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Reviews
Thegidi (2014)
Thegidi..a rare thriller
Thrillers in Tamil cinema are rare pick. Once in a while, we do get to watch movies like 'Yudham sei' and 'Oonayum Attukuttiyum'. But they don't happen often. Hence when I noticed that Thegidi belongs to this league, I wanted to watch it badly.
Thegidi is not a full time thriller. It has a pleasant love thread that beautifully blends with the story without disrupting the flow. It has been ages since love is shown so pleasantly in the screen. Vetri (Ashok) is a fresh graduate of MA criminology, who is offered a job as detective. His first assignment, as mentioned in the movie, is shadowing and surveillance. As part of his job, he follows Madhu (Janani Iyer) to collect report on her activities. He finds her attractive and fells for her, against his job code. It is not the mere love at first sight crap that we are so used to watch in films. The sequence of scenes that makes the pair click together looks so real and refreshing. Hence later when Vetri sense danger lurking around Madhu, the movie turns out to be a mystery ride.
After we are left to soak in the pleasant love for some time, the movie takes a twist. Vetri comes to know that, one by one, the people on whom he collected reports is found dead and next on the list is Madhu, though she has no idea about Vetri's work and the mystery that surrounds him. Vetri thinks he is being used by a gang that involves in the killing and feels guilty for the victims. He, being a brilliant detective, set to figure out 'whodunit'.
In one of the opening sequence, while Vetri was still is college, there is a classroom scene that vouch for Vetri's watchfulness. It makes us more interested on Vetri's character. But his initial vigilant activities, when he collected reports is unfortunately, not maintained throughout the movie. His talent is restrained to just flash the torch lights in wrong moments, instead of some quick witted moves of a detective.
The crux of a detective film lies in the fact that how well it carries the suspense till the end. Thegidi does it well till the intermission. When we are shown the partial killers much before than we expected it to be shown, the movie dissolves the tension it managed to hold till then. Of course there are enough elements that keep us engaged till the end, but they are not gripping as the first half.
Take for instance, the role of the inspector played by Jayaprakash. He is merely used to walk around the crime scene with Vetri. His character lacks the importance and his acting is simply wasted. The final scene, when he let Vetri walk to meet the possible murderer with no plan is simply too hard to believe. But these flaws seem very minor in front of the overall impact this movie imparts.
At the end, the movie hints a possible sequel to this story and it might provide clarity on some of the unclear mysteries like why Madhu was on the list, the final felon behind all this.
Philomena (2013)
A warm story on nobleness
Martin Sixsmith (Steven Coogan) says his wife, in front of a Church that he doesn't believe in God and the next scene we see Philomena (Judi Dench) lighting candles in God's altar. This distinctive scene gives us a glimpse of the kind of contrasting characters that we are going to see in the rest of the movie. The movie 'Philomena' preaches the nobleness of compassion, redemption and forgiveness through two juxtaposing characters that have different ideologies and principles. Philomena conceives a baby which is considered as a sin by the Convent where she is an inmate. The nuns let her son to be adopted by an American Family. Almost 50 years later, Philomena set out to find her long lost son. It is a story about a mother's quest to find his son with a help of a Journalist. Judi Dench as Philomena brings out the emotions of a mourning mother. Her character stays strong even after the movie ends. Steven Coogan is the typical journo with idealistic notions. While Philomena wants to atone for his lost son, Martin wants to publish this story to get some credit as a journalist. This personal interest from both the ends drives the duo for the long journey. What seemed to have begun with a personal interest, slowly melts on the way and at the end they both care each other for their interest. The duo complements this warm story with fine acting. The editing that was crisp till Philomena finds the destiny of her son, but loose tracks towards the end. So we are bestowed with the dragging feeling. The scenes where Philomena recollects her son were showed in a homemade video mode. It is quite distinctive and adds poignancy to the flashbacks.
Though Philomena character is shown as soft-hearted, at the end when she forgives everything just like that is too hard to convince me. The movie is more about a human who possess supreme noble qualities. Thus being said, in the final scene when we should be so stunned and bowled over by the protagonist for her virtuousness, we get the feeling, Is that all?
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American Hustle (2013)
All in Hustle
American Hustle is the second movie since 1981 being nominated in the four acting categories of Oscar. The nominations are for Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence. This super start cast might pique interest in anyone even if they remotely belong to the world of movies. And no wonder, this stardom tricked me into it.
This supposedly comedy drama offers very little comedy and one might wonder why this movie is tagged to the word 'Comedy' in all the reviews. Those handful funny moments comes via Jennifer Lawrence as Rosalyn Rosenfeld, an unstable wife of Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale). She is the only saving grace of the movie. However, even her erratic character is exploited a bit when she kisses her rival Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) in a rest room. That's awfully disgusting.
Now I wonder why Amy Adams has been nominated for awards? Because of receiving that weird kiss? What has she done in the movie except wearing waist low tops and kissing the co-stars, even a female co-star at that? She is supposed to be a seductive con artist who could pull any one to the ploy with her ingenuity. Is there any visual that explains this? She does tricks the wild FBI agent Richie Dimaso (Bradley Cooper), however she prefers more skin show with him rather than any sort of intelligence.
Richie is a wild, rather another erratic (just like Rosalyn) character in the movie, who was simply let loose in the screenplay. He says he is so ambitious about capturing the corrupted politicians. But he only says so, no action to prove that he is ambitious. He forms a deal with two most intelligent cons Irving and Sydney that they both would be freed in exchange to their help to trap at least four corrupts. But he even fails to check Sydney's background.
And finally Christian Bale, who is not the typical charismatic con, but rather a little plump, middle age man who is blessed with a heart of gold. He loves his son a lot. He refuses to give up on his wife. The problem is all these are shown via dialogues instead of any real reasons to believe him that he has a noble heart.
At the end, you don't care about any of these characters. All of them might have flared better if they stand alone. However, in a movie they all look lost, and so are we.