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Read the full interview here

The setup is standard rom-com. Exotic location, good-looking people with baggage, a potential threat, lots of drinking—you get it. This is, by all means, a Minimum Effort Movie (MEM), which isn’t interested in delving deep. Laura Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a successful author who has personal turbulence. Her character notes seem to be: Look like JK Rowling, and be perpetually annoyed. She meets Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth), a private equity employee. His character notes seem to be: Look like Liam Hemsworth and speak a lot of corporate jargon. In the first ten minutes, we guess the entire story. Like any self-respecting MEM, the film moves swiftly from one situation to another, as if in a hurry to be done with. There is ample space for character exploration; there are many scenes that, had they been written better, are relationship drama gold. But they are just touched upon. For instance, when Owen feels out of place because others are talking about something unfamiliar, we aren’t shown what they talk about. That gets muted, because that would make this a Somewhat Effort Movie. But because of this, it becomes difficult to understand how Owen exactly feels, which will go on to impact his later decisions.

In a film happy to be surface-level, we wouldn’t ask these questions. But Lonely Planet keeps giving its characters many dimensions, only to move to the next plot point. Why does Katherine, who hates to be around people so much, give in to Owen? There’s a line that goes something like “I like you and feel good with you,” but is it enough to just ‘like’ someone you’ve just met for you to give up on your current life? Why are the various flaws and hypocrisy in these characters barely explored? Why not spend, say, thirty minutes more (the film runs for 96 minutes) and give them scenes showing how they got from point A to B instead of just showing them at points A and B? Once again, we wouldn’t ask these questions in a film that just wants to give us a good evening’s time. But Lonely Planet seems so low key, so utterly real with its characters, that it ends up being neither fantastical nor realistic. It lingers somewhere in the “pleasantly watchable, makes you want to travel and meet new people” zone. That might not be great for the viewer, but hey, it is great for Morocco tourism.

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In concept, this is a brilliant idea. Externally, Abdul Kalam is everything Praba wants to be, he even has a sticker of Abdul Kalam in his auto. But internally, Kalam represents everything Praba has misunderstood about life: that simple things don't matter, that everything needs to have a big purpose and meaning. A man from the 1940s landing in 2023 lends ample opportunities for not only social commentary but also comedy. For instance, when the teenage Kalam (Naga Vishal) gets to meet his friend (Kathadi Ramamurthy) in 2023, he exclaims, "Dei Shastri!!" at who is now an old man. And what's the reason Kalam gets transported to the present day? The reason is both silly and sweet at the same time: Does it have to be a matter of national security, or can it just be a small personal motive?

However, these ideas are not explored to their full potential. The smaller issue is the pace. Rocket Driver unfolds so leisurely, it could make Meiyazhagan look like a Hari film. But that's really okay, in the midst of all the adrenaline pumping, hyper violent films that have been ruling the roost. The bigger issue is the lack of drama. It seems like a missed opportunity when you bring back such a prominent figure and do so little with him. Kalam for the most part is highly clueless and quiet, which is rather perplexing for a future scientist who landed in a timeline 75 years later. Does he not want to at least know what happens in the future, or actively figure out a way to go back to his home? The middle portions of the film are emotionless and stale, with the overbearing background music desperately trying to make things interesting. Vishvath has a perpetually irritated expression that goes well with his character, and Sunainaa as his friend has a comforting presence, although I wish she had been given much more to do. There are a bunch of good laughs that land organically. I laughed out loud at a scene where, in an attempt to take Kalam back in time, Praba boards a bus to Rameshwaram with him and forces him to sleep. But the fun quotient in scenes like these doesn't get fully translated to the screen. In other words, we can see the potential here waiting to burst out, but what we end up getting is rather a leakage of this potential. Rocket Driver doesn't try to say or do much. This is a very simple story, and rightly so, in tune with its overall message. Not all films need to burst with energy and events, but when you have a rocket, why just nudge it instead of drive?

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Udhayam theatre has four screens, namely, Udhayam, Chandran, Suriyan, and Mini Udhayam. From the '80s up to the 2010s, it was particularly seen as a fortress for big stars during the release dates of their films. The theatre held strong during the rise of multiplex and mall viewings, providing an affordable option for viewers. In recent years, it has witnessed its surroundings change—particularly with the construction of a Metro station opposite to it—but has itself stayed relatively unchanged with respect to its offerings. Spread across 1.3 acres of land, the complex has a combined seating capacity of 750 people.

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The audio descriptions feature will be delivered through the Moviebuff Access application and will be available in theatres that have the required setup. A list of such theatres is expected to be released shortly. "We're hoping that the audio description service will get more visibility through this, given it is a big release. In the coming months, we plan to integrate the technology in many theatres across the state." The closed captions feature will be available in theatres that choose to opt for the same. "The plan is to build a device for this purpose sometime in the future," says Rabhinder.

Recently, the Hindi film Srikanth, starring Rajkummar Rao, released with audio descriptions through the XL Cinema application. Earlier in March, the Delhi High Court ordered the Centre to notify the guidelines to make films more accessible to hearing and visually impaired people. The order had come following a petition filed by four people with visual and hearing impairments. In January, the ministry of information and broadcasting had proposed that film producers submit a version of their films that has accessibility features like captioning, sign language interpretation, or audio descriptions to the Central Board of Film Certification.

The edited version of this can be read here

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If you’re someone who feels films that deliver lessons are good films, then Dhirav’s Dopamine @2.22 is probably your cup of tea. The film speaks about the impact that dopamine-seeking, particularly through smartphone usage, has on the mental state of humans today. There’s preaching in all forms you can think of. Dialogue-based preaching? Check. Visual preaching? Check. Voiceover preaching? Check twice: there is preaching through narration, and there is preaching through a radio. Why, even the background music preaches us that Madhusudhanan (played by the director himself) is doing something wrong when he is scamming his friends.

And the social messaging in Dopamine @2.22 isn’t restricted to talking about just one form of smartphone content consumption. We’re shown the harmful effects of online rummy, pornography, influencer craze, and addictive gaming. Within a short runtime of just 91 minutes, it’s very hard to convey so many things, especially when you have a murder mystery thriller with multiple characters running in the background. 

And that is the biggest issue with Dopamine @2.22—the thriller portions have some truly interesting ideas, but it seems to be the film’s lesser priority. There are intercut scenes between the numerous threads, and some of them last for mere seconds. In a film where you are not invested in the characters, this can be jarring. But here, it actually lends a sense of anticipation and continuity. And this is largely because of the characters being people you meet in your everyday life. The performances by Nikhila Sankar, Vibitha Thekkepat, and Sathya are particularly good - it helps that despite small brushes, these characters have some dimension to them. This makes it easy to root for them. 

However, these ideas aren’t extrapolated enough to result in a convincing end outcome. There are some rather confusing filmmaking choices at work. Characters going through the same motions are repetitively shown, leading to exhaustion. While some characters are life-sized, others seem to be more like exaggerated ideas to showcase social media addiction. Character reveals with animated effects happen not in their first scene but somewhere down the line, sometimes in scenes that don’t even focus on them. A whole parallel thread about a missing girl is handled lethargically, with an end reveal that seems force-fitted just because it falls under the same theme as the plot. The easy option of Amma sentiment is utilised to hammer down the message. And when will our filmmakers realise that it's better to not have humour than to insert some unfunny lines just for the sake of it? Decisions like these never let the potential in Dopamine @2.22 get exploited. But perhaps the film isn’t interested in that either; it seems happy with being the movie-equivalent of a social studies lecture.

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Rez Ball, based on a type of basketball, begins promisingly. We meet two, not one, underdogs, Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt) and Nataanii Jackson (Kusem Goodwind). Fortunately, they are pretty supportive and sensitive to each other instead of just going at each other. The film doesn't go to the typical places Hollywood usually does, showing teenagers as spoilt brats who mumble mean stuff to each other. These two have a tender relationship, and through a scene in the basketball court, we understand how they operate in synergy. The game sequences are shot beautifully. We buy the moves and the throws, particularly through camera movements that traverse through almost frozen players. There’s more than enough conflict established to keep us intrigued. Jimmy has issues with his mother (Julia Jones), Nataanii has had a familial tragedy, their coach (Jessica Matten) is going through a breakup, and so on.

Director: Sydney Freeland
Cast: Kauchani Bratt, Jessica Matten, Julia Jones, Kusem Goodwind, Zoey Reyes

What happens when a tragedy strikes Holiday and his basketball team, Chuska Warriors, a Native American team, forms the basic plotline of Rez Ball. The way the news of this tragedy gets unveiled is brilliant. And it occurs at a great timing for the film, at around 25 minutes into the 110-minute runtime. The rest of the film is about how this tragedy is overcome, and unfortunately, it is as formulaic as it can get. 

All the tropes mentioned earlier are present, and they take place exactly as and when you expect them to. But how much these films play with these tropes and how well they make us feel for the players decides the overall experience of them. Rez Ball turns flat and generic after a point. We almost never see the aftermath of the tragedy seeping into the characters, except for some throwaway lines. What makes this team tick and why they deserve to win aren’t explored. The multiple conflict points established aren’t fully realised. And the dialogues get more and more generic. (“A great player is one who makes others play better,"  “The higher you go, the greater you fall.”) Perhaps the film is aware of this: at one point, it just skips to the ninth straight loss of the team. When a character changes their mind at the end, the film doesn’t bother to explain. The reason seems to be: You know these things happen to people in a sports drama, right?

At other points, the film seems hell bent on making itself resort to tropes. The other players in the team seem pretty cordial with each other at the beginning, but they suddenly turn mean and hurl abuses. The screenplay seems to be asking us: How else will you go to the scene where they need to first work together as a team and not as individuals, and the scene where the egos between two characters get resolved? There’s a great conceit about the players using their native language to their advantage, but it doesn’t come back until the last scene. The rest of the players, apart from Jimmy and Nataanii, have nothing going for them other than 'guy who is a social media addict’ or ‘guy who is at loggerheads with Jimmy.’

However, despite being formulaic, this is thankfully a winning formula. Even with these issues, as the film tags along one template scene after another, we still root. Maybe it is the satisfaction of seeing an underdog win. Or maybe it is the joy of watching well-choreographed sports scenes. When the climax takes place, you can’t help but feel happy and hopeful. But isn’t that a minimum expectation? When you have a set up with so much potential, it feels like a letdown. Why run when you could have flown?

Read the edited version of this review here

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Yudhra, however, is a mess in terms of writing. A long character set-up for Yudhra (Siddhant Chaturvedi), a man who can’t help but get mad, should have led to moments where we feel terrified of his ability to easily lose his cool. Moments where, because of his temper, Yudhra makes a hasty decision. Looking at him, his part-father figure Rehman Siddiqui (Ram Kapoor) says, “Inko khatron se khelna pasand hai.” However, after some time into the first half, this trait is barely existent—the man in fact seems pretty calculative and well-planned. 

In a larger-than-life actioner, logic doesn’t really matter all that much if the characters and their actions are convincing; it wouldn’t matter if the hero has the secret ability to flap his wings and fly. However, some of the writing decisions in Yudhra (and by Yudhra) just don’t make sense. Why travel to Portugal to save a girl from the bad guys, only to just let her travel alone? Of all the ways to assassinate a dreaded don who has been escaping people for years, why come up with the done-to-death plan of killing him when he is partying on a cruise? Why not write scenes that show how much the characters mean to each other rather than just having random lines like “Today is dad’s birthday, I really miss him?” The latter point might not apply to a slick, no-nonsense actioner, but Yudhra wants to be so much more.

There are parts that work well. Despite quick cutaways, the action set pieces have vigour and some good imagination. A sewing machine used to stitch the hands of a goon together so that he always looks like he is pleading. A flute getting pierced into a throat and making sounds when the person chokes. These are well thought-through, and they have a sense of slickness that is missing in the rest of the film. The dialogues, by Farhan Akhtar, make the scenes play out more interesting than they actually are. When Rehman tells Yudhra that his dad had an anger issue too, he remarks, “Will the judge give me a shorter term if we tell I have a genetic problem?” The background score, by Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara, is perfectly sinister. And the cinematography by Jay Pinak Oza is sensational. There is a deep, saturated tone throughout that lends more intensity to the scenes than the characters themselves do.

The other big issue, apart from the writing, are the performances. Siddhant Chaturvedi is well-cast in the sense that he looks the part, but he needed to have inflicted Yudhra with much more insanity. Without imbibing a maniac-like treatment to Yudhra, the character honestly comes across as a prick, being purposefully rude to people (until miraculously changing into a good guy later, because, well, he is the hero). Raghav Juyal needed to have been given way more than ‘wears colourful clothes.’ The rest of the actors are all equally flat, with no chemistry between one another. 

In the end, Yudhra feels like a missed opportunity. It struggles to find a footing, lingering in the 'somewhat entertaining’ zone. Two terribly placed songs, an unnecessarily stretched romantic angle, needless jumps from one location to another - it all ends up half baked. I left the theatre wishing they had much more of the action portions. Or should I say, Kill Chahta Hai?

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Excerpts:

How is a streaming release different from a theatrical release?

Udhaya: It is more comfortable. Box office success has become reliant on word-of-mouth, but with streaming, the content is more accessible to people of all ages, making it easier to take to the audience.

Pandi and Kishore, you were barely teens when Pasanga was released, and you were a bit older during Goli Soda. Now, you're in your late twenties. How have you evolved during these years?

Kishore: With Pasanga, we just did what we were told; we didn't have much understanding. Our learning started after Goli Soda when we started being seen as serious actors. Now, we've started to ask questions about our characterisation, art, and screenplay, and this has actually increased the makers' trust in us. There is still a long way to go.

Read the full interview here

To his credit, Saulnier, except for brief moments, keeps Terry as the victim and not the saviour. Terry might be way stronger and smarter than the people who are ill-treating him, but he is still a common man, a black man in a predominantly white village. Even the extras in a courthouse scene are White, showing the sheer claustrophobia someone in Terry’s place could feel. Terry’s outrage is, for the most part, simmering rather than bursting. He is unbelievably patient and restrained, and his stand-off scenes with the corrupt police chief (Don Johnson), who keeps increasingly triggering him, are outraging to watch (I kept thinking of the Black Lives Matter movement while watching Rebel Ridge). And Pierre is excellent. It is a well-realised performance that brings out the exasperation of getting stuck in a hopeless system.

Hopelessness is a constant undertone here, and the theme of ‘unfair treatment’ is reverberated throughout the plot. It is not just Terry who is a victim of corruption and loopholes in the legal system. AnnaSophia Robb’s Summer, a struggling court employee who takes pity on Terry, is undergoing her own systemic issues. Zsané Jhé plays a black police officer, and her character gets several great moments where she seems to sympathise with Terry but is also on the other side of the proceedings. Jhé’s performance, like the rest of the cast’s, is perfectly measured.

The only gripe in this otherwise meticulous film is the half-baked handling of Terry’s relationship with his cousin. The relationship is how the plot kicks off, and we barely get to know what these two mean to each other. This creates a sense of distance to Terry’s plight, making some of the emotional scenes rather distant. The idea might have been to create an overall cold atmosphere, but had there been a few scenes where we understand the love Terry has for his cousin, it would have made things more impactful.

There is a constant sense of uneasiness, a sense of worry about Terry getting into more troubling situations. We keep feeling “Just kill them, and leave this place!” David Gallego’s cinematography plays a big role in creating suspense, with slowly moving and carefully revealing camera movements. 

Rebel Ridge feels refreshing during a time where films are becoming more and more focussed toward creating high points. Even the big action scenes are understated - why linger on violence when there are greater horrors happening? The writing is clean and calculated, and the film demands your attention. Apart from a few one-liners, the treatment is dead serious. And the ending makes us think. The day might be saved, but what of the country?  

Originally Published for The New Indian Express

With the release of his latest film, The Greatest of All Time (GOAT), here is a list of seven of his best dance performances. Songs are in order of year of release.

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Read the full interview here

Read the full interview here

Read the full interview here

Read full interview here

However, their spirited performances are hampered by a screenplay that is a total mess. The suspenseful moments are all shown beforehand, and the reveal about the villain comes way too late into the narrative. There are long portions of the first half that have no bearing on the plot. None of the character motives are established well, and none of their actions seem to make sense. An auto driver leaves his family to accompany a stranger on the run. Five minutes into meeting her, he pledges to save her with his life. The screenplay’s explanation seems to be: He’s a helpful man. A character delays a crucial explanation to two people he’s hosting and instead behaves rather suspiciously with them. The screenplay’s explanation seems to be: He’s a mysterious man. Instead of organically uncovering the threads of the mystery, the film abruptly jumps from one hypercut scene to another, and it's very hard to get into the proceedings. None of the moments are allowed to linger, and none of the emotions are established. Fast-paced thrillers are fun, yes, but without having anything to hang on to, what are we supposed to be invested in?

Adding to this, in what is probably an attempt to make things more racy, we get a background score that is relentless, loud, and haphazard. Every second of the 125-minute runtime is underlined by deafening music, without a single breather. There is a line in the film that goes something like, “You should be tired now; you need rest.” Well.

There are some gripping moments. There’s an action segment in the second half that springs a surprise in the way it is set up. A sequence in the end, albeit campily staged, has good production design in an 80s-style villains-den manner. Some of the action, despite being typical one-versus-many fights, is choreographed well. And the camera maintains a cool, saturated tone that looks good on screen. But these don’t do enough to save the hastily-put-together film where there are more questions than answers. What was the point of giving Aju Varghese’s character so much screen time in the start, given he doesn’t even appear later on? What is the reason behind giving Gireesh Neyyar so much ‘good samaritan’ backstory, other than him being the film’s producer? Did nobody in the crew point out that Kathipara Junction in Chennai is not in a hill station? Why not introduce the concepts related to Arjun’s audience-looking speech earlier on instead of abruptly introducing the themes in the climax? There is a line in the film that goes something like, “There is no other case more confusing than this.” There are few lines that are truer.

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The not-so-good news is that Saala makes very little use of this setup. We’re parallely introduced to Punitha (Reshma Venkatesh, in her debut as well), an anti-alcohol activist, and we spend a lot of time seeing her speak about the ills of drinking. There’s evidently a great deal of research that has gone into Saala and Punitha, but this research doesn’t come out organically. Writing a social activist character is never easy, and most of Punitha’s dialogues are either data points or advice to others (Reshma herself, though, plays the part with conviction, bringing a sense of sincerity to Punitha).

These two tracks never come together coherently, and instead, we get a lot of jokes and mass moments. I understand the need to commercialise a serious story to take it to a large audience. But the jokes are mostly based on someone’s physical appearance, and the mass moments with Saala don’t really fit in well with the narrative, especially since he seems almost like a side character in the proceedings. Saala, the film, needed to have given way more screen time to Saala, the protagonist. We are shown acts of kindness and magnanimity from him, but it's difficult to understand why he does these things and how it makes him feel. There is little personality or dimension that he gets, and as a result, the emotions don't hit when stakes get high. 

There are many surprising moments, such as what happens to three teenagers who fantasise about getting their hands on alcohol, or how we get to see the moment an accident takes place. Manipaul shows great potential in staging these unexpected splurts of shock. There’s also an amusingly good level of detailing given to a lot of events, like a bar owner sprinkling beer on its floor during its opening ceremony (after all, it is his sacred water), or the way a murder is planned. But these interesting ideas are always bogged down by scenes about how alcohol is harmful in every way. 

The film loses momentum in its second half. We get big educational speeches and unnecessarily long scenes, and the gang war is never explored to its full potential. We get extremely graphic visuals to hammer down the message (what passes for a U/A rating with the Censor Board seems bafflingly unclear with every passing week). The impact of a tragedy becomes more shocking than saddening, since the emotional threads aren’t convincingly established. And perhaps the makers wanted to avoid camera-facing preaching, but what we end up getting is still very direct, on-the-face messaging.

The intention is appreciable, and there’s always something intriguing going on. But the film needed to have been more tightly knit. Saala is still very watchable and truly thought-provoking at times. I just wish it had been fiercer and more focused. 

Read an edited version of the review here