Rajapattai

Rajapattai the Chiyaan Dr. Vikram starrer has Deeksha Seth as the pair. This venture is produced by PVP cinemas' Prasad.V.Potruli. This is the fourth film of the successful director Suseendran. Music composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and Cinematography by Madhie. The movie has other actors like Veteran K. Vishwanath , National Award winner Thambi Ramaiah and Pradeep Rawat all playing some important roles.

Rajapattai is a commercial action flick dealing up on the land mafia cases. Vikram plays a Gym Boy role who acts as one in ten hench men in movies. Deeksha seth comes as a charming young girl who lives opposite in a hostel. The movie starts off portraying the villainish acts of a group of people indulging in land mafia in the name of "akka's" hench men. In one such incident, Vishwanath is chased by rowdies and Vikram saves him. He then asks Vishwanath his stories and finds out that it is his son who sent in people to grab his father to sell his orphanage to "akka" (a political person) and this is because he could get an MLA seat if the deal goes off well. Vikram then takes him to his place and make him stay in his mansion along with his fellow colleagues. Vishwanath then finds out that Vikram is in love with Deeksha Seth and gives Vikram ideas to succeed and later in the movie it works out. Deeksha Seth is then silenced in the movie except for a couple of songs. Meanwhile, Vishwanath's son keeps searching for his father all over the city. At one point of time, Vishwanath misunderstands that Vikram has given him shelter for his own selfish need and goes back to his son who acts as a good boy to his father. Vishwanath then gets cheated and the orphanage gets registered to "akka". This is when Vishwanath realised that he had mis understood Vikram. Later they also find out that "akka" ditched Vishwanath's son and puts him in jail and the orphanage is demolished. Vikram then through sources gets to know that there is someone named "vapa" who is the pinami of "akka". Vikram and group catch hold of him and torture him for the truth. Finally he gives a testimony against "akka" and he also goes to jail. As the case goes strongly against "akka", she sets up police men to make "vapa" commit suicide just to destroy the evidence against her. Yet at the hearing in the court, the judgement goes against her and the judgement stated that all the lands which she had grabbed to be given back to the people and keep her in remand for 15 days. When she is brought out of the court, one person among the public comes out with a knife and stabs her. He is just a person whose son was murdered by "akka's" hench men.The movie is over and that is what people think. But the most important part of the movie is here. The peppy number "Laddu Laddu" sung by Chiyaan Dr. Vikram is placed right at the end of the movie.

The screen play dragged big time and there is nothing new in the movie. It looked like a mixture of Kanthaswamy, Bheema and Pori. All being flops makes this one too a "not-well-made" movie. Suseendran's previous projects were of different genre and this is the first time he has entered to direct a commercial one. Vikram performed well as a hero and the stunt sequences were good for him. His peppy new look might just be a trend setter for his fans. Deeksha Seth just comes as Vikram's sweet heart and is absolutely charming. Vishwanath and Thambi Ramaiah together and separately had some comedy sequences and none proved to be a laugh riot but just brought in a couple of smiles. Vishwanath also performed well as a supporting actor. The "akka" in the movie was supposed to be a super hit like "Dhool Swarna akka" but tremendously failed as this "akka" looks like the one who comes as the wife of a 40 year old man in the life insurance advertisements. The songs weren't too good and too bad either. The director must have thought that the audience would sit back and watch the "laddu laddu" song at the end of the movie but it was the opposite, where people rushed out of the theater due to the bad experience in watching the movie. Yuvan Shankar Raja's copy mania continues where he insanely copied the theme music of "The Pirates of The Carrieban". Cinematography by Madhie should be appreciated especially in the songs and in the action sequences.

Overall, both Suseendran and Vikram have missed their buses.
P.S: The different make-ups which is seen in the movie posters are merely for one song (don't get disappointed)


Bottomline: A commercial Mis-Entertainer!!!
Verdict: Flop
Special message: A good director like Suseendran is always needed for the growth of tamil film industry, he shall thus try out movies of his own genre and style rather than jumping into commercial ones.

Mouna Guru

Mouna Guru is the third movie of Arulnidhi after his Vamsam and Uthayan. Both being not similar in genre, again he has tried a new plot. This time he goes silent in the movie as the name states (Mouna Guru: The Guru of Silence). The movie is directed by a debutant Santha Kumar, music by S.Thaman and produced by Mohana Movie Makers which is Arulnidhi's home production and also the producers of his previous two flicks. The lead roles are played by Arulnidhi and Iniya and the support roles by John Vijay, Uma Riyaz and many more.

The movie's plot is around a road accident which is converted into a murder for a huge ransom which is at  the back of the car that met with the accident. On the other side Arulnidhi is a lone seeker, silent and a studious student who lives with his mother in a village far off the city. He beats a cop for the cop's mistake and is thus terminated from the college. His mother then makes a decision to take him to the city where her another son lives and make him pursue is studies there. Now here comes the attraction part: The lead lady Iniya is the sister of Arulnidhi's brother's wife who live along with them for her medical studies. Meanwhile the accident took place in the other part of the city and the ransom was taken by 4 cops and one among them being John Vijay who murders the car driver. He then after a couple of days speaks to his murder colleagues about the issues probable to happen at his home which his harlot shoots it in the camera without his knowledge. The camera then goes missing and is in the run. Now the story divides in to various threads. The bad cops hunt for the camera, Arulnidhi on the other side has problems in the college hostel with the students, falls in love with Iniya and Uma Riyaz takes up the accident case and start sniffing the details. All these threads join together at a point where the bad cops think it is Arulnidhi who picked up the camera with the testimony of John Vijay and try to design an encounter on him. He then escapes, comes back to the college, explains it to the college principal making it more serious. The policemen find him again but as a "missing case" was filed as soon as they caught him, they for their own safety make others believe that he is a mentally challenged person and put him in the mental hospital.

The final ride of the roller coaster is with how Arulnidhi escapes from the hospital, frame his own strategies to catch the villains and start back his normal life.

Arulnidhi still lacks good performance in spite of choosing an excellent story. This is Iniya's second venture after Vaagai Sooda Vaa and did not have much to perform. John Vijay was the best performer and suited well even as a serious villain inspite of seeing him as comedy villain in movies like Oram Po, Va and Poi solla Porom. Uma Riyaz was good as a female cop and her role as a pregnant cop is inspired from the hollywwod movie "FARGO" which could have been avoided. The BGM by Thaman is another hero for the movie which gives the thrill to the audience and make them anticipate "What's next?". Cinematography by Mahesh Muthuswami is of average cader and must improve.

Over all Mouna Guru is a thrilling roller-coaster ride with few petite drags and yet makes the audience bite their nails and watch the movie sitting at the edges of their seats. Kudos to the entire team!!

Bottom Line: Excellent debut by the director Santha Kumar
Verdict: Hit (only in the minds of people who watch movies in theaters)
Special Message: If Arulnidhi wants to persist in Kollywood, not just choosing excellent scripts like Mouna Guru would help him but also has to improve his acting skills.

Osthe

Osthe the remake of Salman Khan's dabaang hit the screens on the 8th december of 2011. Silambarasan who was called as Simbhu and right now is STR of the kollywood industry has done the Chulbul Pandey role of Salman Khaan in Osthe as Osthe Velan. Jithan Ramesh after a long time has performed as STR's Step brother in the movie. The commercially hit rock solid director Dharani has directed the film. God-only-knows how beautiful Richa Gangopadhyay is has done sonakshi sinha's role in Osthe. Music by Thaman and cinematography by Gopinath who has worked in a lot of Dharani's Movies.

Not much to say about the movie because it is a scene by scene remake of Dabaang. Personally speaking dabaang did not have much of a story but just had the commercial elements (action sequences and songs). Revathy performed as the mother of  both STR and Ramesh and Vetaran actor Nasser performed as Ramesh's and STR's Father and Step Father respectively. The other actors include Santhaanam, Mayilsami, Thambi Ramaiah, Saranya mohan etc.

Performance wise, STR tried his best to keep up the role of Salman in Dabaang which was a complete failure. The "Tirunelveli" slang never suited him as he still looks like a young lad and a mature role is something too far from him. Jithan Ramesh as usual did his best but cannot be said as justice to his performance. Richa Gangopadhyay was there in the movie I guess!!! because she just comes does some performance which would be like "oh yeah she is also in the movie right?" and that's it and then she disappears till when there is a next duet in the film. She seriously needs acting practice. Santhaanam as usual never disappoints. His comedy always steadies up any movie. He always has showed phenomenal success with STR in the previous movies like Manmathan, Vallavan, Silambattam and Vaanam etc. Nasser and Revathy being the vetaran actors did justice to their roles. Saranya Mohan was there just like that and did not have much to perform. VTV Ganesh and Santhaanam's combination in quite a number of scenes rocked the theaters.

Music by Thaman is feet tapping. Neduvaali, Cute Pondati and Tamilnadu cop thaan songs were one of the biggest hits. The other numbers were still good to hear. Thaman surely has a good future. Cinematography was good as it portrayed the village well and editing was good enough for a commercial movie to seem to move faster. Combining all these factors, Osthe still stands out to move fast and entertain the audience.

Dharani the director of MASS hits like Dhill, Dhool and Ghill seems to have lost his track a bit and Osthe is neither among Dharani's Dhill, Dhool and Ghilli nor his Kuruvi.

Bottom Line: Commercial Mass Entertainer (Unless you do not believe in tamil cinema logics)
Verdict: Hit
Special Message: STR shall stop using Ajith Kumar's image to attract Ajith's fans to his movies.