Weekend movies - Thalainagaram and Fanaa

Thalainagaram - Pathetic movie. I still don’t get it, what made the director to cast Sundar. C as the hero. He has a completely wooden face and remains expression-less for most parts of the film. And when he does try to show expressions of some sort, you wish he had remained expressionless. He hardly talked during the entire length of the movie. There was no voice modulation whatsoever. What was most irritating to me was the fact that the director has shamelessly copied some scenes from Company (the one item number and the killing by using a lorry to smash the car). It was like Deva copying those background pieces from Titanic for Priyamudan. Imaam's music was another major irritant. Though the song "Yedho ninaikkiren" seems to have become a huge hit in India, I didn’t like it all that much. It was a typical S. A. Raj Kumar style of tune with a horrible selection of the male singer. Vadivel's comedy made me laugh at times but the times he irritated me was more than those few moments when I laughed at his comedy. It looked like a take-off on the Winner comedy and so looked repetitive. The heroine was OK. Prakashraj & his character were both big-time annoyances. His reasoning to ask Sundar to come back to rowdyism is very silly. The only character I liked in the whole movie was the guy who acted as Sundar's friend. Really don’t know what else to say about the movie. You wouldn’t lose anything by missing this movie. The director probably cast Sundar C as the hero of the movie to pay tribute to his mentor (looks like he was an assistant director under him). But may be the director should have tried something else instead – made a better movie, than just casting his mentor as the hero.

Fanaa - Finally managed to get hold the DVD of the movie as there was a dog fight at the local Indian store to get the DVD of the movie. Well, what should I say apart from the fact that Aamir could have well avoided this movie. Its not that the movie is very bad but it certainly did not need someone like Aamir. What started off as a compelling & captivating love story between Kajol & Aamir, turns into this absurd patriotic-cum-emotional movie, post interval. Coincidence and serendipity - these are 2 things which any film should try to keep it to a bare minimum or better still, try to avoid it. The moment they start having more of these, they tend to look absurd. That is one reason why Anbe Sivam, inspite of all its noble intentions, in my view is not a classic - the whole Kamal accidentally meeting Madhavan who is engaged to Kiran, who in turn happens to be Kamal's ex-girlfriend. That’s coincidence for you. And that’s what makes Fanaa look bad in our eyes. The director has based the whole movie on happenings which occur coincidentally. On top of that, we have this really badly executed terrorist sequences & scenes. Narrowing down the whole plot to a small electronic part is how as childish as it can get. Kunal Kohli needs a lesson about the basics of making such movies with patriotic undertones from one Mr. Farhan Akhtar.

There definitely were some highlights in the movie. Of course, as almost everyone has written, you can watch the movie for just one person - Kajol. She turns in a really fine performance. She is still the same gorgeous Kajol that we saw in DDLJ, though the fact that age has caught up with her is visible in some scenes, plus a few extra pounds which is only to be expected. It is amazing to see how she has kept herself up in good shape, even after delivering a baby. Aamir was his usual self. No complaints on his front. Very natural acting and an apt performance. To me, the biggest irritation of the movie was Tabu. I still don’t understand what in the world made Kunal Kohli to cast her as the intelligence officer. She was a mis-fit, to put it very mildly. Some of the worst scenes in the movie were the ones involving the army unit which probes the disappearance of the trigger. Well, a Fanaa review would be incomplete without a mention of the Chand Sifaarish song. It is one of those rare songs which you fall in love the moment the song starts. Its not like you have to even wait till you hear it completely. And the way the scenes leading up to the song have been shaped with the Subaan allah rendering in the background, is all well done. It teases you to no ends and then finally when we are starved enough for the song, we end up seeing the song of the movie. Aamri’s subtle & simple steps in the song were very neatly done. Couple of other songs (Mere haath mein and Dekho na) are very melodious too. Salim Sulaiman have done a decent job with the background score. Bottomline - Watchable once for Kajol & Ravi K Chandran & for this shayari:

Tere Dile mein meri saanson ko panah mil jaaye

Tere Ishq mein meri Jaan Fanaa Ho jaaye