This Pongal saw four new releases with each and every movie, carrying its own expectation and its own genre.
Rajini Murugan - Nambi Vaanga Santhosama Ponga, wasn't a lie.
After a long delay, Rajini Murugan has hit the screens this Pongal. SiKa back with his VVS team, which was a huge hit, has again come up with another movie on a similar line with some few added elements.
The story is nothing new, SiKa stalks his "Murai Ponnu" till she says yes and then makes his father accept him after a misunderstanding between the two families. Just to make the ball rolling Samuthrakani character was added or else this would have been ended as a remake of VVS itself.
This one works as well as VVS. It was good to see SiKa and Soori chemistry works well. It's been a while since people laughed for Soori's comedy in theater and this film is an exception. SiKa's really improving in his acting skills and he really impresses in few scenes. Rajkiran does his part well as SiKa's grandfather and Samutharakani scores well as a villain. And, Keerthy Suresh looks prettier than Idhu Enna Mayam, but the Madurai slang didn't suit her very well.
Imman once again comes up with his stock and simple tunes which works really well given the context of the movie. Balasubramaniam's cinematography made sure the film looks colorful.
Rajini Murugan offers nothing new; every scene is to woo the audience and Ponram has played it safe by knowing their strengths, but it works big time thanks to SiKa. He doesn't want to make any scene serious so he made sure he finishes it with a comedy at the end of any serious scene.
My Rating 3.5/5.0. For entertaining.
Kathakali - A little more practice needed for this kind of a dance Pandiraj.
Here we go, another Vishal movie within a short span of time and another Pandiraj film within a few weeks after his Pasanga 2.
The first half was mostly boring with very few laughs here and there and Vishal as an American return doesn't work at all. It was as good as Vimal playing an IITian. And, the dialogues were very worst, they keep repeating the dialogues at least twice within a scene. Pandiraj has written the second half first and decides to just fill the first half with some mandatory opening song, romance, duet I guess.
The story is, villain gets murdered and everyone thinks it was Vishal or his brother, so he is out there to prove he is innocent. So, the film picks up in the second half. And, kudos to Pandiraj for keeping the running length to two hours and also avoiding songs in the second half (total film has just two songs). And, second half was really engaging which makes this film a decent thriller than Payum Puli.
Vishal is on his league in the second half, with enough mass moments that Selfie scene was one example. Catherine Teresa looks pretty, but she didn't have much job to do here especially in the second half, those scenes were fitted in the trailer itself. The Policeman as a Villain is a good casting. And, Hiphop Thamizha's BGM towards the end was perfect for the film.
So overall Kathakali was a decent thriller, but again this film looked like hurried, didn't do much work on the script.
My Rating - 3.0/5.0. For its running length, second half and for keeping just two songs.
Gethu - Only in the name.
So Udhay decides enough is enough with stalking Nayantara, Hansika with help of Santhanam and decides to get into action mode here.
The movie starts with Vikranth getting an assignment to kill one scientist and he does some elaborate plan. Somehow, Udhay and his father Satyaraj gets involved in the middle of this mess and as usual the hero beats villain at the end.
The first half again was nothing here, the songs placement are the worst I have seen in recent times. For example, the Thillu Mullu song comes out of nowhere and we must believe it was Amy's dream song, but the lyrics were Udhay "kenjyfying" the lady to love him. I think the lyricist decides the situation must be Udhay stalking the heroine as usual and written the whole song.
Udhay still needs a lot of improvement to convince himself as an action hero. Vikranth was good, but a slow motion for every scene with Harris's BGM was really overdone. Even though the film runs less than two hours it has some three to four songs, which means nearly 15 minutes are filled here, which was really a lazy writing from the director.
The director knows to present the visual very pleasing, the whole movie happens in Kumizhi which was an excellent location and the only positive thing in the movie.
The one liner of this movie is good, but the director fails to make it into an engaging thriller. But, kudos to Udhay for trying something new rather than stalk-a-girl-with-Santhanam-
My Rating - 2.5 / 5.0. For excellent visuals.
