It’s not often that a regular moviegoer has the luxury of watching two wonderful back to back movies over the weekend. This rare goody was delivered last weekend in the form of “Thani Oruvan” in Tamil and “Rangitaranga” in Kannada. The only link between both the movies was the thriller genre. It took two directors of diverse talent and experience to deliver a knock out movie. If Raja had miles of experience but was weighed by expectations to deliver an “Original” movie, Anup Bhandari is the newest talent in the Kannada film industry to surprise the audience all over with his debut movie.
“Thani Oruvan” sticks faithfully to its simple story line that is wonderfully interjected with twists and turns and delivers a tight screenplay providing the viewers with edge of the seat experience. Raja comes out with a solid script that surprisingly disowns all the ingredients of a typical action masala film and stays in tune with the story. The characters are etched very thoughtfully and Arvindsami is cool as a suave villain. Jeyam Ravi is honest in his portrayal and others support the lead cast wonderfully well. The only sore point being the music and the rest behind the scene do their job ably. “Thani Oruvan” is certainly much better than most of the overly hyped action entertainers that the Tamil film Industry churned out in the past few years.
“Rangitaranga”, the biggest surprise was to have a title that denoted colors but lacked a proper meaning, and this was just the beginning. Anup skillfully weaves two stories into one script and comes out with a fairly engrossing screenplay. Though the lead actors could have performed much better it’s the support cast who hog the limelight. Special credit is due to the amusing “Rafiq” driver in the movie. The movie moves at a leisurely pace providing intermittent spooks. There are phases in the screenplay where you find the scenes a little lethargic, especially a few scenes of forced humor and yet it’s the cinematographer who masks them with his visual brilliance. The locales are the biggest plus for the movie and are amazingly shot. The intention of the director to set a murder mystery in a rural setting deserves special applause. The nativity of the locale provides the viewers renewed vigor. The music in the movie, songs as well as the bgm is splendid. “Rangitaranga” is novel in its approach and is a movie of myriad colors that is definitely worth a watch.
