Weekend movies - Koodal Nagar, SP3 and Nallavanukku Nallavan

Koodal Nagar- There are good movies. There are bad movies. Then, there are "Don't know what to say about" movies. Koodal Nagar unfortunately falls into the last category. You can't definitely discard the movie into an utterly useless movie but it also will never make it to the list of good movies released this year. The problem with such movies is that it makes the viewer disinterested. Even when a movie is abject bad (like say Chennai Kaadhal or Deepavali), I try not to miss a single scene from the movie bcos of the reason that it helps me in bashing the movie here in my blog:) But I did not even bother losing my concentration during a bunch of scenes while watching Koodal Nagar. This one scene in the movie kind of explains what I thought about the movie. The scene where Bhavana is introduced. She is shown as carrying a glass fish tank and Bharath is shown driving his TVS50 on a street. 99% of us would have easily guessed what was going to happen next. Yes, you are right. Bharath collides with Bhavana and the fish tank breaks. But wait, next comes the part of the scene which brings a smile to your lips - Bharath leaves his bike (if you can call that a bike) and sprints somewhere. When he returns, he has a small bowl with water into which he puts the fishes and saves them. That is what the movie actually is - handful of realistic, memorable & gripping scenes amidst a deluge of very predictable and beaten to death scenes.

If there was ever one movie where the songs and the background score could have lifted the movie to watchable heights, then this is it. Srikanth Deva's effort in this movie was simply pathetic. Whenever we watch a movie, we used to maintain a count of the number of scenes that we were able to predict in advance. For example, when it is shown that Bhavana's school principal forgives Bharath after catching him in the balcony of her hostel, myself and my friend correctly predicted the reason behind it even before it was revealed in the movie. That was count 1. Such count for this movie stood at 5 and the more the count, the less favorite it becomes of mine. The performances of all the 3 lead actors were actually very good, though Bharath could have put in some effort to differentiate between his 2 roles. Little bit of advice for the director - just bcos you have shot the movie in Madurai and just bcos you have the Bharath- Sandhya pair in the movie, it does not mean that you are recreating the magic of Kaadhal. One-time watch movie.

Spider man 3- I have never been a fan of super hero movies (except of course, the ultimate superhero - Thalaivar) and so watching SP3 was not on my priority list. But my friends who are big time Spider man fans compelled me to go to the movie and I was not a happy guy when I came out of the theater. When die-hard Spiderman fans could not enjoy the movie, then just imagine my plight. One thing though - going to the movie game me a chance to see in person on the crowd at the theaters on opening night. It was simply unbelievable. All the shows for that day were sold out and people were waiting for close to 2 hours to get into the theater so that they can get some good seats (we weren't that lucky as we had to watch the movie from the 3rd row from the screen). The movie was a big let-down. The movie has everything that we see in a typical masala movie in Tamil, only that the production values are at an altogether different level. The movie even has something we all have seen in Tamil cinema recently - memory loss, which is handled just like getting into and out of your clothes, in this movie. I am someone who do not get awed by the fights in a superhero movie like this bcos you know that each and every single frame is an effect of some CGI work. The other complaint I had with the movie was the lack of not enough action scenes. Action seemed to have taken a backseat with the romance between the lead pair taking the front seat in the movie and needless to say, that was reason enough for me to dislike the movie even more. Unless you are a superhero movie fan, tough to sit through this one.

Nallavanukku Nallavan- I (and millions of Thalaivar fans across the globe) have been waiting to hear from AVM on the official release date of The Boss and then start my countdown to the big day by watching one movie of Thalaivar every single day leading upto the release date. But with no release date announced yet and everybody kept in the dark (it is being said that even Thalaivar does not know when the movie is releasing :)) on when the movie is going to release, I gave my resolution up and started watching Thalaivar movies. This is one movie that I have not watched in the last few years. So, was excited when the local Indian store bought this DVD just last month. Before going into the movie, here are some details about the movie:

Movie release year: Oct 1984
Music: Maestro
Screenplay & Dialog: Visu
Direction: S.P.Muthuraman

Though the movie religiously follows the template that every single Thalaivar movie in the 80s have (an intro fight, then an intro song, a local rowdy who doubles up as the villain, Thalaivar fighting against the corruption affecting the poor, etc), things get a lot interesting in the second half when Thalaivar becomes the father of a teenage daughter. Those sequences were actually very enjoyable. The way how Radhika as the mother prohibits their daughter from going out with her boyfriend (Karthik) and the way how Thalaivar finds some way to get her out & supports their love was all very well done. But once Thalaivar finds who the guy is, we see a different Thalaivar and after a series of some interesting tiffs between them, the film finally ends with a very predictable 80-ish climax. The most popular song in the movie Unnai thaane thanjam endru nambi vandhen song was thankfully picturized in a very pleasing manner. Awesome melody and should easily find its way into the Best of Maestro & Superstar combo - 80s. Thalaivar just looks amazing in that song and he gets even more majestic during the second half when he sports an aged look. Radhika actually turns in a very commendable performance in the movie. She just shows how natural an actor she is, in almost every single scene of the movie. There are numerous Thalaivar movies from the 80s which, even with Thalaivar, a die-hard fan like me can't sit through but this movie is not one. Definitely worth a watch, for Thalaivar & Radhika (she is that good, to include her as one of the reasons).

BTW, this new still from The Boss has silently made its way to a hoarding near the Anna fly-over in Chennai. Wonder why the Sivaji crew did not release this still too along with the set of stills that were released during the audio launch. Dashing is the word that comes to my mind instantly.

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Photo courtesy: Sundar of Rajnifans