Weekend movies - Sivappathigaaram and Children of Men

Sivappathigaaram - Another telling after-effect of the Shankar era in Tamil cinema. This movie faithfully follows what we have seen in each of Shankar's 4 vigilante movie - series of unlawful incidents committed by the hero, he has another personality to the outer world (in this case, the role of a folk songs researcher), a godfather/ mentor who helps the hero focus his anger (Raghuvaran here, in the place of Nambiyar in Gentleman) , a smart police officer investigating the murders (Charan Raj's role in Gentleman/ Nedumudi Venu's role in Indian) and last but not the least, the flashback which justifies the whole revenge seeking that the hero is going about doing. I didn’t really understand the whole folk song research part in the whole movie. At the end of the movie when we get to know what the movie is all about, I kind of felt cheated bcos the whole researching naattuppura paattu veil that they used was completely unnecessary and took up so much of unnecessary screen-time. Vishal is OK. I am not sure very sure if these are the kind of movies he should be casting himself in. There is a certain inhibition in his dialogue delivery that it makes us uncomfortable when he starts lecturing on naattupura paattu. The less said about the heroine, the better. The articifical romance between her and Vishal just gets on our nerves. Raghuvaran as always does his part well, without going overboard at any point and in addition to the music, is the only saving grace of the movie. The way Vishal goes about killing people is actually very funny. He kills the target in broad day-light with a maximum of 20-30 people around the target. He kills the target with a long knife and then walks off coolly with nobody around the target, not even making an effort to see how the target was killed. The director makes sure that one of the best songs of last year finds a place in one of the worst picturized songs of last year, by doing a horrible job of picturizing the Attrai thingal vaanile song. Vidyasagar need not have toiled so hard to come up with the kind of awesome tunes he ultimately did for a pointless movie like this. Though the film crew need to be appreciated for the way they have captured the Madurai Azhagar festival real-time, I hated it at the same time bcos there was completely no need for doing that in the movie. It is only when you watch half-baked movies like these that you realize the true value of Shankar and why he has attained the position he finds himself in. I really expected a lot from the director who gave us Parthiban Kanavu but the director just proves that this kind of a stereo-typical vigilante movie is not really his forte.

Children of Men - I usually do not write reviews for English movies, simply bcos I can't rant and rave about an English movie like the way I do for a Tamil or Hindi movie. But I decided to write about this movie bcos I simply did not understand the movie and I just wanted to write something about my viewing experience. The director continually keeps you in a sense of confusion during the course of the movie. After coming home from watching the movie, I spent a good 2 hours reading the various reviews from the Rotten Tomatoes site to understand fully what the movie means. The Rotten Tomatoes site had given a 91% overall rating which is why we decided to go to this movie in the first place. The good thing we found out after reading all the reviews was even some of the professional reviewers who write reviews for newspapers and websites, had some of the same questions that I had at the end of the movie. The movie is set in England in the year 2027 when the world is in complete shambles and no woman in the whole word has been able to conceive in the last 18 years. So, the youngest baby in the world is 18 years and few months old. The film starts when this baby is killed in a scuffle with the media. Clive Owen, the hero who used to be a revolutionary before resigning to a mundane life, comes across a girl who has become pregnant and the whole film is about how he takes her across the border of England to the neighboring country bcos the girl who gives birth to the baby does not want to be in England. The whole movie is one big cycle of one confusing sequence after another. Nothing is explained as to why something is happening. For example, there is no reasoning given behind the fact that no woman has been able to conceive in the last 18 years. The director leaves everything to our imagination and lets the task of deciphering to us, bcos there are loads and loads of clues throughout the movie. For example, there is a TV news clip which says that the siege of Seattle enters its 1000th day. But he doesn’t care to explain who exactly is laying siege. Same with a newspaper snippet which talks about nuclear bomb in Africa and no explanation once again on what really happened or even a passing reference to the same. The movie is neither racy nor clear and at the end of it all, just leaves you with more questions than answers. Overall, this movie is not even worth watching it on rented DVD.