost appears inadequate for a 2:30 hours movie, sargunam has spun his scenario like a shrewd spider. Kalavani does to comedy in Tamil cinema what Paruthi Veeran did to tragedy. Both of them have a similar story thread but with a wild difference.

Kalavani‘s story belongs to antiquity: Boy meets girl, boy forces girl to love, girl loves, girl’s brother comes inbetween, boy wins. Definitely inspired from the likes of Bharathiraja, Kalavani is about Arikki@Arivazhagan (Vimal) a spoiled youth, falling in love with Maheshwari (Oviya), a girl from an enemy village who also happens to be his arch rival Ilango’s (Thirumurugan) sister. To be straight, Arikki wooes and wins Maheshwari resolving the longlasting conflict between the two villages. After a long time we see a movie which is seamlessly interspersed with agriculture, the real backbone of India. Filled with fun and frolic, Kalavani‘s crosswire is on the lighter side of the Tanjore belt villages. Hailing from one such village Sargunam has stuck close to his own life experiences, which makes the movie rooted and very Tamilish.

Going by world standards, Kalavani’s screenplay deserves a place among the world’s most original scripts. Unlike recent comedies which failed to tickle our ribs, Kalavani is loaded with a lot of laughing gas. Vimal’s unblemishing performance as Arikki along with Soori and co is evidently a memorable one for years to come. Ovia, the girl from God’s own country shines throughout, in her reactions more than her actions. Ilavarasu and Saranya play cliched roles of dumb parents but only to superexcellency which almost camouflages the ordinariness of their characterisation. Thirumuurugan, the associate director of this movie handles the antagonist’s role well. His amateurish and doubtful acting adds on to the attitude and body laguage of his character. Kanja Karuppu once again plays a Malvolio, which caters only to the groundlings. But Sargunam, places his characters at the right blocks of his screenplay making sure that everything and anything counts. Throughout the movie, there are a number of unexpected and humorous incidents which wake up the laughing hyena in us. There are too many hilarious scenes in Kalavani to make us go into splits. If you watch it in a crowd, make sure you’ve ample space to roll. Apart from comic scenes, there are a number of surprising and shocking moments in Kalavani to keep us busy. Though a comedy, Kalavani stands firmly on logic and speaks through every single one of its frames. Kalavani‘s biggest strength is the candid portrayal of Tamilnadu’s tradition and what the recent panaromas have done to it.

Dubbing is one of the major flaws of this film. In most of the scenes, the lip movements don’t go well with the audio. Along with poor dubbing, the Tanjore dialect makes it too difficult for the outsiders to comprehend the dialogues. Adding to this, the screenplay is so very naturally crafted that we miss a few subtle plot points landing up in doubt and chaos as we always do in real life. A boon becomes a bane here, demanding very serious attention to every single detail. Things go fine and raise our expectations but leave us disappointed, when Arikki doesn’t do anything new to get his girl in the third act.Though well made, Kalavani is after all one of those picaresque movies which glorify a rogue.  Apart from this, the director sets the stage immaculately before getting his corrupt lead onshow, which justifies every act of this Kalavani.

With a handful of neat numbers and unpredictable BGMs, SSKumaran contributes in a great deal to Kalavani. Raja Mohamed‘s editing is sleek and gimmickless which makes it one of the main fortes of this talkies. Omprakash‘s cinematography scores in slow moving and static shots, rather than in the steadicam shots. With no violence and profanity, Kalavani‘s success once again proves that films with originality and good narration are always ahead of movies with nonsensical technical grandeur and those pointless remakes. Kalavani says, I’ll cheat, lie, bluff and what not, but still you’ll like me!

– Spontic

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Saroja- Movie Review

Saroja- A rocking remake!

Venkat Prabhu opens his second innings with Saroja produced by Amma Creations after a successful ‘Chennai 6000028’ first innings. Saroja is a loose remake of the 1993 Hollywood film ‘Judgment night‘. Though this movie is a remake, Venkat Prabhu has amiably intertwined his sub-plots into the original main-plot, indianising it, suitable for our audience. The movie is at the danger of being condemned by those who lay emphasis on aesthetic components as ‘Plagiarism’. Anyhow Saroja emerges out well as a quality entertainer with ‘Navarasas’.

The movie projects open ‘the day before yesterday’ of the actual action day, where we see a tanker lorry taking off from Intana, Orissa. Immediately after this, we are pushed on to the ‘yesterday’ of the actual action day in which we find Saroja{Vega} the only daughter of Vishwanathan{Prakashraj} a business honcho leaving for school. And finally we are carried on to the actual day where a team of friends: Jagapathibabu{SPBCharan}, Rambabu{Vaibhav Reddy}, Ganesh{PremG} and Ajay{Shiva} consisting of two brothers, start for Hyderabad to see a Cricket match. A summary of what happened next would be- the container is knocked down during the second day of its journey, Saroja gets kidnapped and our heroes take a strange route to Hyderabad. The turned down container is the turning point of the plot which forces heroes to meet the villains. Though the rest may appear like a run of the mill story, Venkat Prabhu has taken pains to make it different to sustain the interest of the audience till the very end.

A ‘Psycho(1960)’ kind of Highway plot, Realistic action, subtle humor, little pathos and a bit of romance and glamour are the elements which constitute this commercial conglomerate. Screenplay and slapstick humor seem to be the biggest forte of Venkat Prabhu. His ability to produce laughter even at the time of disaster prevents this movie from falling short of its target. This movie mercilessly mocks at Teleserials, commercial heroes and kiddish youth. Undoubtedly Satirizing is one of the trademarks of a Venkat Prabhu film.Though most of the scenes in the first half are directly lifted from Judgment Night, Venkat Prabhu’s movie making skills become evident in the way in which he develops the ‘Saroja girl’ plot. The whole cast wonderfully performs what their master has asked them to do. Proper interlinking, good foregrounding and an attractive falling action make this screenplay even better. PremG’s comedy gives the impression of being effective only in his brother’s movies. If Venkat Prabhu is going to be more original in his future projects, he’ll be in the list of top-notch Tamil Directors.

A few in the audience may find it difficult to make out the plot interlinking at least during the exposition. Secondly, the Policemen appearing and living like thugs look a bit odd, though the Director tries to tie the loose strings at the end. Also too many guest appearances slog the progress and diverts the main focus of the film. A very few scenes fail to go in tune with the final effect.

Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score for this film is another breakthrough in film scores after Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu. As an example we could quote the tune which swims through when Rambabu meets Pooja{Kaajal Agarwal} in a romantic flashback. Yuvan’s House and club tunes along with rap and pop here and there when the movie moves in darkness, make this movie a musical treat. Sakthi Saravanan‘s camera has created the perfect screen tone for this movie. But during the rooftop scenes and chasing scenes we feel that the camera is a bit shaky. Praveen KL/Srikanth NB‘s editing is another important aspect to be commended. Venkat Prabhu and his crew deserve a cheerful applause for what they have done. So Saroja is ‘An ordinary day, four ordinary men and an extraordinary Judgment night DVD!’

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